Crystal Torres

Over My Head

I didn’t believe him. I feel like he would say something like that just to be nice. He’s so intelligent, yet so often, the guy who doesn’t get it. I was saying we have a problem, and he responded like it was a casual compliment with the equivalent of back atcha.

As much as I cared about him, I wasn’t a slave to fate. I could choose to ignore my feelings, strong as they were. It would be painful, but no more so than letting myself pine for my friend.
J.M. Richards
Tall, Dark Streak of Lightning

The Work Bestie and I became friends the night I got really drunk on hot buttered rum, and he kept all of my secrets. He became my best friend the semester we spent four days a week, often twelve or more hours a day together. Every time I turned around, it seemed like he was there.

The work required some of that, but we also enjoyed each other’s company. He was there all the time. Not just on campus but coming into the office, finding me wherever I was, summoning me to wherever he was. He’d call me out from the office to the build for what seemed like no real reason, and I’d stick around anyway. I liked being part of the group. He’d take me with him on errands that he said I was necessary for, but then I really wasn’t.

This was compounded by the fact that his pulling me out of my work, for things he didn’t really need, made it take longer to get my actual work done, so I ended up spending longer days at work than I used to. I work on deadlines, not a time clock, so no one at my work minded my extra hours. I didn’t mind either. My work was a place I often hid from my home life. Separate from the Work Bestie, I counted on that campus for sanctuary. It’s just that this is when I started staying in my safe place after hours, more often than not.

Even after I was done working for the day, I would stay. We’d all (students, Work Bestie, and I) usually have dinner together, and then I’d work on my physiology homework. That class was brutal, and I could never get much schoolwork done at home. It was late for loitering at Starbucks by the time I was done at work, so I was handling my schoolwork in the living room of the student housing most nights. Honestly, I think I would have dropped out that semester if it weren’t for the Work Bestie and our Pirate Friend (she used to live on Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior, she didn’t loot gold doubloons or anything, but I like to call her a pirate) giving me so much encouragement.

Sometimes when you spend too much time with someone, you start to get sick of each other. Sometimes the more time you spend with a person, the more time you want to spend with them. It got to where it felt like something was missing when he wasn’t there. Good things or bad things, if I had a thing that I wanted to tell someone, the Work Bestie was the first person I wanted to tell. We exchanged eye contact like passing notes in class, like “you see it too, right?” Making friends as an adult is often challenging, but this was effortless. We just fit.

After that semester’s graduation, the whole group of us, students, instructors, and admin staff, went out for a celebratory dinner. After dinner, most of the grownups went home, but the Work Bestie, one other instructor, and I joined the students for a quiet after-party. One by one, everyone else excused themselves for the night until only the Work Bestie and I remained. We sat on the couch in the living room of student housing and talked and talked and talked. We talked about our loved ones, the projects and workshops of the past, and about things we wanted to do in the future. We talked until I fell asleep.

I vaguely remember resting my eyes just a moment with my head against his shoulder, just until they were less dry. I unexpectedly woke up (unexpectedly in that I don’t remember falling asleep and in that I don’t know how we ended up like that) with my head against the Work Bestie’s chest and his arm around me. And for a moment, I felt so completely at home that I never wanted to be anywhere else again. And then the panic hit me. He was not my home. He was someone else’s boyfriend.

That night we’d become friends, I’d talked him back into his relationship. I’m a romantic at heart and hate to see years of building something lost for no good reason. Having been friends since then, I was always supportive of his relationship, as friends should be. I mean, nothing had happened, really. I’d fallen asleep, fully clothed, sitting side by side on a small couch on a cold night. It just wasn’t an appropriate way to feel. I had already arranged to stay the night in a room in the student housing and it was definitely time to say goodnight.

The Work Bestie walked me to my room, which seemed an odd gesture even at the time. It was one thing when he walked me to the building I was staying in, protecting me from coyotes, el cucuy, and whatever else goes bump in the night. It even made some sense to tuck me in when I was very drunk, but I wasn’t this night. We’d had some red wine, when The Italian was still awake and pouring, but that had been hours earlier. It made for an awkward situation, saying goodnight in the living room and then a few feet away in the hallway. I was a little flustered even just going in for the goodnight hug.

The Work Bestie gives great hugs. This was different, though. This was the moment lightning struck. Not that I could do anything about it. He was in a relationship. I said goodnight and entered the bedroom alone. I hoped that a goodnight hug was all he wanted. I hoped that he didn’t feel what I felt, that he didn’t know what I’d felt. I hoped that it would all evaporate in the light of day.

Catch flights, not feelings.

The next morning was fine. That hug had just been a glitch in an otherwise comfortable friendship. We got through the day’s work and went out as a group in the evening. I wasn’t planning to stay the night at work again. Still, once again, he and I stayed up late into the night talking about all the things, only we were on a couch on the other side of campus because apparently our late-night talking and laughing had made it hard for others to sleep when we were in student housing. December in the high desert is very cold at night, and once again, we cuddled up on the couch just to keep from shivering.

I began to feel that uncomfortable pull again. When our conversation finally ended, I confessed that I was attracted to him. He said he was attracted to me too. I didn’t believe him. I feel like he would say something like that just to be nice. He’s so intelligent, yet so often, the guy who doesn’t get it. I was saying we have a problem, and he responded like it was a casual compliment with the equivalent of back atcha.

