I wish I never told him I loved him.
In retrospect, the speed at which I made my way through a tube of Icy Hot was unsettling.
My back was ablaze with pain. A pinching ache in between my shoulders, two throbbing knots that cemented to my spine at the start of my lower back. It was all I could do to coat myself in the white goo and ignore the horrifying list of side effects long enough to numb the pain so I could fall asleep. Ironically, he had to do the same.
I chalked it up to all the tennis I was now playing. In the spring of 2020 I got the itch to return to the only sport I’ve ever liked. Before I knew it was I dropped $800.00 a month on private lessons and weekly tennis clinics. But I was having so much fun! And he was, too. In fact, that’s how it started—him teaching me tennis at the free courts down by the rec center. We’d go after work when it wasn’t too hot but there was still plenty of light. Even recalling these evenings now, I find myself saying, “That was genuinely fun. We were having FUN.” The multiple glasses of rosé following didn’t hurt either. He'd purchased us two cases.
You’re my angel he said to me one day. I was too thrown in the moment to react. Now the words make me cringe. Not just the words though, but the way he said it, as if my presence in his life granted him access to this wealth of joy and bliss he’d never experienced before. It was a burden.
The way we’d gotten together was kind of odd, but not unlike me (for better or worse). We’d first matched in the early early days of Covid, March 2020. We’d had a series of playful FaceTime conversations. I was drawn to him. But there were others. One in particular. This guy who had that seemingly perfect on paper and off paper demeanor and presentation. The type of “perfection,” that never actually works out— which it didn’t— but makes you want to jump the person’s bones through the phone. (This, btw, is only something you see in retrospect.)
I seemingly did properly nurse my wounds after that scenario, and from what I deemed to be a healthy, non-desperate space, went back to tennis man. I explained I’d made a mistake and would he be willing to talk again? I think I may have even been so bold as to share this thing I thought was going to work out so well had crashed and burned. Lo and behold, he was game to reconnect. He was game to meet.
At the time, I was going to be passing by the city on my way back upstate from a friend’s place on the Jersey shore. It being the days of Covid, our first actual meeting was in his apartment, because we both knew we hadn’t been exposed. We went from zero to 100 lickity split, our hands and mouths grasping for one another seconds after I stepped through his front door. It was as if those initial FaceTime convos back in March, my “pull,” to return to him, and the physical chemistry in June, was reason enough for us to start dating exclusively. In present times, nearly three years later, I’m shaking my head in disbelief. I suppose I just didn’t want to be alone.
And despite how the whole thing fell apart, it was a lovely summer. Tennis matches, platters of pesto pasta and tomatoes, West Village outdoor dinners and all. We had this beautiful balance between his apartment in the city and my place upstate. And yet, it was a complete performance on my part. Everything but the back pain. I now know it was a product of all the stress, repressed anger and resentment, towards him, that was building.
I was flat out lying to tennis man. My body was screaming at me that this relationship I had found myself in was not right. So not right. In more present times, the ache shows up when my martyrdom and codependency are running the show. When I’m annoyed by something and not telling someone something in my life. When I’m carrying resentment or anger about something and keeping it to myself.
I told tennis man I loved him and I didn’t. I feigned excitement for a future wedding and I didn’t want to get married. We made plans for me to meet his parents and I didn’t end up going. Some of these were truths I knew, consciously, in the moment, others were not. Others, namely the parents and wedding, were things I was so convinced I did want. My body, as always, knew better. The extremity of my debilitating back pain now makes sense— the lies were so big. The things I was claiming to want and feel were so out of alignment with was I was actually feeling.
—————
The tube of Icy Hot appeared a few years later. This time in the midst of the actual wedding I was planning, to the man I wanted to marry but not the event I wanted to have.
Are you sure you should be putting all those chemicals on your body up? James asked.
I knew in my head, no. But less because of the chemicals, more because of what I was burying. My resentment of the planning process, the truth that I wanted a much smaller event/ perhaps not even an event at all? But unlike the first time this had happened—when I could barely walk— I decided a little dab here and there wasn't so bad.
Around the same time, I got coffee with a long term digital acquaintance for the first time in person. Someone I deeply admire and respect. Hours into talking about our work and lives I asked:
What did you do for your wedding?
We didn’t have one she said plainly. I was suddenly on the edge of my seat, jaw on the floor, in awe and wonder of this person who wanted what I wanted. But she actually followed through with it.
You didn’t?! I practically shrieked.
It just wasn’t important to me she said.
Her words were so simple. I balked internally at how hard this reality had been to hear within myself. The chaos and destruction and pain that ensued from pulling the plugging on the whole thing one week prior.
I wish I’d done that I said over the last sips of my flat white.
I wish I’d never told tennis man I loved him. I wish I’d never allowed myself to fantasize about our New York City downtown wedding. I wish I’d never let the icy hot habit return this summer. I wish I’d listened to the voice that said, “Maybe this wedding just isn’t you. Maybe it isn’t a fear to be seen. Maybe it’s just that you don’t want to do it this way.”
These parts of my past have softened, but they’re still there. We no longer keep Icy Hot in the house, but also my back has never ached in the same way. It still regret the outcome of my wedding, but I’ve also evolved so much when it comes to not acting upon things I don’t want to do – not bearing resentment.
The whole thing feels so very human.
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