We’re Back In The Rain
A day long date and the words that defined it…
I walked down the hill to my favorite coffee shop. For a manufacturing town full of geriatric neo-cons, this place has some gems. I was 10 minutes early, she was 30 minutes late. I wasn’t awfully alarmed by my dates tardiness, given the fact that she has two kids, just moved into a new place, started closing on a new car etcetera. As it most often goes, those of us in the online dating world fan the feathers and show off the best version of ourselves on profiles to entice potential partners. This one looked like a catch; the right ratio of flaws and virtues. I say this next part with as much respect as I can; she showed up looking like a wreck. Her hair was ratted and messy, she was wearing a dirty sweatshirt from her days as a corrections officer, she smelled like cigarettes, her breath was bad, and not that it’s a requirement; but she wasn’t made up at all. For all of the previous reasons I mentioned, I remained understanding and open. Still, My wheels had begun to turn.
My great-grandfather was the half-Cherokee son of a deputy marshal and in his adult years, he served as a Pinkerton Detective before retiring to farming and raising my grandmother and her 8 other siblings during the great depression in the early years of World War 2. I inherited my great-grandfathers detective mind. I am very meticulous and analytical at times, often seeing details in things that others don’t. Throughout my interactions with this woman, my mind by default had been taking notes on the details of her life; Seeing the flags, if you will.
Just before our first phone conversation she starting engaging in seemingly self-deprecating over explanations about the state of her life, which at that point I had no reason to think was in disarray. She admitted to concerns of being an alcohol abuser and a desire to get sober, she described very abusive past relationships that occurred in rapid succession and had ended rather recently, and she admitted to being associated with people that I know have poor moral judgement and issues with substance abuse. She very quickly started to fit the profile of a person with alcohol addiction, serious boundary issues, trauma related emotional issues, and that becomes easily emmeshed in relationships. But I’m no detective, I’m just a single blue-collar guy living in a shabby 2nd floor apartment in a small Idaho town. What do I know?
Our date at the coffee shop was even more revealing as it progressed. She admitted to me that only 10 days ago today, she had broken up with a boyfriend, gone out with a friend and gotten black out drunk, drove home and called her mother on the phone and threatened to kill herself. As a result, members of her family notified the authorities and admitted her into the local metal health ward on a “72-hour hold”. She had only been released a few days before our date. She also told me stories about her family, who objectively are all abusive addicts. Already skeptical, I was then asked for my input; so, I gave it to her straight and just like every alcoholic in denial she started with the excuses, the rationalization and the victim mentality. So, having been asked for my input, I started to calmly breakdown with her some of the things she was saying. In my experience a few interesting things happen when you help an addict breakdown their life; but, the two most significant are that people are either close enough to changing that the conversation will trigger a moment of clarity, or, they are so deeply locked in the denial of their addiction that they will fain acknowledgement after having been exposed, and continue from one rationalization to the next for their behaviors, in a continuous effort to reframe the perception and the reality of their lives. She immediately engaged in the latter once I began to take her through individual events she had described and show her the logic, or lack thereof. After a few minutes of this, she suggested a change of atmosphere, a drive out to the lake at the edge of town. I agreed, because I was intrigued, I was bored, and a drive to the lake sounded great; after all, she is a nice person.
Along the drive I had gotten confused about our destination and mentioned another lake nearby in the snowy foothills further to the southeast. She gleefully changed course, misinterpreting my confusion for a suggestion. So we went on an hours long meandering drive through the foothills passing three lakes and finally circling back to our original path hours later, at which point she uttered the words “We’re back in the rain.” Referring to our return to lower elevation and our proximity to town. These words stood out to me in that moment because they illuminated me to her unconscious theme for our date: escape. The drive was an escape from the rain into the snow painted forest the foothills still are often in early spring here. The date was an attempt to escape her tumultuous life. Everything that happened after our return to town were uneasy attempts to prolong the happy illusion of our meeting as some kind of positive new beginning.
I saw her two more times after our date ended, not solely due to her own loneliness, but in part, mine as well. I suppose I was also looking for a connection that wouldn’t come, no matter how ill-advised the pursuit was given the circumstances. None of this is written out of arrogance or judgement. Lord knows, I have been where she is many times in my life. Some of those things are not as far behind me as I thought, as I learned from this experience. I also long for love, and her and I were standing in the same rain storm, I just have a cheap umbrella…