I’d stayed too late to drive home and too late to go into student housing. Our Pirate Friend had already left the campus, and her room was separate from the regular student housing and seemed the easiest to set up for the night. The Work Bestie hooked me up with a space heater, but it kept tripping the circuit breaker. He’d tuck me in and leave, and then I’d call him on his phone a minute later, saying it’d gone out. He’d change the configuration again. Eventually he worked it out so it finally stuck. He called me from bed, his voice sleepy and deep, to ensure it was still working. The way he said my name when he said goodnight killed me. Besties are not supposed to sound that sexy.

I knew then that I wasn’t going to go back to the way it was before the lightning strike. I wanted so badly to leave my makeshift lodging and find him in his bed that night. I lay awake pondering how things might have gone differently if I’d known that drunken night that I would end up wanting him. What if I hadn’t lamented the loss of a long relationship in such a way that he chose to make things work after all? We’ll never know how that semester could have ended differently if he was single because he wasn’t single.

I needed to keep a respectful distance after that. I believe that people can be friends with people of a gender they are attracted to. Otherwise, bisexuals would be the loneliest people on the planet. I don’t believe you can be friends with people when one or both of you want to be something more. Not even if you don’t want to want more. I didn’t want to want more, but all of a sudden I wanted him in ways that weren’t appropriate. Thus began the year we weren’t friends.

You’re important to me
(You’re important to me)
Night and day and day and night
If I can, I will make things right
I… I wanna be your friend again
I’m sorry (sorry)
For the things I wish I hadn’t said
I’m sorry (sorry)
For the things I wish I hadn’t done
I’m sorry (sorry)
For the way I wish I hadn’t been
I’m sorry
(sorry)
Concrete Blonde
I Wanna Be Your Friend Again

Concrete Blonde – I Wanna be Your Friend Again

Afternoon Tea

I believed it wasn’t about the destination but the journey. Now I believe that it’s neither of those things. It’s about the connections you make and grow along the way.

There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.
Henry James
The Portrait of a Lady

Before I was married, a friend and I attempted a road trip from L.A. County to New York City (and back). She and I had met in seventh-grade homeroom, a class we shared because our last names started with the letter T. Who knew that alphabetical order could be the basis for a lifelong friendship? Our road trip plan involved mapping out couches we could sleep on along the way. We also brought enough bedding to sleep in her Jeep on the nights we didn’t make it to a free couch. It was one of those nights with the back seat almost flat, and she and I and her very leggy dog nested together that I thought we were all about to die.

We’d pulled into a parking lot for the night, and it seemed a safe enough place to sleep until the dog started growling in the middle of the night. We woke up to see the Jeep flooded with a bright light getting brighter and closer and then the unmistakable sound of a train horn. I swear I did not remember any train tracks in the parking lot earlier, but there was a train headed straight for us. Frantically, we tried to make the driver’s seat accessible so she could get us out of harm’s way, and then the train turned. I knew I would have remembered if we’d parked on the train tracks. Well, we were definitely wide awake after that.

Sometimes, things don’t work out as planned. We made it as far as the Grand Canyon before heading to Seattle for a family matter on her end. Almost nothing went according to plan, but we had an adventure and made memorable stories, and really wasn’t that the point?

I’ve spent most of my life wanting to wander footloose and fancy-free, but at the end of the day, I love to have someone going through it all with me. Misadventures are so much better with someone to turn to and be all OMG, that just happened! Someday, when her kids are older, I hope that she and I can be travel buddies again.

That said, there is something very satisfying about invading England alone. I’m the Irish-American/Chicana middle-aged mom version of James Bond that absolutely nobody ever asked for. I like to think it would make my ancestors proud, aside from the part where I had just given a lot of money to British Airways and was really only on a quest for even more tea. I have been influenced by my grandmother, who was influenced by her grandmother, who was the daughter of Irish famine immigrants. I have strong feelings about the history between England and Ireland. When we wear green on St. Patrick’s Day, it is political. Our continued existence is our protest.

All the same, my mother loves classic British literature and contemporary British TV, and we both love a good cup of tea. In my defense, I was introduced to good tea by the owner of an Irish imports store on Laurel Canyon. One afternoon a red-haired friend and I slipped in out of the rain, a couple of soaking wet, freckle-faced junior high girls. My love of tea only deepened under the influence of my mother-in-law, who was born and raised in County Roscommon, Ireland. I take it with milk, no sugar, feel free to bring me a cup any time.

With a six-hour layover in Heathrow, which didn’t seem like quite enough time to really see the sights but was too much time to loiter about the terminal satisfactorily, and it being two in the afternoon, I was determined to have afternoon tea at the Sofitel.

I got the Classic Afternoon Tea ❤
Yummy treats

Getting out of the airport was unnervingly easy with an American passport. Getting out of the Victorville Walmart may be more difficult. Honestly, I sought security when I realized I was already landside just to ensure I hadn’t skipped a step. They looked at me like I was crazy. I was trying to leave the airport. I had successfully left the airport without hassle. They failed to see why I thought this might be a problem. I don’t think I’ll be taking any job opportunities from James Bond based on my polite uncertainty at this point.

