Incoherent Scribblings

Last weekend he told me that he trusts me. I don’t know if he meant it to be, but it was a pivotal moment. After everything he has told me about his life and loves before me, it meant more to me than if he had said he loved me.

But no matter how much it means to me, it has also been driving me crazy. For no sooner does he tell me that he trusts me than he hands me his house key, asks me to feed his cat for five days, and gives me permission to do laundry at his house while he is out of town.

I am thrilled because he trusts me enough to give me free rein of his house, but I can barely contain myself: I want to rifle through every drawer and cabinet. I want to look through the piles of papers on the desk and see how much money he owes and to whom. I want to see what’s in the medicine cabinet and what he keeps under the socks in his dresser. I want to find out all those details that you never know unless you snoop.

But those three words echo in my head and stop me.

“I trust you.”

It means too much. I’ve worked too hard to attain those three words. I simply won’t throw them away for the instant gratification of knowing whether or not there is a Penthouse in the nightstand beside his bed or Prozac in his medicine cabinet.

Of course I know how to change a tire. I’ve even done it a couple of times.

However, this morning when I got ready to go to work and saw that my rear passenger tire was not just low, but flat I didn’t really have enough time to mess around with it so I just decided I would deal with it later and walked to work.

(Note to self: I really should walk to work more often! Even though most of the ½ mile from my house to work is uphill I made it to work in about 15 minutes and really enjoyed the fall morning.)

As lunchtime approached, I considered my plight: As I said, I know how to change a tire and since I had all the requisite tools (jack, tire iron, spare tire donut), I could have very easily gone home, changed the tire myself, and taken the tire to the mechanic to get it fixed. I am a modern, single, independent woman… hear me roar!

Nevertheless, I also had to admit to myself that since I have had my car I have never examined the lug-nuts on the tires and I honestly didn’t know if I could loosen them. Spiritually I may be a strong modern woman, but physically I am still a weak little girl.

So on my way out the door to lunch I stopped by the office of a friend of mine to see if he would assist me. He graciously consented to help me out, so we headed to my house and began the whole tire-changing ordeal.

Normally this would not have been such a big deal, but unbeknownst to me the lug-nuts on my tires have these goofy little plastic pieces that hold the hubcaps in place. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this until after one of those little plastic pieces broke off.

Anyway, after the hubcap was off and I was watching as my friend jacked up the car, he mentioned that it was a good thing this had happened in my parking lot instead of on the highway when I was all by lonesome myself. I joked that if I had indeed been alone on the highway I would have gotten assistance the old fashioned way: I would have rolled up my pants and showed some leg until someone stopped to help me.

He replied, “But didn’t you do that the moment you stepped into my office and asked me for a ‘manly’ favor?”

How many times have you heard the phrase, “I am tired of games” in conjunction with romantic relationships? Like me, I am sure you have heard it more times that you can count and I am sure you have probably uttered it once or twice yourself. However, when it comes to love, it’s always a game.

It might be like tennis: You volley phone calls, attentions, and/or affections back and forth. It might be like basketball: You shoot, you score, or maybe you foul out. It might be like chess: You strategically plan your next move and hope that your opponent doesn’t outwit you.

But the object of any game is to win. So any move, no matter how slight, is carefully calculated and evaluated until eventually someone has enough points to consider him or herself the winner.

But what does the winner of this game achieve? Everlasting love and devotion? A good romp in the sack? Something in between? Is there really a winner or a loser?

Sure the game can get old, but I keep playing it because if I don’t life is just so damn boring…