It was an odd weekend.
Saturday was all about doing the things I used to do for fun, the things I hadn't done for so long: hanging out in book stores, listening to music, going to a movie, just driving around and enjoying myself.
Except, of course, I wasn't really enjoying myself.
Oh, it was okay. A beautiful, sunny day, warm but not hot, a slight breeze, everything almost perfect. But somewhere in the back of my mind a nagging little voice kept saying, "Shouldn't you have moved beyond this? This is the same thing you've always done." And how could I answer that voice?
At the beginning of this year, Tabbatha and I planned to move in together. We looked at several apartments. And me, I was looking at rings. That was the talk--we'd get married, Paul would, in essence, become my son (he'd taken to calling me "dad"), and maybe--who knows?--maybe we'd even have another kid.
Then we stopped looking, stopped talking about it. Suddenly she decided she never really felt that deeply for me. Poof, just like that.
"But I know you and Paul like each other, and you can still do things together," she said. So we have, mostly just continuing our Tuesday night tradition of going out for pizza.
But Sunday I took Paul to a movie, Dragon Wars, because he and I both love giant monsters trashing cities, and this has plenty of that. We went out to eat first--Paul loves Fuddrucker's--then to the movie, and afterwards, he asked with great excitement what we would do next. "Well, now I take you home." He nodded quietly, like I was ending the day too soon.
I called his mom from the car and reminded her I had several boxes of books my sister had given me for Paul. Should I just bring them up, I asked, and she said yes.
Carrying the first box up, Tabbatha stood at the top of the stairs, holding beloved kitty Midnight. She opened the door to her apartment, Midnight plopped down to the floor and scrambled for the bedroom. I started to follow him, wanting to say hi to my old buddy, then stopped when I saw the bed was occupied. New boyfriend.
I went down to get more boxes, and by the time I returned, the bedroom door was shut. I had hoped to spend a little time with Paul exploring his new haul of books, but instead I could tell my presence wasn't welcome, so I got the hell out.
Driving home, I listened to Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me on NPR. It's a pretty funny show, but I didn't feel much like laughing. All I could think about was the story my ex-wife told me from when she worked at a radio station with Dan Coffey, a comic performer of some repute. He was originally tapped to host Wait, Wait, and believed it would be his ticket to the big time. Instead they went with another guy, and Coffey went back to selling shoes.
Sometimes, things don't go according to the plan.