There was a part of me that felt like I should make a run for it. I was set loose in a foreign country. I could do anything! Well, aside from gaining legal employment, which would be necessary to fund any prolonged doing of things. So I stuck with my original plan of afternoon tea. Despite hours of careful planning, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to find my way there. The Sofitel is an easy walk from the international terminal. The international terminal is an overwhelming spectacle worthy of it’s own zip code, but walking from the exit to The Sofitel was easy-peasy.

I was nervous about the whole interaction with humans, part of going out for tea, but that’s normal for me. People who make their livings in hospitality are generally very nice, even to socially awkward, underslept Americans who feel like they just invaded the country. It was a little more awkward realizing that I was the only person having tea alone. There was definitely too much snacky stuff for one person (at least for one person, who had been incredibly sedentary for the last twelve or so hours on an airline that kept the food and beverages flowing). I ended up with even more food stashed in my purse. The tea (and the accompanying food) was really good, though.

In my youth, I used to have romantic imaginings of traveling alone. For whatever reason, these mostly involved me dressing like a girl reporter from the 1940s with a pencil behind my ear and a pocket-sized notebook at the ready. It never occurred to me that I would be a divorced forty-eight-year-old undergraduate or that, under those circumstances, I would deeply wish my mother and daughter were there with me. Afternoon tea at the Sofitel seems like a really perfect way for three generations of women to have a grand time together. Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to take them there with me anytime soon.

When I finally set out on my solo world-traveling adventure, It turned out that I wanted someone there with me. I wanted someone to have a taste of the yummiest things and agree with me that it was amazing. I wanted someone to make eye contact with and wordlessly communicate volumes with. I wanted someone to make up unlikely stories about strangers in the airport with. I believed it wasn’t about the destination but the journey. Now I believe that it’s neither of those things. It’s about the connections you make and grow along the way.

Loving you the way I do
I know we’re gonna make it through
And I will go
To the ends of the earth
’cause darling,
to me that’s what you’re worth
Carole King
Where You Lead (Gilmore Girls Theme Song)

Where You Lead (full theme song from “Gilmore Girls”) lyrics

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

No sooner had I dived into the text than the whole cabin went dark for bedtime. I felt like a parakeet with a blanket thrown over my cage. Suddenly the generosity with the booze made a lot more sense. The crew was sedating us.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step
Lao Tzu

I have the soul of a poet, but I was raised around a bunch of STEM types. So it is that I yearn for romance and adventure, but also approach it very practically with lots of contingency plans. Here is some of my practical planning and what worked and what didn’t.

Air Portugal has a size limit on its overhead baggage that is one inch smaller than most of the other airlines. Ryanair had the smallest of any airlines I looked at, which is to say, too small. I did the research to find a good rolling suitcase that fit within that eight-inch limit, and an uncle was kind enough to give it to me as a birthday present. Taking BART to SFO, I was pretty sure that I had overpacked. It wasn’t bad taking it downstairs to my Lyft, but then I had to take it all down the stairs at the BART station. I invested in an Osprey backpack nearly a decade ago when I traveled to Illinois for work-related training. I love this backpack but it was stuffed to its gills and teetered awkwardly on top of the smaller rolling case while my overfilled purse dug its strap deep into my shoulder. This was too much.

I got to the airport where I proved that I had a valid passport and my Covid-19 vaccinations. Then I checked the backpack and got through security, and moved my toiletries and electronics from my purse to the rolling case, and everything was just right again. Settled into my temporary home in Ponta Delgada, I began feeling under-packed as my roommates always had cuter outfits and more of them. This feeling quickly dissipated when I had to carry all my belongings up four flights of stairs to my new room in Lisbon.

Ultimately, I think I had packed just enough. I seemed to have more clothing than most of the men and less clothing than most of the women, in my cohort. I had to do laundry every week, but I could carry all my stuff reasonably well. This goes down as a win in my book.

Aside from carefully planning my luggage, I had also considered seating for the transatlantic flight. I deliberately picked a bad seat, the last row on the plane, right next to the galley. Though always on the north side of the plane to avoid aggressive sunlight through the window. I always prefer the window seat. My logic was that in a terrible seat, it was less likely that anyone would select the seat next to me. Also, the back row only has two seats, so if someone did sit next to me and I needed to get out, there would only be one person to squeeze past. Ideally, no one would sit next to me, and I could make myself a cozy little nest across both seats.

It worked in that no one sat next to me, but it failed because I couldn’t move the armrest between the seats, and the flight attendants were using the empty seat to store extra pillows and whatnot. Which is fair, since I did not pay for that seat. Also, even though British Airways has a larger measurement for luggage allowed in the overhead bins, the outside rows on the second floor of a double-decker plane have very small overhead bins, which is kinda compensated for by a neat little storage nook between the window seat and the window, but not really since my luggage was a solid and not a liquid, so there wasn’t anyway to divide it between two locations.

Fortunately, a nice gentleman who was far more comfortable rearranging everything than I was, saw me struggling and moved my bag to a center bin and someone else’s bag to an outside bin. Everything was secured tidily, and no one seemed to have any complaints.

As soon as everyone was settled in, they began distributing drinks. I picked a complimentary bottle of red wine because I could, and the flight attendant gave me two. Then there was another bottle of wine with dinner, which was more food than I was inclined to eat all at once, so I stashed the reasonably stashable parts in my purse for later. After dinner, they offered tea (and coffee and probably other stuff, but I picked British Airways largely because I like their tea).

