Life is a constant struggle within our selves. Always looking for the balance between what we want, what we need, and what we think is right.
I’m in one of those lapses of confusion and lack of direction right now. I’m questioning what has happened over the past six months, wondering if I got it all wrong. It’s been over a week since he last spoke to me. Sure, I know he’s busy, but certainly he could skewer a couple of minutes out of his schedule to say even just a simple hello. The last time he waited this long to call me, I was desperate for the moment my phone rang or my instant messenger chimed. This time, I have found myself caring less and less as each day goes by. I’ve almost stopped caring about whether or not he feels the same way.
Meanwhile, I’ve noticed someone else come to life in a series of welcome surprises. It all started when I invited a mutual friend to join me and another of my friends to swim at the apartment pool with us. I thought he would decline such an impromptu invitation, but he showed up-and went beyond that. He was more talkative than I’d ever seen him before, opening up about a job prospect and his own ideas about what he heard through the grapevine, laughing along with me and giving us his signature glare when my friend and I would laugh at one of our stupid jokes he doesn’t yet know about.
Yes, the reserved, quiet guy who rarely steps out from the world’s backstage joined me at the pool on a whim while my own loud, brash boyfriend won’t answer my phone calls or make his own. Either the winds are changing, or I got it all wrong.
My boyfriend was originally supposed to go tubing with me and the rest of our class two weekends ago, but he backed out of it to go on a road trip with other friends. Guess who did go on the trip? He smiled at me that day. He teased me a little, too, by starting a raft-pushing war with me that made us both laugh. I don’t remember the last time my boyfriend and I had that much fun just being carefree.
Yes, the reserved, quiet guy who never makes a scene or demands attention showed a vivacious side of himself that I hadn’t known before. Either the winds are changing, or I got it all wrong.
And today, he and I were packed like sardines with three other friends in a little teal Mazda while we drove to and from the water park for our friend’s twenty-first birthday. On the way back, we were squished together shoulder-to-shoulder, knee-to-knee. I watched him fall asleep to the steady rhythm flowing from his iPod before dozing off myself. Every once in a while I would come to my senses again, always recognizing his shoulder-which I was almost crushing-first. I guess he was tired enough to be comfortable enough to sleep the whole way home.
Six months ago, I started dating a guy who I had befriended, one of the guys who made it known that he was interested enough to compete against a pool of other guys for me. Yet the one who could have been the right one all along never spoke up in such a way. He was smarter than that. I should have listened to his silence. Six months ago, I was stupid enough to revel in the attention I was unexpectedly receiving from new people in my new town. But if the winds are changing, I still have a chance to follow the silence.
