venturing backward: further and further apart (written December 20, 2014)

a post from my old blog “venturing backward”

I read an article on the Internet claiming that romantic-love hormones run out after a year. You could only get them back if you found someone new.

I was really worried about that for a few days. I looked back to the autumn of 2005. I wondered if all that was just lost forever.

I didn’t know if we’d ever have much physical proximity again.

And I wasn’t in Rochester during my two-year anniversary with Renee.

My parents had scheduled a trip for us all to go to Oregon, where my extended family lived. We stayed in a house in Sun River. Graham came with us. So did Michelle, who was my sister Kayla's friend - and who was practically my cousin. And Kenzi's friend, Allie.

We were meeting some family friends who were super conservative Christians. So, Graham and I decided to convince them we were a gay couple. My mom was in on it. So were my sisters, Allie, and Michelle.

We were all sitting in the living room when my parents’ friends, Ron and Kim, arrived.

My sisters introduced their friends. Ron nodded happily at each of them.

My turn came. “This is my partner, Graham,” I said.

Ron laughed, thinking it was a joke.

Then Graham put his hand on my knee and smiled.

Ron’s smile immediately faded into a frown. “Oh,” he said. “Huh.”

“Yes,” my mom said, clasping her hands together. “We’ve had some changes in our family.”

Graham massaged my knee for greater authenticity. He looked at me and smiled tenderly.

A few moments later, my dad came up to Graham and me. “You have to fix this,” he demanded. “You tell them it was a joke! Tell them!”

I just smiled and shook my head at him. Graham laughed and put his arm around me.

“Andrew,” my dad said. “I’m serious. Tell them. Do it now.” He walked away looking enraged.

Kim came and sat in the living room with us. My mom mentioned that Graham and I would have a room to ourselves that night.

“Oh, really?” Graham asked, grinning at me. “We have the room to ourselves.” He winked at me and touched my knee again.

My mom laughed; Kim frowned and looked at us in shock.

That whole week, we made sure to hang out a lot with Ron’s sons. We wanted him to think we were trying to make them gay.

We’d get into splash fights with them in the pool. I’d look to make sure Ron appeared uncomfortable. If he seemed fine, then I’d pay more attention to his kids.

I was sure that a gay son was the worst thing that could ever happen to a man like Ron.

At some point, though, my mom showed Ron and Kim some pictures from my prom with Renee.

“That’s Andrew’s girlfriend, Renee,” she said.

Still, we never told anyone that we weren’t a gay couple. We just left it.

We had a great time in Oregon. We walked around outside at night in the darkness of the heavy forest. We rode mountain bikes down steep slopes. We jumped off the tops of waterfalls and splashed into the rivers below.

We saw mountains and fields of volcanic rock.

We stood on either side of a sign that said “Lava Butte – Elevation 5020” for a picture. A huge forest stretched out behind us. It was a beautiful scene.

Graham put his hand over the “E” so that it said Lava Butt. He pointed at it with a grin. My mom took the picture of us.

I sat in the living room during some afternoons. Just reading. I read Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and thought a lot about poverty in America. I read Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger and thought a lot about all I was going to learn in terms of American foreign policy that year.

We played Texas Hold ‘Em with Graham, my cousin Jordan, and my sisters.

My Aunt Heidi and I had a few political conversations. I was clearly in a full-on sprint to the left, and she was somewhere on the right. But our chats were amicable.

August 12^th fell in that time.

Renee and I couldn’t celebrate together. We were at a distance of three time zones.

Renee wrote on my Facebook wall – “happy 2 year! love you!”

A few nights later, Renee and I were arguing about something for half an hour on the phone.

And out of nowhere, I was back at Michigan State.

She was in Indiana. She was meeting new people, seeing a new place, experiencing a new environment. She was plunging into a social world with which I had nothing to do.

I knew that Rochester was dying. Almost all my friends from the Class of 2007 had moved off to college now. What remained of my Class of 2006 was slowing splintering away. I had to make something of my life in East Lansing.

I was rooming with a guy named Patrick in S Case 471. We’d become friends in March and April, just before the end of the last academic year. He had spent a chunk of the summer studying in Eastern Europe and Turkey. So we had a lot of comparing and contrasting to do in our talks that September.

I was reading a biography about Harry Truman when I moved in. I would share interesting passages with Patrick. He’d fill me in on an informative article he was reading online.

We could spend hours talking together just based on quotes from books. Just based on tidbits from current events. The discussions would spiral out until we’d found implications for economics, governance, foreign policy, law.

Every time I had a conversation with Patrick, I felt like we were both getting smarter. I felt like we were thinking more critically, considering more factors, analyzing with greater nuance.

I told Patrick I wanted to go back to Cambridge one day for a master’s degree. I thought maybe in a few years I’d be smart enough for that.

I had a German literature class with Valencia. She lived in Wonders, and I was in Case. So we were both in South Complex. We walked to class together and I met some friends she made in Germany.