I was positively stuffed by the time they were done giving us food and drinks and ready to settle in with my textbook. No sooner had I dived into the text than the whole cabin went dark for bedtime. I felt like a parakeet with a blanket thrown over my cage. Suddenly the generosity with the booze made a lot more sense. The crew was sedating us.

It was too dark to read a print book, and I was too excited to sleep, but the wifi cost extra, so I watched movies. Plural. I nodded off a bit here and there, but not a lot until they began to serve us breakfast, and again I added food and drinks to my purse and delighted in a nice cup of tea after my meal. A cup of hot tea with milk strikes me as the perfect way to start an adventure.

Fly the great big sky
See the great big sea
Kick through continents
Busting boundaries
Take it hip to hip, rocket through the wilderness
Around the world the trip begins with a kiss
The B-52s
Roam

The B-52’s – Roam (Official Music Video)

The Night We Became Friends

Yeah, we’re coworkers, but most importantly, he is the person I tell everything to, especially the things I don’t want to tell anyone.

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

I recommend against sleeping with your best friend. I’d had a friend a long time ago who seemed like the only one who could understand certain things about me. We were briefly a couple, but we were better at being friends. He’s not the sort to be single much, and I really needed to be single while I sorted my head out after my marriage ended. Thus our romantic relationship ended up being a relatively brief part of a long friendship.

I was supposed to be his best man if he ever remarried, and I was nearly as excited as he was when he got engaged. I didn’t know the bride well, but we ran in the same social circles, and she’s amazing. I was low-key excited about having the opportunity to become her friend through their marriage. The admiration is not mutual. I was not the best man. I was not even invited to the wedding, on account of the whole having been in a romantic relationship with the groom thing. It’s more normal to be like her than to be like me. I respect that.

As the best man, it would have been my job to stand up for this couple. I don’t know why I always picture swords, but I totally picture swords when I think of being the best man as a solemn oath to defend the marriage and its participants. Maybe this is why no one ever lets me be their best man; I can’t tell a wedding party from the three musketeers. I still think I would totally rock a tux. Even though I didn’t officially get the job, I still think it’s my responsibility as his friend to do what’s best for his marriage. Friends should support each other’s relationships and, in this case, the best way to do that was to minimize my place in the groom’s life.

The day of their wedding was incredibly lonely for me. The people I would generally lean on during a bad day were either getting married or invited to the wedding. I arranged to stay at work for the weekend, so I wouldn’t wallow. My work has student/instructor housing that was available at the time. Also, the Work Bestie had just been kicked out by his girlfriend in a fairly dramatic breakup and was staying at work that weekend, too. I made hot buttered rum that night, and we hung out while I got very, very, very drunk.

He wasn’t really the Work Bestie yet. I mean, he was entirely himself, but we weren’t particularly close. I hardly knew him. We met on my second day there. He was breathtakingly beautiful, but that’s not what I’m into. I don’t have any use for a pretty picture to hang on my wall. Give me a mind that makes me want to wrap my legs around it. That’ll be my downfall every time.

I respected him as a colleague and was definitely learning a lot from him, but we were coworkers, not friends. Well, then the rum happened. I could not shut up. I told him everything. My deepest darkest secrets came running from my mouth like puppies eager to jump into his lap. He greeted them with warmth and kindness. Eventually, I managed to sedate myself into something close to silence. He made sure I got tucked in safely and then excused himself politely.

I was mortified; my every shameful confession given to some guy I hardly knew was bad enough, but to tell that stuff to a coworker? Ugh. It had been a nice job while it lasted, I guess. I waited for him to be weird to me. I waited for him to tell my secrets to our other coworkers. It didn’t happen. He knew me, and he didn’t run away or betray me or anything, and it just so happened that a bestie position was being vacated in my life right then. So that is how he became my Work Bestie.

Months, maybe years later, I realized that it’s not so much that he is nonjudgmental as it is that he has no short-term memory. I can tell him anything I want to today because he’ll forget it by tomorrow. Okay, maybe it’s not that bad, and since, eventually, things transfer over to his perfectly functional long-term memory, I still depend on his discretion. More than that, I depend on his friendship. Yeah, we’re coworkers, but most importantly, he is the person I tell everything to, especially the things I don’t want to tell anyone. I set out to be best friends forever.

And I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
Goo Goo Dolls
Iris

Goo Goo Dolls – Iris (Official Music Video)

SNAFU

I’m a fighter, a problem solver, and stubborn, I mean persistent, persistent AF. None of that was helping me here. My willingness to do anything was useless when there was nothing to do.

Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.
Anais Nin

I have the attention span of an underslept goldfish and the ambition of, well, I don’t know what animal has the most FOMO, but I want to do ALL the things. I am an overthinker, an over-planner. I make lists of all the lists I need to make. I plan contingencies for my contingency plans. I like to be over-prepared for when things inevitably go sideways.

My favorite SME (pronounced Smee, like the pirate) taught me about SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) because she knows about stuff like that. I think everybody I know is a SME; it just depends on the Subject Matter. My SME for all things travel is a former travel agent with a great sense of adventure. He gave me a ranking of preferred airlines and airports. I couldn’t afford the top of the list, but British Airways was ranked fairly high, and I remembered that they made a very nice cup of tea on my honeymoon flight. I also narrowed my airports down to Heathrow and Madrid. He had other recommendations on his list, but I was keen on changing planes where I was functional in the native language.

