Salon Meeting Part 2...

“Hey Melissa? C’mere for a sec.” Amy, my assistant manager says to me after I set up my station. It’s early on Saturday morning and I’m already contemplating my second Americano. I walk over to her and she pulls me aside next to the washer and dryer near our break room.
“So I heard a rumor that you want to go to Wicker Park’s meeting next week.”
“Reeaally.” I reply remembering Shana and I weren’t the only two in the break room yesterday morning. “What did you hear?”
“Just that the tenth is when you met Rob and you’d like to have the day to yourself. It’s no problem. Just make sure you don’t miss Wicker Park’s because it’s a benefits meeting.”
Tears are waiting for permission to be released but I hold on tightly to them. “Thank you. I have a hard time with it and am not ok with being upset.” I confess.
“It’s ok. It’s all ok. Sometimes you don’t know how you’re going to feel. We’re here for you though. You can talk to us ok? Just let us know what you need.”
I wish it were that easy. I wish I could say to anyone “Hey, I need to talk, do you have a minute?” but I don’t let myself utter those words. I do however explain April 20th and ask to work on Thursday instead of that day.
“Sure, I’ll mark it off right now.”
I thank her again and walk out to get my first client.
I enjoy my day, my clients, their hair, their conversation but I’m exhausted when I’m done. I take the train home and instead of catching the bus, I decide to walk. Jeff and I are texting, both of us tired, neither of us wanting to be at either of our places. His roommates are having a party and things are tense between me and one of mine. Jeff and I decide to meet in Logan Square at New Wave coffee. I’ve been wanting to see this place for a while now.
It’s precious! We both get tea and sit next to each other at a small round table. We’re both very touchy-feely, grinning, all googly-eyed, and I’ve suddenly forgotten that I was ever tired.
“Tell me about your day.” he says rubbing the tops of my knees.
“Well, um, my clients were great. Uh, I’m just not feeling so good right now…” I can’t look him in the eye.
“You want to talk about it?”
I nod. “It’s hard. Um…” I trail off. The music is blaring and I don’t want to have to raise my voice. “I think I’m going to save it for when I don’t have to yell it to you.”
“Ok.” he nods and excuses himself to the bathroom. I go when we returns and lock myself into the tiny space and look around. Bright colored words and drawings fill the walls. Near the mirror I see the words “I love you” and “you’re beautiful” scrawled in pink ink. I smile to myself.
Jeff and I talk, laugh and tell stories until deciding to leave. We contemplate our apartments and decide to go to mine.
“My room’s a mess.” I giggle.
He says he doesn’t mind, but he hasn’t seen it yet. Hehe. The train doesn’t take us long and yes, as expected he’s surprised to see the aftermath of what looks like a tornado that tore through my little living space.
“No judging!” I exclaim as we plop onto my bed.
It would be in our best interest to sleep but what fun is that when there’s still so much to share and learn about this shiny new person in front of me.
We’re facing each other, laying on our sides when his fingertips begin to trail along the tops of my hands. I do my absolute best not to recoil and hide them out of fear he’ll think they’re gross. My dermatitis has been getting the better of me lately making my skin look a little mangled.
“I like your hands.” he tells me.
I chew on the inside of my face. “Say it.” I tell myself. “Come on…say thank you.”
“Thank you.” I reply and wait for the other shoe to drop, preparing for him to mention my skin. He doesn’t, so I do, explaining that I get nervous about people seeing them. “Sometimes I hide them and sometimes I don’t care. I try not to care more often than not, but it’s hard.”
“I still like them.” he says.
I smile and stare at them trying to simply be grateful that I have ten fingers that function despite the skin wanting to fall off.
He tells me that he finds it crazy that he’s here, that we’re hanging out and that it’s been so easy and that he’s been really open about the whole thing. I feel the same way. It’s scary, wonderful, exhilarating and I find myself wondering how we even got here. It feels like five minutes ago that I saw him behind an espresso machine, wanting to feel his hair between my fingers, his collarbone beneath my fingertips, his voice in my ear, his smile lighting me up and here he is, inches from my face.
While laying on my stomach, propped up on my elbows, Jeff on his back next to me, I begin my story about Rob starting with wanting to move to Chicago. I ramble on and on without making eye contact, talking at my headboard, at a pillow, but rarely at him. I almost cry but hold it. I explain all my interviewing, flying back and forth, falling in love with Rob, feeling like I was going to lose him, then…actually losing him and everything that came after.
I stop talking abruptly when I feel there’s nothing more to say. It’s weird how this happens. I’ll talk and talk until there are no words left to form but a weird silence that all the noise in the world could never fill. I can’t identify how I feel. I’m irritated for sure. I’m mad at myself for giving up all that information. What do I expect him to do with all that? What’s the point?
I can see that there isn’t a right or wrong when it comes to feelings, and sharing but I sometimes wish there were. I wish there was an instruction book for grief, a template to follow but I’ve got nothing. It’s all day to day and I think that’s the hardest part. I’m alone in my own journey through it even though there are people around me, I still have to find my own way and I lose my mind wanting someone to just tell me. Why can’t you just tell me where to go and what to do and how to say it and feel it?
Jeff hugs me hard. “I’m sorry. That’s really heavy.”
It is and I try to just hear what he said instead of taking it and running away with it on the crazy train. The crazy train will take me to a destination where everything is silenced and never shared out of fear that I’m somehow broken and not worth messing with. Somewhere though underneath all the crap I’ve piled on myself I know this to be untrue. So I stay put, not running but lacing up my shoes “just incase” for now. I let him hug me and I hear his words and roll them over I my head.
The subject begins to change in between kisses and quiet moments of staring at each other. I try to let him look me, my face and body and be ok with it. I’m working hard on being ok with letting him see me, with being still and not disrupting any of this stillness with my giggling, tickling or kissing. He asks me what I’m thinking and or feeling from time to time. I don’t have a lot of words.
Time is moving faster than I care to see and before we know it, it’s four the morning! I have to be awake in an hour then operate sharp objects for ten hours. Gonna be a looong day…