One of those friends was a girl named Alexandria.

Alexandria was in German literature class with Valencia and me. And she was in my German 301 class.

Valencia, Alexandria, and I had dinner together that first week in a cafeteria.

I was happy to be included. I wasn’t sure if Valencia would want to hang out with me again after I ignored her in the summer.

But Valencia was also spending a lot of time with her new boyfriend. So Alexandria and I started hanging out on our own a lot.

I would ride my bike up in the evening from South Complex to West Circle. We’d sit together in Alexandria's dorm room and work on our German literature readings, helping each other understand. We’d go down to the cafeteria, get soft drinks from the fountain machine, and watch football games.

Riding back to my dorm in the darkness, I’d pass through the grassy opening of West Circle. I’d catch a glimpse of Beaumont Tower, slightly illuminated as it was by the artificial lights. I’d ride over the bridge and cross the Red Cedar. I’d give a nod to the Sparty statue. And then onward I’d go down Chestnut. Until I passed Spartan Stadium and locked my bike up in front of Case Hall.

I was always so happy on those bike rides. I’d always be thinking about how wonderful it was to be making friends with someone like Alexandria. To have another friend to go home to like Patrick.

I hoped Alexandria was someone who could be a great friend one day. The kind of friend you can go a year without seeing and still be fine. Because no matter the time that passed, you’d still know each other’s souls.

She was an athletic, sporty girl. She often wore a Detroit Tigers hat. She liked to go out to the grass and throw a baseball around. She was a talented figure roller skater.

She was a German and English double major. She liked literature a lot, and we would talk sometimes about our favorite books. She was going to be a teacher, which I admired.

We spent a lot of time watching The Officetogether. I was binge-watching from a DVD so I could get caught up to her.

One night, I was trying to decide between doing homework for my European Jewish History class and watching an episode of The Office.

I went on my computer, logged into my student account, and dropped the history class. That way I could get caught up on The Office. That way I could watch the new episodes with Alexandria.

Like me, Alexandria liked to go home on a lot of weekends. Her mom lived in Waterford, which was close to Rochester. So we figured some weekend we’d meet up in Oakland County.

Like me, she had been in a long relationship with a guy from her hometown. So she understood why it was difficult for me that Renee was in Indiana. We could talk about that.

Things were alright at first with Renee. Now and then, she’d write on my wall.

“I miss you!” she posted on August 26^th. “You should probs go to Valpo next year instead of Germany.”

I was planning on paying a surprise visit to Renee in Indiana that October. I had already reached out to a new college friend of hers. Her friend told me that Renee would be so happy to see me.

We planned a weekend when I would drive down there and see her.

One night, though, Renee and I had a rough conversation on the phone. I was standing right at the entrance to South Case Hall. It was the same spot at which I’d had such good conversations with her just one year before.

I had written in my LiveJournal that August that I was on a “march to the Left.” I described this journey as inevitable. She didn’t like that.

“I liked it when you were conservative,” she told me.

“I know,” I said, “and I know I’ve become a lot more liberal.”

I had also changed my religious views on Facebook to “I Like Pandas.” A lot of people commented on my wall about it. Most people thought it was funny.

She didn’t.

“What are you now?” she asked me. “Are you Christian? Agnostic? What?”

I knew that was important. We had talked about marriage before. So this type of stuff mattered.

I told her I didn’t know. I told her I was working it out.

“Well,” she said. “I need to know. I need an answer.”

“I don’t have an answer,” I said.

Meanwhile, I was convinced she was going to find someone else in Indiana. Maybe some committed Christian boy. Maybe some Republican boy. Maybe some good-looking frat boy.

I thought she’d drink a bunch of alcohol and make out with one of these hypothetical boys.

So on that same phone call, I asked her if she was getting drunk with her new friends. I told her I was really worried about her getting drunk and hooking up with another guy.

I was terrified of alcohol. And I figured a lot of her new friends were drinking, just like a lot of friends of mine in East Lansing did. I figured she’d want to join them.

I couldn’t handle that. I told her neither of us should drink anything. Not even a drop. Just like I had been sober during my entire month in Cambridge, I emphasized. So she should be sober in college.

Every phone call came back to these same issues. Politics. Religion. Trust. Jealousy. Alcohol. My own paranoia and insecurity - constantly generating a need to control.

None of this could be solved by the magic of shared experience. A drive back to Rochester to see each other would be rare now.

She was in Indiana; I was in Michigan. Next year, I’d be in Germany; she’d be in America.

The distance would expand from just a short Midwestern highway to the whole Atlantic Ocean.

It wasn’t going to get better. These problems weren’t going to go away. The times we shared just that June seemed like they happened in a different universe now.

And all the while, both of us were building new social worlds that didn’t overlap at all.

I had bought season tickets to the football games for this year.

I was going to go to one with Alexandria. The night before, though, I was at Chockley’s dorm in Snyder-Philips. A professor of his had given him a turtle and I wanted to see it.