I was feeling very good at the adulting, jumping through the hoops the school had given me: flights booked, travel insurance confirmed, orientation module complete, vaccine and medical requirements cleared, textbooks and funding secured, passport renewal… well begun. I was handling all of that and working and prepping for finals. Total boss mode. And the universe laughed.

Let’s go back to that passport thing. My previous passport expired in August 2020. August 2020 wasn’t a good time for handling non-essential government business in person, and I couldn’t do a straightforward renewal because I had my married name on my previous passport. Legally changing my name back to Torres has been a major pain in the neck. Doing it on my passport was no exception.

As soon as in-person appointments were available at the campus passport office, I made an appointment for early April. Then I discovered that I could handle it faster by mail. I canceled my appointment, and on March 25, I paid for Express Shipping for my passport renewal application and what I thought were all the necessary supporting documents (including payment for expedited processing). It wasn’t received until April 1st.

On Saturday, they contacted me, saying that the court order restoring my maiden name was inadequate for the name change. On Monday, I spoke to someone at the National Passport Center and confirmed that they needed all nine pages of the court order granting my divorce, not just the page relevant to the name change. That same day I mailed the original nine-page document (because I didn’t have time to go to FedEx and pay for copies and still make it to class, and I didn’t want to delay it to the next day, having already waited all weekend for things to be open) to the address given, One-Day Express, again.

This is fine.

The tracking number said the label had been created, but the package did not show up in the system. Persistence is my superpower. I mean, some people call me stubborn, but whatevs. I just know that I can move mountains when I need to. I couldn’t figure out how to move this one, though. The Study Abroad website said that I had to report to Ponta Delgada in Portugal on June 1, 2022, or I could lose my spot in the program. I could not stubborn my way onto an international flight without a valid passport. I didn’t even have my expired passport anymore because it was one of the many documents I’d sent in with my renewal application. I’m a fighter, a problem solver, and stubborn, I mean persistent, persistent AF. None of that was helping me here. My willingness to do anything was useless when there was nothing to do.

Getting a new copy of my official court order required going to the court that had issued it in person. On April 23, I reached out to my divorce lawyer. I had moved roughly four hundred miles away from that court and was preparing for finals and a summer abroad, and trying to get to the court in Barstow on a weekday myself seemed like a nightmare. My lawyer, on the other hand, frequents the place. Unfortunately, he was out of the country then, so that wouldn’t be a quick solution, and I was running out of time. My advisor from Berkeley Study Abroad was sympathetic, but of course, he had no sway with the Passport Center or USPS.

This was my last summer as an undergraduate. Studying abroad was a now-or-never proposition, and I had worked so hard to get so close, and it was slipping away, and there was nothing I could do about it. On May 13, my lawyer was finally back in his office, but the day before (just two weeks before I had to be in Portugal), the National Passport Center had confirmed that they had all the necessary documentation. The post office never did figure out what had happened to my envelope, but despite it all, I got my passport in time. I was going to Portugal!

Opportunity knocks once let’s reach out and grab it (yeah!)
Together we’ll nab it
We’ll hitchhike, bus or yellow cab it!
(Cab it?)
Movin’ right along
The Muppets
Movin’ Right Along

Drought, Deluge, and Desire

There are different levels of separation. Sometimes it feels like only miles between us, but by the end of his busy summers, it feels like we’re standing on different planets. I begin to wonder if I’d made him up entirely.

The most confused you will ever get is when you try to convince your heart and spirit of something your mind knows is a lie.
Shannon L. Alder

The rain comes to the Mojave Desert all at once. It lands on earth so dry that it has forgotten how to drink. The entire desert is like a dried-out sponge, so thirsty that water beads and rolls off of it instead of soaking in. The soil can only drink in water if it’s already damp. I think my heart is a desert. It is so desperate for love that it has forgotten how to let any in. He appears the same way the sky breaks open in monsoon rain, and then, just as suddenly, he is gone.

The Work Bestie and I have worked together for many years now. He lives far from our work, about a hundred miles. I lived close, about four hundred feet. So he would frequently travel to where I was. Which is to say, commute. Then I moved far from our work, about four hundred miles in the opposite direction. So he seemed relatively close to work, at only one hundred miles. So I would travel to where he was, which is to say, commute. Instead of seeing each other every month, we only saw each other a couple of times a year because most of my job became remote when I moved away for school.

When I first moved to the Mojave Desert, you could still see the milky way most nights, and the monsoons came every summer. Neither of those things is true now. The nonprofit where the Work Bestie and I work together is still small and underfunded, though. We all have side hustles. To be honest, we all have main hustles except for the executive director. The Work Bestie has an important STEM job doing his part to save the planet. Smart boys are sexy. It also makes him disappear at the beginning of every summer, almost exactly when my school slows down enough that I’m more available to him.

The summer before my summer abroad, I was really frustrated by his inaccessibility. There are different levels of separation. Sometimes it feels like only miles between us, but by the end of his busy summers, it feels like we’re standing on different planets. I begin to wonder if I’d made him up entirely. I don’t know that there is anyone else I would wait for so long or so often, but he has a way of making things up to me. So I was really looking forward to working together in September. I needed our weekend together that September.

