Karma

This spring break has amazed me by jumping unexpectedly from awful to amazing.  On Thursday, all my roommates hated me, most particularly Anna was barely even speaking to me, such that I did not even want to come home to our flat ever.  I was a little bit sick, had no energy, and was not particularly looking forward to flying to Amsterdam on Wednesday, even if it was to see Karina.  I was sad, lonely, and extremely frustrated that all these people I care about intensly were irritated with me enough to give up on me completely, mostly through misunderstandings and lacks of understanding.  And lack of tolerance.

Thursday night I went to see As You Like It (the RSC’s) with Rebecca.  That was good.  Good to see her, good to see the show.  Good show.  Good production of good show.  I’d forgotten how lovely love can be, to quote the song.  Came home happy, ready to tell my roommates all about it.  Fought with them instead.  (That’s not really fair to them.  There was no fighting.  I had a long, distressing conversation with Becca (this is not Rebecca, that’s my cousin, this is my roommate).  That doesn’t really qualify as fighting.)  At 3:00 that night, Becca, Erin, Marina, and Aaron all left for Barcelona.  Good riddance.  Leaving me with Ryan, with whom everything is fine, Mark, who I rarely see, and Anna, who was avoiding me.  Yeesh.  Lonely house.

Friday night I went with Nicki S——– to a meeting of her Jewish youth group for dinner.  I should explain who Nicki is.  This is kinda funny.  Her grandfather and my grandfather were masons together.  Then our fathers joined in, and they were all masons together.  Her older sister, Laura, and she and I used to play when I was very little, ie when we still lived in London, ie when I was four.  But we more or less lost touch when we moved away — I haven’t seen her since I was six.  But I sent her family my LifeCycle fundraising letter, which alerted them that I was in London, and they invited me over for dinner last week (I’m never, ever home for Friday nights, I’m always with family or old friends I didn’t know existed).  And we got along famously.  So this week, I went with her to her youth group meeting.  It was lovely, a group of about 25-30 people met and had Shabbos dinner at the house of a rabbi.  And we did Birkat.  It sort of shoved me back into touch with my religion, in a very good, unexpected way.  It’s easy for me to forget, not that I’m Jewish, but that it’s a huge part of me that I’m Jewish.  Anyway, I met some great people there, people with whom I got along right away.  One of them is named Gideon.  Gideon and I really got along right away.  He works PR for the Board of Deputees, which is sort of like the Federation.  And he loves Shakespeare and Chekhov.  I don’t know that much Chekhov, but I’m very much into Shakespeare, especially at the moment.  And he’s funny, and cute, and gentle-mannered.  And he has a great smile.  He’s sort of seeing someone else, but he emphasized repeatedly that she was not his girlfriend, and in fact he didn’t seem at all enthusiastic about her.  All he had to say for her was that she has her head screwed on the right way.  And when he talked about seeing her, it sounded more like a duty to be performed than like something he actually wanted to do.  When we left, Nicki dropped me off at the station, and I said to her, "If things don’t work out with Gideon and this girl, you might give him my number…", and she gave a delighted laugh and drove away.

Upon arriving home, Anna was the only other person who was in, and I thought, I’ll never get a better chance than this.  So I asked her if we were OK, and what was going on.  She started by saying that we’d grown apart, which had an awful ring of finality to it, but by the end of the conversation (and it was a long conversation) we were laughing and planning our decorations for our apartment next year and talking about a trip to Camden Town market to find fun stuff…back to being friends.  I’d forgotten what our friendship feels like.  It feels good.  And it’s back.  She was irritated with me, but as soon as I said that I don’t mind having screaming fights with her if necessary as long as she tells me when she’s upset instead of just pulling back from me, things began to clear up.  Unlike everyone else I live with, she understands why I do the things I do, mostly.  There were a few things I had to explain, but she understood my explanations…she knows me.  And we were able to sort things out.  I was utterly amazed at how much better I felt.  I had no idea that so much of the despair and hurt that I had been feeling was just from that situation, not from the roommate situation as a whole.  Right now, I know that everyone else still hates me, but as long as Anna and I are OK…it’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that I can handle it, I can get through the days, it doesn’t feel so awful anymore.  I’m OK now.

Saturday, I checked my AIDS/LifeCycle fundraising total, and found that I had exceeded my goal!!!  $2,556!  So I upped my goal to $3,000 — after all, why stop at the bare minimum?  But I won’t get to the starting line in June and be told that I haven’t raised enough money to participate.  Now all I have to do is train.  It’s hard hard hard, because it’s so cold, and I’m so bored with Hyde Park.  It’s a 3.5 mile path.  You try going back and forth and back and forth along it for 30 miles each day for weeks.  You’d be tearing your hair out too.  So I’m joining a gym, so I can use their stationary bikes, be in the warm, and read while I train.

