Nothing Good Will Come of California

I was too short to drive Big’s fucking burnt orange Honda Element. She tried to take the horrendous corkscrew curves on U.S. 1 in Northern California gently, but I was turning the color green that gets stupid names like chartreuse. This was the least of my worries on a most ill-advised road trip. We had planned the journey from Portland to Stanford when we were falling for one another. She would be starting her PhD program and wanted me to help get her settled. I had always bargained for a little bittersweet, but I thought it would be because the move would signal the beginning of the long-distance phase of our relationship. Looking back, we were both so premature and immature.

In my defense, I was never the U-haul lesbian. I have never lived with one of my girlfriends, although I once had a close call. Perhaps tied to this independence (stubbornness?, intuition?), I had also not done much relationship forecasting. I certainly fantasized about marrying Sylvia, but I knew her answer so I never asked. Big was different though, and this is the main reason I call her Big. We had a fucking plan.

She was the one. She would get the pleasure of picking up my socks and feeding me on a regular basis. (Damn, she was a great cook.) So we were going to spend as much time together as possible before the move, and then see each other twice a month. I volunteered to do more of the visiting. I had more money, more time and a mad love for the Bay area (shhh, don’t tell Portland). After a year, we would assess our relationship, and if it was sufficiently fantastic, I would sell my house, find a place with her, and try to transfer to the San Francisco office of my company.

I conveniently forgot about Voldemort, her very recent ex. I am still these years later embarrassed to admit how recent it was, and amazed at my stupidity. Voldemort didn’t know about our plan and had no plans to disappear. I will spare you the gory details. Who am I kidding? I will spare myself the gory details and just say that Voldemort won; Big dumped me and went back to her before the summer was finished. So how did I end up on the road trip with Big then? My capacity for self-delusion is epic.

Big and I tried to be friends. I could not handle the thought of not seeing her during her last weeks in Portland. I was so in love that I basically ignored the face pummeling of the breakup, the half-nelson she had on my heart. I am bigger than this, I thought. I can do it. When I asked her if she still wanted me to go with her to Stanford, she said she would not disinvite me or some lame-ass dribble. But I didn’t hear a no, so hey, I will win her back! If I could get a time machine, before saving people’s lives and other do-gooder shit, I would definitely go back and slap 2008 me in the face repeatedly.

The first night of the trip at dinner in my still favorite Oregon coast town of Bandon, Big would not stop crying about Voldemort. They broke up (again) because wily V. wanted no part of the long distance deal, and had no intention of moving. I mean, here was Big literally weeping into her salad when she knew I loved her beyond reason (is love ever rational?). I wish I had walked out, or at least thrown a dinner roll in her general direction. We slept in separate beds that night, and managed to get in a fight because I had told my ex (whose former ex but now girlfriend again was friends with Voldemort) that I was going on the trip. The convoluted, sloppy seconds, tiny community, gossipy nightmare of being a lesbian is a drag in this way.

By morning we had brokered a truce. I looked forward to doing the dune buggies on the coast. It was the only thing on the trip that I said I wanted to do…the rest was about getting her settled. Just give me the dune buggies, and I’ll be okay, I thought. Well, I’ve still never been in a dune buggy because at the last possible moment, she said she didn’t want to spend the money, but that I could go. Uh, no.

After a couple days like this, we made it to the valley, and to my oldest friend’s house. We’re talking friends since diapers. She had no clue what was going on though, and told me how much she liked Big after chatting with her awhile and watching her excellent manner with her toddler. In my embarrassment, I’d neglected to mention that we’d broken up and I went on the trip anyway. When you can’t tell someone who has known you forever something so basic, you pretty much know you’ve veered into self-delusion land, like a place that serves fried candy bars. Nothing good will come of this.

But something really good did come out of it eventually, and I’m not going to say friendship (although Big is my friend now) or anything to prompt eye rolls. No, this is a little more selfish and unexpected. While we were walking around Stanford, I became genuinely excited for Big. So supercalafragalistic excited that I had to do a gut check. I mean, I was livid with her at this point, but there I was jumping up and down around those terracotta roofed palaces they call classrooms. “I will call you Doctor one day! You get paid to study here!” I realized that I wanted to go back to school. Big finished her MA at NYU in the same school that I would later grace. She gave me the spark and the courage not only to go to school, but to do it in New York. I’d say I owe her, but I think we’re even.