I had bought my round-trip plane tickets to where he lives, one hundred miles further than our shared work. He was going to pick me up at the airport, and we would have the long commute together to talk while keeping our hands mostly to ourselves. I need that after the cold disconnect of our summers. We would have the long drive, both ways, and two nights, for him to remind me that he’s real, that I didn’t just imagine him.

He flaked on me. He canceled at the last minute, screwing me over personally and professionally. He had a family obligation in another state. It was right for him to be there instead of with me, but that doesn’t make it suck any less on my end. I had to change my flights, pay for a shuttle and spend the weekend sleeping alone, in the friggin’ Mojave Desert, not to mention moving the whole workshop schedule around so that we had qualified instructors for all the modules. I’m not convinced that even the Work Bestie was worth all this.

I was lowkey done, but how do you break up with a ghost? A ghost who I wasn’t even officially a thing with. Whatevs. Besides, he was supposed to be my plus-one for my cousin’s wedding in October. I don’t like going to weddings alone since my own marriage failed. It’s one of the rare occasions on which being single depresses me. Besides, he’s a good dancer, and I wanted someone to dance with. So I wasn’t going to make waves until after he stood me up for that too. To my surprise, he did not.

Don't go. I'll eat you up. I love you so. (Where the Wild Things Are) — I’ll eat you up I love you so

This is the problem with the Work Bestie. When he shows up, he is perfect. It’s impossible to stay angry with him. We had the long BART ride from SFO to the East Bay to reconnect. He wasn’t imaginary. He was very real. He’s my favorite. Favorite what? I don’t know, but he’s my favorite. That weekend was the first time I ever believed he might love me. I mean, we were friends for years before we ever fooled around; of course, we love each other as friends.

There was a moment when we were alone in my room, and he bit my arm. We weren’t fooling around right then. It wasn’t a sex thing. It was more like when a toddler’s emotions are so much bigger than their vocabulary, and they don’t know how to express themselves other than to bite someone. It was like when my kids were little; I’d look at them and feel like I could just eat them up because I loved them so much.

That was the first time I felt he could love me beyond friendship. I have trouble trusting what people say. Words are slippery. This was something that made sense to me. Days later, I was still rubbing the bruise (I bruise ridiculously easily) and smiling, thinking, “he likes me; he really likes me.” I had proof that he was real, and maybe he even loved me.

He never told me he loved me
He never told me he cared for me
He never told me he didn’t
So I believed
Sofia Talvik
Beautiful Naked

An Adventure

One foot in front of the other has gotten me through assorted crises and chaos. It got me the world’s slowest associate’s degree and into a fancy university with many study-abroad opportunities. I set my sights on a five-week program in Mexico City.

The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.
Oprah Winfrey

I was into tarot cards in junior high. My card was The Fool. This card can be first or last, the alpha and the omega, like an ace. The Fool’s superpower, not that tarot cards actually have superpowers, is just to put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes circumstances are favorable; sometimes, everything’s a mess. Either way, just keep going.

I feel like I’ve spent my whole life almost learning Spanish. I understand a lot, but there are usually words that I don’t get, and sometimes they aren’t the words that matter, but sometimes they are. It seems that five weeks of studying the Spanish language and Mexican culture while submersed in both ought to push me over the edge into fluency.

I have a cousin in Mexico who I miss dearly and I’m sure I could include a visit with him and his wife while I’m there. I also have a tía in central California who intends to speak to me in English, but whenever she gets excited, she starts speaking to me in rapid-fire fluent Spanish. She’s older, and if I interrupt her to ask her to switch back to English, she loses her train of thought. She is my only hope for learning the stories of that side of my family, and I don’t want my language shortcomings to be the barrier that prevents that.

Also, the Work Bestie teaches in Spanish sometimes, in Spain, in Mexico, and soon in California. My favorite teaching experience was something I didn’t even want to do. I was just administrative support for that workshop. I had not psyched myself up to public speaking at all. He’d taught me how to teach that module years before, but I don’t think I’d ever taught it in front of him before, let alone with him. Honestly, I was kinda sick of teaching that module, but his voice was going out on him.

I brought all the goofy dad jokes to the lesson plan. I love that I can make him laugh with the cheesiest nonsense. He’s so much better at the whiteboard than I am. But I brought in handouts to make up for that. He also has field experience that I don’t, though. The point is, I think that we teach really well together. We are alike enough to set a shared goal, and our differences are complementary.

If I can get myself fluent in Spanish and competent in the rest of what we teach, I can coteach with him more, here and abroad. So, I was fully committed to pursuing this five-week study abroad opportunity in Mexico City. I didn’t know how I’d fund it, but I can work miracles when there’s a fire under me.

And then there was Portugal. Portugal had a later deadline to apply and also a $5000 scholarship. It was a two-month program instead of five weeks. It was in a very different time zone. It wasn’t going to help me speak Spanish, not even a little bit, but it was funded. Funded makes a huge difference.