Also on Saturday, I went to tea at my Uncle Cyril and Aunt Yvonne’s house, and finally met my newest little cousin on my father’s side, Tatum.  She’s 19 months already, and her brother Freddie is almost five years old; they’re lovely.  I befriended them both 🙂

Sunday, nothing particularly excellent happened, but I had a nice, quiet day at home.  Should have been training, but it’s vacation, and I always find to my shock and surprise when vacations roll around that I actually need them.  I’m tired, my body and my mind are tired…and I need the rest.  It’s just hard to get out the door.

Monday night was Purim.  Uncle Cyril and Aunt Yvonne had been quite insistent that I join them at their shul for the Megillah reading, so I did; my friend Carly, from the Hillel, came with me.  And who should be there, but three of the guys from Friday night, including Gideon!  I had been sort of idly hoping that he might call me (I mean, you never know, right?), but he hadn’t and it was no big surprise — after all, I’ve been doing the fantasy thing for years now, and I’ve learned not to expect anything to ever actually happen.  But after the service, at dinner, he came over to us and we all started talking; he asked us where our classes actually are, and I said by Holborn, and he said, no way, I work right by there!  And without even thinking about it, I sai

d we should get together sometime, and he said yeah, absolutely, let me get your number.  And then he blushed a little and looked away and said, actually, I already have your number. (!!!!).  Shortly after that, he made some excuse and went back over to his friends.  A little later, he came over to us again and said that a bunch of people were going to the pub for some "Halachikly-sanctioned revelry" and would we like to come?  Carly bowed out, but I agreed.  He and I walked Carly to the station, on which journey I learned that he is 22 years old (which is good, he looks like he could be anything from about 21 to 26).

At the pub, we rejoined his other two friends, Michael and Andrew.  He bought me a drink.  I opted out of the alcohol, mostly because I didn’t want to take the time to figure out what I wanted; somewhat silly of me, I should had just had some cider.  Oh well.  And we hung out and talked for a couple of hours.  He and his friends have the most astoundingly quick wit.  It’s a little overwhelming.  I laughed very hard, very often, and sometimes managed to make them laugh.  Interesting facts about Gideon: he has never been to Israel before.  He speaks five languages — English, French, German, Russian, and Italian, along with a little Hebrew and a few "Arabic proverbs."  He has connections with important people in the English Jewish community from his work.  He loves opera.  He has all kinds of random bits of knowledge.  He is very smart.  He is straight.  He is Jewish.  He is interested.

He told me that I need to take a "day of fun" and do the museum circuit.  And then he said that it was a shame he was going away on Friday, or we could have "spent the weekend."  I told him that actually I’m away this weekend too, and he asked when I was leaving and when I was coming back.  Having done a little bit of mental arithmetic, with this weekend out and the week of Pesach because he’ll be in Israel and all the other times I’m out of town and the week that Tyler will be here, we will not have much time at all really.  But anything is better than nothing.

When we left the pub, he asked me what I was doing the next night (tonight).  I said, nothing.  "Dinner?", he asked, and I said sure 🙂  So I meeting him at 6:00 tonight for dinner.  I am extremely excited and no small bit terrified.  When was the last time I went on a real date?  Have I ever been on a real date?  Yes, I have…with people I wasn’t really interested in.  I think this is actually my first date with someone I really did want to be out with.  I don’t know what to do!  This has potential to be amazing.  I don’t know what I’m worried about really, we get along great and we can talk very easily…what if he thinks I’m dumb or childish or uneducated?  What if he hates my politics? What if I hate his politics?  What if he thinks it’s stupid to read fantasy or watch Star Trek?  Oh my.  This is scary.  This is incredible.

It’s not meant to actually happen this way.  No, I take that back — this is exactly how it’s meant to happen.  But it doesn’t.  Or it does, just not to me.  To meet someone, get along with them, and date them — without months of pining, without sitting by the phone, without overanalyzing every sign…wow.  All the energy I’ve been putting into the world, all the karma I’ve known I’ve been accumulating, it feels like it has all poured back into me this weekend.

And tomorrow I fly to Amsterdam to see Karina for the first time since graduation.

Excellent, excellent break.  Feels like a stream of brilliant luck that is far from running dry.  I knew, I knew I would meet someone here!  Actually, not true.  I had hoped, but I hadn’t really believed it.  A lull in conversation, he colours a little and says, "Nicki…Nicki was very…very un…she said, hey, I’ve got Stephanie’s number, you want it?  And I said, yeah, go ahead!"  He’s nervous too.  That makes it all OK.

Makes it all brilliant.

–Stephanie