2005-12-26

misguided romantic gestures

There is something about the holidays that makes me yearn for romantic gestures. I keep hoping that I'll get a phonecall out of the blue with a man on the other line telling me that he misses me.

Perhaps it has something to do with the movies, but it also has to do with a call that I missed on Christmas eve two years ago. At that time, I back for the holidays after having just moved to Canada a few months before and my Irish exboyfriend Paddy had broken up with me. I'd never been so unhappy. We still talked, which just compounded the misery of the situation and has helped prolong it to this day, if I want to be honest with myself. I guess I need to work on learning from my mistakes, as far as he is concerned. Anyway, that Christmas he tried to call me from a phonebooth in Ireland, and I missed it because I was in the bathroom. I always felt like I missed some fateful romantic opportunity, ridiculous as that is. Yet, it seems fitting, at the same time, that the banality of life gets in the way of the banal conclusion of my romantic story.

I still went to see him while I was home, which was my grand romantic gesture. I took a thirteen hour train ride to Northern California on New Years day, which led to us trying to have a long distance relationship for a month before it fell apart. I know that getting that call wouldn't make any real difference as to how things turned out, but there is always that little hope that someday the phone will ring and that time I'll be ready.

xanthium at 2:49 p.m.

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