He denies it, but I tried to talk the Work Bestie into joining the Peace Corps after I graduate. He said he was tired of going to foreign countries just to work his butt off. He would rather go with free time and comfy accommodations. I reckoned if I spent two months on a different continent, in a country where I did not know the language, studying my butt off, it would probably scratch the same itch I’ve had for the Peace Corps for all these years. Yeah, going to Portugal felt like a good step toward becoming the best version of myself.

And do you feel scared? I do
But I won’t stop and falter
And if we threw it all away
Things can only get better
Howard Jones
Things Can Only Get Better

Howard Jones – Things Can Only Get Better

Never Say Never

I took one class a semester for eight years to get my associate’s degree. It was painfully slow, but in the end, it actually worked. I was ready to transfer to a university when my youngest turned eighteen.

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.
Christopher Reeve

I was a terrible student growing up. I ditched much of middle school. I had a bus pass, an annual membership to the L.A. Zoo, one to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and a library card. I learned so much ditching school. I love learning; I’m just bad at being a student.

By high school, I was already determined to be a housewife someday. Two different career paths offered themselves when I was on the cusp of adulthood. One was an apprenticeship to an auto mechanic (though I would have to get some official education at the community college level to make a career out of it), and the other was working with developmentally disabled adults in a day program. They both appealed to me, but I picked the latter because it would do more to prepare me for motherhood.

In the end, I am quite good with kids and in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the job market for housewives doesn’t allow for much career mobility. If I live the rest of my life on my own, I need to get my ish together because no one else will take care of my business for me. If I’m going to live the rest of my life with a partner, I still need to get my ish together because anyone worth being in a relationship with deserves the best version of me I can be.

I went back to school in my 30s. It wasn’t easy. Thank goodness for Google and Starbucks. One answered my questions like, “how do people study?” and the other gave me a place to follow that advice without the man who was becoming my ex-husband being able to sabotage me. I took one class a semester for eight years to get my associate’s degree. It was painfully slow, but in the end, it actually worked. I was ready to transfer to a university when my youngest turned eighteen. Of the eight universities I applied to, only the CSU and UC in San Diego turned me down. That would be the two schools in the city where my Work Bestie lives.

When we were both completely single, I would write him long, rambling emails, explicitly telling him how I wanted him and why and telling him to “just take the compliment” and move on. I don’t date younger, or colleagues, and I wasn’t ready for anything serious with so much trauma to process from my marriage, and I don’t want anything superficial either. I’m all or nothing; in this case, it would be best to stick to nothing. I told him we were never going to be a thing, and I told him why I never ever wanted to be a thing. I also told him to visit me and go on adventures with me. After all, he was my Work Bestie; visits and adventures are what besties do.

After years of being the first person I told any news to, he was the last person I told when I accepted the admission offer from my dream school. There really was no choice even close to the benefits of going to Berkeley for me. It was the right thing to do if I was going to stick to my guns about becoming the best version of myself. It also meant moving 400 miles further away from my Work Bestie when the 100 miles between us was already almost too much to bear. I knew that if I moved away, we would meet other people and drift apart, but I was just as sure that if I didn’t, I would never be the partner I wanted to be someday, let alone the independent woman I needed to be.

Berkeley had been the last school to give me an answer. I was sure that they had rejected me so hard that they weren’t even going to be bothered with telling me so. I was never getting into my dream school. The night before they accepted me, I had gotten drunk and depressed and sent something despairing to the Work Bestie. He called me, and I cried and cried and cried, but he talked me off the ledge. He soothes me as no one else can. Not even he knows it, but I cried just as hard when I realized I was going to Berkeley. I wasn’t ready to move away from him.

There’s the way we may appear
But that will change from day to night
Would you ever see within?
Underneath the skin?
Could I believe you had that sight?
And so you go
No girl could say no
To you
Suzanne Vega
I’ll Never Be Your Maggie May

Suzanne Vega Montreux 2004 06 I’ll Never Be Your Maggie May

Wanderlust

So I returned to the dreams I’d had before I started dreaming of being kissed passionately. If I couldn’t have love, I would have the world.

Seek not water; seek thirst
Rumi

When I was a little girl, I tried to learn American Sign Language. I loved putting my face and sometimes my entire body into a word. More than that, I believed that if I became fluent in sign language, I could travel the whole world, going from one deaf community to another. Then when I was about ten years old, I learned that signed languages are as diverse and varied as spoken languages. Just like that, my globe-trotting plan was gone. A decade later, I was settling down but hadn’t given up on seeing the world. I just wanted someone to see the world with. Adventures are more fun with an accomplice. My marriage didn’t work out that way, or any other way.

It’s probably the most universal human desire to love and be loved. I think it’s something we want as newborns and still on our deathbeds, this thread weaving through our lives as other desires bloom and die and disappear. I wanted to love, be loved, and devote myself to a lasting partnership. But if that’s not an option, then there has to be something else to look forward to. I am addicted to silver linings. There always has to be something exciting enough to make getting out of bed tomorrow feel worth it.

So I returned to the dreams I’d had before I started dreaming of being kissed passionately. If I couldn’t have love, I would have the world. I pinned all my hopes on traveling. As soon as my youngest child turned eighteen, I would go to ALL the places! Of course, the part where that happened in 2020 didn’t help, but that wasn’t the only change of plans. This isn’t the same economy I came of age in. My kids need more support as young adults, and I’m less adept at providing it. I’m a broke, divorced, middle-aged undergraduate with family responsibilities. It’s not exactly a great recipe for jet setting.

