Bag Lady

Writing about Staten Island upon meeting him in 1999: "I am unsure as to exactly when my first impression of Staten Island was but I remember thinking first that he seemed like a cool guy. Then I realized that he was a cool guy wrapped up in a very attractive package. I didn't realize how gorgeous his brown eyes were nor did I ever get to hear his Staten Island accent or hear his voice crack until that day which was so endearing. I remember loving the sound of his laugh and I remember feeling that we were on the same wave length. I didn't know then how deep his voice can get or how he has a million different smiles. I knew that looking at him anchored me for some reason and I didn't understand why. I just knew that I had never felt it before. "

Brooklyn was the love of my life. But I gave him all of me, I gave him so much of me for so long that it was crippling to think of a world without him. He was my anchor, my soul, my rudder and we loved each other unconditionally. I didn't rely on my friends and family the way I relied on him. I didn't share myself with my friends and family the way I shared myself with him. He swept me up. I was fascinated by him from the moment I first noticed him and gradually allowed him to enter and eventually rule my world until he was the only person in it. Once we were in college, we were a team and since my friends loved him and his friends loved me, even our friendships were infiltrated by the other and we almost didn't exist to others if we weren't together. We were a team, a comedy act, a show, an instant party. But when it turned ugly, I stayed and kept quiet because it was all I had. I didn't know how to tell my friends or where to start the story. There was too much water under the bridge between Brooklyn and I that it would feel like a betrayal of him and of myself and the life I chose. Brooklyn and I shared a brain, heart and soul. So in law school when I started to wake up and realize there was more to life than our bubble that there was a whole world out there full of possibility and I had choices and didn't have to stay where I was I knew Brooklyn and I had to break up. Since we were living intertwined like siamese twins that was a horrifying, crippling concept. The fear of a life without him was unfathomable. Then entered Staten Island.

My world opened up when we met. I remember telling him at the Mary J. Blige concert he took me to for my 24th birthday that I felt like my life was in color for the first time; that it had been in black and white for so long. But what Staten Island and I had wasn't sustainable. Staten Island wasn't for me. He was very adamant about what he expected from me. And as it turned out, he didn't expect me from me. Let me give you an example, he asked me how I felt about marriage days after I started the break-up proceedings with Brooklyn. I couldn't have been more confused about life and what I wanted and I was only 23 years old. On the one hand I was free of Brooklyn and his expectations and our small world yet on the other hand I wasn't free at all. I felt so betrayed by Staten Island who I thought should have been going through what I was going through. He broke up with someone he had been with for four years to be with me and I broke up with Brooklyn to be with him. But I didn't expected us to automatically become inseparable like I had been with Brooklyn. There were so many emotions I didn't understand or know how to handle. I expected us to wade through the unknown together slowly and eventually come out on the other side holding hands. But we couldn't. He wouldn't. I was at the mercy of yet another artist who was trying to sculpt me into what he wanted and as malleable as I was, I wasn't budging. As much as I liked him I wanted to be freer than he wanted me to be. I didn't want to move so fast. He wanted to jump from one 'safe' place to another and I jumped with him against my instincts. As much as I loved him and wanted to be everything he wanted me to be; this miracle man, so perfectly different than Brooklyn, and wanted to make him happy I couldn't do it. I needed to find myself and he wasn't the answer. I needed to be alone but I didn't realize that. I liked him a lot and was scared to be honest with myself and with him. Maybe I thought that if I came clean I would lose him entirely and be alone and then have to deal with having broken up with Brooklyn all by my lonesome. And again, that was an impossible concept to perceive.

As it turned out, the hold Brooklyn had on me would last years. I wish I had my early impressions of him to insert here. (Unfortunately, I lost about 20 journals after my junior year of college and those impressions were part of that lot). I remember the first time we locked eyes. His were grey. I remember our first kiss like it was yesterday, but it wasn't; it was July 29, 1990. I remember when he first told me he loved me. He was the first time I couldn't eat. I slept with a sweatshirt he leant me until all of his smell was long gone from it. He was a force of nature. All my boys are but Brooklyn set the standard. I was still thinking about him when Illinois and I started having problems. I used to talk to Brooklyn, my best friend, in my head.

"I was pregnant with twins. I didn't even know it until I went to the emergency room and found out that I had lost one but that there was another one in there. Unfortunately, the other one didn't make it either. All I wanted to do was to call you and talk to you about it. I know they weren't your twins. I know we're not even together anymore. But I couldn't stop thinking about you the entire time I was pregnant. I hoped you would be happy for me and not too sad. I hoped it would somehow make us closer again. I wanted to tell you that I broke a promise to myself I made years ago, when we were together, about never having another abortion. Do you think having a D&C counts? I am scared that it does. I had to have the D&C because the second baby was dead inside me and the drugs they gave me to induce a miscarriage didn't work. After this experience I hate myself for having those abortions. Maybe those babies with you would have been fine.

I also broke another promise to myself. I told myself that if something happened and I lost the baby that I would break up with Illinois. I haven't. And I don't know if I will. I have to remember what was important to my pregnant self because I want to try again and if I stay with him, it will be him I am trying with. I have to learn from my life.

You would be appalled at what our life is sometimes like. Maybe you would think that you never knew me. Maybe you would think less of me. Hopefully you would understand that I gave up. I feel like my life is a big mountain and I am climbing and climbing and breathing all kinds of heavy and sweating and hungry yet no matter how hard I try I never reach the top.

You were always my best friend. Now you are just my best friend in my head and I tell you everything I wish I could tell you in real life. You know everything about me in my head. You know about my frustrations with my career, you know all of my friends and you know what I am going through with Illinois. I think you are my prototype. I don't think I compare guys to my father; I think I compare them to you. That means I end up with drinkers. Illinois' drinking makes life hard. At first it was fun. We went out every night and slept all day. He'd cook me crazy, creative meals at 5AM and then we'd go downstairs to my bedroom and have sex. The problem was that he never wanted that phase to stop. But I can't live like that all the time. I had a new job I had to get up early for then I started training for the marathon. So like you who used to ask me why I wasn't fun anymore, he has been asking me the same thing. There is more to me than late nights and lying in bed all day."

I almost did get the chance to tell Brooklyn about Illinois and I, "Illinois and I have been together for close to two years. We have lived together for close to a year and a half. Things aren't perfect but they're great. I am pregnant with his child. Tomorrow night I am meeting Brooklyn to tell him. Illinois doesn't know that I am meeting Brooklyn or telling him. That isn't even the dilemma for me. The dilemma is that it isn't Brooklyn's child and a part of me will always wish that it is our little blond haired child with chubby cheeks and green eyes and his perfect nose. Brooklyn is the love of my life. I am sure that part of that is me idealizing the past because clearly what we had didn't have staying power. But part of me wonders whether I just needed to grow up and figure my self out and I needed to do that on my own. I love how Brooklyn and I had marathon conversations and could talk about everything and nothing forever. I love how he is talented and driven. I miss how we slept together so perfectly. To this day I have never slept with anyone else like that. No matter how erratic my sleeping patterns have always been I could always fall asleep next to him. Always."

So was Staten Island rebound? Was Illinois rebound as well? I thought I was in love with both of them at the time. Two years later I know I was in love with Illinois. I was definitely in love with Illinois and despite to this day never being able to sleep with someone the way I slept with Brooklyn, Illinois unlocked the hold Brooklyn had on me for 14 years and made me free. Finally free. Only thing is, I have never been as close to another person as I was to Brooklyn. Don't know whether that is sad or whether that is smart.