Character Sketch

This is how life works. 

He tells you he is in love with you, and he looks so sincere, so vulnerable, that your heart catches in your throat. This thing you have told yourself isn’t really a flirtation is suddenly on an entirely different level. You retreat, try to make sense of this new development, try to put things back into some semblance of order. You try to get your breath back, and then he’s taking it away again and your brain is worthless for anything. 

You hesitate, and your chance is lost. 

It isn’t him, you tell him, but then for once truthfulness kicks in and you admit that it might be, that you’re not really sure but that you’re sure this isn’t working like this. He asks if there’s somebody else, and you hesitate again, and he knows what that means. Then he asks who he has to be for you, and you say you don’t want him to have to be anything. He cries, which surprises you, but you’re halfway out the door already. 

You can do more than you thought possible.

Every day your cell phone is close at hand, as you wait for messages that never come, wait for him to realize you were just confused, wait for him to try again, wait to be brave. One day he walks back into your life, and you think this is it, but then you see in his eyes that he’s still a few hundred miles away. You smile encouragingly, you hug enthusiastically, you pretend to understand when he brushes you off. You figure he needs time to adjust, too. Then he tells you he’s seeing somebody else, and it seems he’s already found a way to adjust. 

You are absolutely sure of something, and then your world comes down around your ears. 

You sit at home, wondering if he is with her, and how it is he could say he was in love with you, throw your world into confusion, and then get over you so fast. You wonder if he’s really over you, and you tell yourself not to be silly, that he has to be, because surely if he was into you for those years you were unavailable he would be there when he knew you broke things off. Especially since he knew when you broke them off. You think there must be something in him that wanted what he couldn’t have—that maybe that was the attraction. But then if is he with her now, maybe it was really something in you that drove him away. You sit chasing your thoughts around and around, getting nowhere except lower.

You’ll never figure out someone else’s motivations by staying in your own head.

You are tired of living this strange different life, tired of being ignored, or—worse—treated with the utmost politeness. You struggle to remember what being wanted feels like, and when he asks you to dance it feels close enough, so you push aside all the reasons you left and you say yes.

It’s hard to change. 

When you hear them talking about you, hear what they say when you’re not around to know, it’s like meeting yourself for the first time. Late into the night, you stand staring into your mirror, looking for honesty and courage in the pale, tear-streaked face. You haven’t looked into your own eyes this deeply in ages, maybe in forever. Then, behind the passivity towards circumstances and people, behind the fear of change and the fear of your poor pathetic self, somewhere past all of that you see a spark of something more. Of someone more. And in a sudden rush you realize that you are not bound for all time to be what you have been. 

The truth hurts and frees and starts to heal all at once. 

You try for a fresh start, and it explodes in your face. You try to change, and life fights against you. But you fight back, and you look for fresh starts everywhere, and even when things don’t go as you plan you own them, and you know that one day all of these day-to-day sketches and classroom still-lifes are going to break forth as art. And you’re going to be breaking through with them. 

Your life is what you make it.