Still, I’ve researched a dozen different routes to walk El Camino de Santiago and a handful for the Pacific Crest Trail. I’ve fantasized about getting an RV, a dog, and an as-of-yet elusive comfort behind the wheel. Or riding all the best trains without a dog. I could take the Southwest Chief from L.A. to Chicago and the Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul. I could even go on a nine-month cruise around the world. I’ve daydreamed about crashing on couches in every city where I have a friend or an acquaintance or the ability to convince myself that kind strangers probably won’t murder me. I want to volunteer anywhere where volunteers aren’t a problem unto themselves.

It is my nature to be curious about everyone and everything. Adventure is just another word for finding out. To love and be loved would be the sweetest adventure, but to travel could be pretty exciting, too. Maybe I’ll do both or nearly neither. Whatever happens, I’ll live; perhaps that could be adventure enough.

Nothing much to say, I guess
just the same as all the rest
Been tryin’ to throw your arms ‘round the world
And a woman needs a man
like a fish needs a bicycle
when you’re tryin’ to throw your arms around the world
U2
Tryin’ to Throw Your Arms Around the World

U2 Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around The World

Who am I if I Can’t Carry it All?

I asked for money for pastries and lattes, which I did, in fact, spend many of my euros on. More than the breathing room that spending money grants, I felt rooted for and supported, like my journey was being shared.

I have never met a person whose greatest need was anything other than real, unconditional love. You can find it in a simple act of kindness toward someone who needs help. There is no mistaking love…it is the common fiber of life, the flame that heats our soul, energizes our spirit, and supplies passion to our lives.
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

As a child, I wanted to be indestructible and intimidating enough that nobody tried to find out whether or not I really was indestructible. I believed the key to success and happiness was to need no one and to do it all myself. I was also a big fan of crumpling up and quitting anything as soon as I made a mistake. I was not a particularly successful child.

It turns out that where I have succeeded in my life, it has been through a great deal of vulnerability and willingness to accept help. I am still very uncomfortable with both of these things. The child I used to be still pouts and stomps her feet and fears that my successes will not count, or worse, I’ll owe somebody more than I’m comfortable paying back if I accept any help. Fortunately, the adult I’ve become knows better. Most people like to be helpful. I do. I need to feel helpful.

Despite who I am, I’m trying to set up a life where I make it easy for people to help me and also easy for people to not help me, to whatever degree they are comfortable. Even though accepting help is still an act with which I am decidedly uncomfortable. I’m scrappy. I reckon I can survive without help, but I can do better, I can be better, if I let people help me. Where I can, I pay it forward because I know I can never truly pay it back.

I have been the broke friend for much of my life. It means I often turn down invitations because I can’t afford certain outings. I mean, I also have a lot of demands on my time, and I’m low-key, very introverted. It’s just that I didn’t want to be the shy girl or the broke girl in Portugal. I wanted to be in a position to say yes to everything my summer studying abroad had to offer.

Berkeley Study Abroad recommends setting up a Go Fund Me. I was fortunate to have enough financial aid secured to cover my tuition and basic needs, but there are a handful of people who often spend some money on me around my birthday; I decided to make it possible for them to give me money for my summer in Portugal. I was very clear that I had tuition covered and that I had housing covered. That the funding was the difference between studying in my room and studying in a cafe, not between going abroad or staying home.

The response was overwhelming. It got to where I had to turn off notifications because I was getting all verklempt in public settings. People who have never bought so much as a cup of coffee were contributing generously to my Go Fund Me. Friends and family also helped me out separate from the website, loaning me money for plane fare, buying me new luggage, giving me tips and tricks for my travels.

I worked hard to get into this school and I have actively pursued some of the best opportunities it has to offer. I am proud of getting myself into the position to study abroad. That said, it is the generosity of others that had me in a position to have a grand adventure. I asked for money for pastries and lattes, which I did, in fact, spend many of my euros on. More than the breathing room that spending money grants, I felt rooted for and supported, like my journey was being shared.

In her Ted Talk about The Art of Asking, Amanda Palmer talks about her time as a street performer. Whenever someone put money in her hat, she would give them a flower, or at least try to. I have thought a lot about how to give a flower to each of my supporters but I don’t know how. I never know how to pay people back adequately.

I’ve always wanted to have a travel blog, where I write about the best gear, the best deals, and the things a person must see and do while traveling. , so I would have an excuse to learn about and test the best gear, the best deals, and the things a person must see and do while traveling. That’s not the kind of writer I am, unfortunately.

What I can write is something more specific, personal, and vulnerable. I can tell my story of what I did with my summer vacation. Like most of the stories I tell, it’s made more out of convoluted side paths, than anything straightforward. I’ll talk about luggage, and frugality, and things to see and do, but also about falling in love and falling ill, and silliness and tragedy.

This is not the story that anyone asked for. This is not the story that I chose. This is the story that I have, though. And the best of it would not have been possible without the most amazing support network a person could ever hope to have. I am so grateful, not just for the coffees and pastries but for the feeling that all y’all were rooting for me. I am loved.

Thank you ❤

Do you need anybody?
I just need someone to love
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to love

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends
The Beatles
With a Little Help from My Friends

Joe Cocker – With a Little Help from my Friends