on paper and on intuition

she wasn't all that good on paper, if i really thought about it.  well, she'd turned her life around.  gone back to school to finish that undergrad education, ideas of becoming a kindergarten teacher, smart and such.  but there were the difficult parts: the depression, the rape, the habit of fucking boys who weren't me and eschewing my potential company for other plans.  i try not to think too hard about margaret.  if i do, i get back to wondering.  pondering all the what ifs and why nots.  that's never healthy.  it's easier to distill it all down to "she never cared" or, to add a smidgeon of depth, "... at least not like i did."  because there's still evidence, physical proof, of that supposed emotional attachment.  those paintings in the corner of my bedroom.  haven't seen the light of day in almost two years but i know they're there.  but anyway, this isn't a blog about how good or less good margaret was on paper.  it's about (if it's about anything) how good she was in the gut.

i had this feeling with her that i never had with leslie.  this excitement.  this feeling of butterflies when i saw photos she'd send or videochats we'd have.  a sense of wonder and amazement that THIS GIRL was talking to me.  was acting like she really liked me.  was sitting on her bed in her bedroom talking to me (and nobody else).  it was a notion of luckiness, really, that felt and was ultimately transient.  i miss that quite a lot, to be honest.  that's how i knew i had to make things work (and the reason i regret not forcing the issue more than i did).  i don't just get that feeling from everyone.  anyone, really.  i don't from leslie.  the odds are that, someday, some other girl will instill the same giddy dread, the same unsettling heat in my stomach, the same fireflies in my eyes, that she did when we were close.  it's just hard to see it as a possibility.  tough to take mathematical equations at face value.  one can do the math, run through the Drake Equation and sey hey, for certain, there's life in the universe.  lots of it.  but another girl who will make me feel the same way?  i'm certain of it but not at all confident that i'll find her.  where there's no evidence, no path of string or trail of jelly beans to follow, no hints or clues or smoking guns to indicate that she's right around the corner.  there's just a shocking revelation one future day, that one of those opportunities has presented itself once again.  don't fuck it up this time.

i was reminded of it by emily tonight, who has trouble finding a guy, but also by meeting alyson this weekend.  aly who is engaged already, of course.  friends of patrick from high school.  yes yes and i met them too late.  she's lovely and thin and tall enough and blonde and smart and proper and kind enough to converse with my tipsy self even though i was probably bothering her.  one iteration of "a girl i'd like to meet."  the long-term type.  the marrying type.  the real thing that you hope to find someday.  lucky mike, i think.  lucky mike.

(i recall that one night when i lay on the couch and talked to margaret on skype, only for the second time.  i was getting dressed to go to the bar with friends and cut our conversation short.  i hated to leave but i had confidence that it wouldn't be the last time we'd talk face to face (it was).  i couldn't have known she'd met some other guy in a band and that soon after, the day between my birthday and Valentine's Day, in fact, she'd tell me it was over (whatever it was) and that she was going to be seeing him.  i didn't know that as i said goodbye, laughed, smiled, and left for the bar, where i'd meet friends (big emily in particular) and, when asked what i'd been up to, told her about the girl and the conversation, and how just purely happy i was.  how i beamed from the face.  it was so close to the end and i never knew it.)