He’d cut it the night before the wedding.
I’d seen him on Saturday.
I had dropped into work.
He’d been there, long hair up in a loose bun.
So he had cut it because of the wedding.
It felt arrogant to even think that, but I was pretty sure it was the truth.
I had made him feel like he needed to be something different.
I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive myself for that.
It wasn’t done intentionally, maliciously. I didn’t get my jollies off watching someone like me from afar, and get hurt when I dated someone else.
I had just been so wrapped up in my plans, my goals, my dream of how life was supposed to be.
I was, by nature, practical.
Not romantic.
That was all Gemma.
God saved all the romancey, roses and butterflies stuff for her while I got all the seriousness, the practicality.
Not even when I was a teenager, when I should have been sappy and silly about boys, all I could think of was who was going to have the better future, which boy was going to get a good job, make a good husband, provide well for his children.
I dated the boy most likely to succeed. Not because I felt my heart flip-flop over him, but because it was the most logical choice. We fit. On paper, we fit. He was most likely to succeed; I was valedictorian.
I hadn’t gotten all sentimental about the dating milestones either.
The first date involved both of us explaining our plans and goals, what we wanted to do and by when.
Losing my virginity wasn’t fraught with worries and demands for his happily ever after. It had just been sex. A natural progression of our relationship.
And when I had, stupidly, put all my eggs in one basket, only applying to Yale because that was where I was sure I was meant to go, where I worked so hard to get, and he got in… and I didn’t… I didn’t sob and rip my heart out because we broke up, both knowing it was useless to try to carry on a relationship from a distance.
So he left.
I rallied.
I worked.
Then I demanded a job at Quin’s because it seemed like it would pay well, all the while telling myself that I would go back to school, would get my degree.
But then there had been no reason to. Because Quin paid me more than I could ever hope to make unless I became some big time CEO. And that would likely take a decade. Well, probably two because I was a woman.
You’ll have to be twice as good. And it will still take you twice as long.
My grandmother had given me that advice, having worked up to head secretary at a large marketing firm back before she married my grandfather.
She used to regale me with stories of her male employers’ inadequacies, how they couldn’t use a typewriter to save their lives, how they had no idea how to brew a pot of coffee, how one genuinely did not know how to make his own phone calls.
My grandmother had been smart, skilled, deserving of much more than that company would ever give her. Simply based on her sex. And while times were better, they weren’t where they should be.
She’d been right.
If I went that CEO route, I wouldn’t have made the money I was making now until I was around forty. And if I wanted children – and I did – that might be out of my reach for longer still.
I had hit the jackpot with my job.
Not getting accepted to Yale and losing my high school boyfriend had been the best things that had happened to me.
According to my life plan, that is.
For my life as a whole, well, I guess I didn’t really even have one of those.
It was something I chose not to think about too much, knew I would get down on myself for if I did. So I stayed busy.
It was only in very quiet moments. Like in the shower. On the way to work. right before bed. It was only then that I remembered something.
Busy did not mean happy.
Successful did not mean fulfilled.
I hadn’t been to a movie in years. I hadn’t gone out for drinks in just as long.
I had no idea, genuinely not a clue, what satisfied me, what brought me joy.
Not pleasure.
Because it pleased me to have a full bank account, to have my bills paid, to be able to go shopping if I wanted to, to have a clean home, and the respect of people at work.
But pleasure was a superficial thing.
Joy was lasting.
Joy was that thing that made you smile as you went to bed, when you got up in the morning.
Joy was a foreign concept to me.
Gemma thrived on it.
My parents found it in each other.
My grandmother found it in her kids, her husband, her garden.