The next morning, I realized I forgot my backpack at Chockley’s. I rode my bike all the way back across campus, from South Case about to Snyder.

As I returned with my backpack on, I started feeling an outrageous pain in my lower back. It persisted the whole ride.

I got home. The pain stopped but then it got worse. It got so bad that I collapsed onto my knees. Gasping for air, I vomited all over the floor.

Everything I’d eaten in the cafeteria that morning was just smeared across the tiles from the doorway to the toilet to the shower.

I was supposed to meet Alexandria for the football game in twenty minutes. I couldn’t cancel – this was supposed to be the beginning of a whole new social era for me in East Lansing.

I was supposed to have a world here that could diminish my need to go back to Rochester. So I was relieved when the pain disappeared a few moments after I threw up.

I grabbed a towel, cleaned up the vomit, and threw the towel away.

I’m fine, I told myself.

I brushed my teeth. I washed my hands. I went downstairs. I met Alexandria in front of South Case.

I didn't tell her anything about the vomit. As far as she knew, all was well.

We went to the game and staked out our spot in the student section. I bought an extra-large Mountain Dew and went through about half of it within fifteen minutes.

We were standing up, doing the chants. We were screaming “first down, bitch!” when the Spartans moved the chains. We were declaring “they suck balls!” in regards to the other team. These were standard slogans in the student section.

But then I couldn’t stand up anymore. I told her my back hurt and I had to sit down.

The pain was incomparable to anything I had ever experienced. I wanted to go down to my knees and vomit again. I wanted to shoot myself in the leg with a tranquilizer gun. I wanted to scream and cuss and run away.

But I didn’t tell her all that. I was in too much pain, and I felt too embarrassed. So I just sat down.

Then I told her I had to go. It wasn’t possible to stay anymore. I said my back just hurt too much.

She sighed with annoyance.

I walked out alone into the Spartan Stadium parking lot. I collapsed onto the concrete and threw up a mix of Mountain Dew, stomach acid, saliva, random bits of food.

People stared at me like I was just some drunk. A group of guys laughed at me and walked on.

I got to the intersection. South Case was just on the other side.

I called Kate. “Please come downstairs,” I told her. “I need help. I’m throwing up. Please come.”

I fell to the ground again, just before the crosswalk. My throat tried to expunge what it could – but hardly anything came out.

With a great struggle, I reached the doors to Case Hall. Kate looked really worried. She helped me stand up and took me to my dorm room.

Patrick was home now. He wasn’t there earlier; he had no idea I’d been throwing up.

In front of him and Kate, I fell onto the carpet. I started rolling around. I screamed every terrible word I could think of until there was almost no one left on Earth to offend.

Then the pain went away like it’d never even happened.

“Dude,” he said, “I think we should get you to the hospital.”

“No,” I said. “No – I’m fine.”

It came back. I fell onto the carpet, writhing and screaming and cursing.

“Alright,” Patrick said. “Fuck this. I’m calling a fucking ambulance.”

After he called the ambulance, the pain vanished once again. I called my mom and described what was happening. Immediately, she told me I had a kidney stone.

The paramedics came up to my room with a stretcher. I answered the door calmly, not in any discomfort at all now. I told them I kept experiencing explosions of pain.

They looked skeptically at me. They looked into my eyes. They suggested I was on drugs. But they walked me down to the ambulance anyway. And I walked on my own, just as if nothing was wrong.

As soon as I was in the vehicle, it came back. I screamed all the way to the hospital.

“He’s got a kidney stone,” the female paramedic said.

Within minutes, I was in the emergency room at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing. The doctors gave me a wild combination of drugs until everything was blurry and I fell asleep.

I woke up. Kate was there. My dad was there; he’d driven up from Rochester. So were some friends from James Madison – Adam and Courtney and Christina.

Kate called Renee and gave her an update on what was going on with me.

I was so high. I told Kate and Courtney that I had a good time “riding on the train” with them. I told them it was too bad we had to all get out and push the train.

The doctors kept me in the ER for six hours. I had been throwing up and drinking Mountain Dew, so I was dangerously dehydrated.

In the end, the doctors gave me a shitload of vicodin to take home.

They scheduled a surgery to destroy the kidney stones. They sent me on my way for now.

A couple weeks later, Renee and I broke up.

We agreed we were growing apart. We acknowledged that both of us had changed. We discussed the fact that conditions weren’t the same anymore. We reasoned this was for the best.

It was cold logic that made sense in the moment. It ignored so many emotions I’d had in the last two years, stretching back all the way to August 2005.

And it happened on the phone. I was standing in the South Complex courtyard. In the same spot where I had once been so happy to hear her voice. On the same campus that I had put off exploring so I could go back to Rochester and be with her.

For a few hours, I was able to think about it very logically. And I felt like it was the best decision. It would support the new world I was creating here.

"My life is new," I wrote on LiveJournal. "This is a fresh start."

In those early stages, it was a mutual decision.