Misty Watercolor Memories

I've been spending a lot of time alone lately. At first I was all Hello, sole power of the remote control and I just ate a bag of gummi bears for dinner and no one saw! But me spending so much time alone can also be very dangerous because I can get stuck in my own head.

I went to bed an hour early and decided to watch an episode of Gilmore Girls before sleep. I've been watching the series from start to finish on DVD over the last six months, and I was on the last disc of the last season. Rory Gilmore was graduating from college. In turn, I started thinking about my own college graduation.

The night before my boyfriend, who had severe undiagnosed mental problems, had this complete breakdown. I don't even remember over what: graduate school applications or just a bout of manic depression, but I stayed up the entire night with him while we worked through whatever had him so wound up. I talked to him in an effort to keep his grip on reality because he was so close to losing it. Then 6 a.m. came and with it the sunrise.

"It's morning," I whispered. "I need to leave in a little bit. I'm graduating in a couple of hours. I need to go home and shower. My parents are coming up."

"Well, I'm exhausted. I think I'm just going to go to sleep," he said.

My face fell and my heart sank. He wasn't coming. My boyfriend wasn't coming to see me graduate. It seemed like every time there was a moment for me, he broke down and everything became all about him, including my college graduation. If there was a moment that should have been about me, this was it.

I graduated in December—a semester behind my original graduation date, and a semester before my friends on the five-year plan. I walked in alone to the staging area in the basketball coliseum. Summer graduates get the football field. Cap and tassel in hand, I scanned the room and found no one.

Come on, Sarah. Search harder. You are at a large university. Surely there is someone here that you know. You won't have to graduate alone.

I looked again and saw him. The guy I dated very briefly earlier that year. There was a lapse in my apartments and for a week I would be homeless. He asked me to stay with him for the duration and I was elated. Moving day came and I packed my truck up. I phoned him to tell him I was on my way... and I never heard from him again. I squatted in my old apartment, sleeping on the floor for three days until I got kicked out, and then I sheepishly called a friend and crashed on her couch for the remainder of the week. And now I was going to have to graduate with that asshole.

"Hey."

"Hey," said the asshole in question, Chronic Bather. I called him that because he always bathed after sex, which is not unusual in and of itself, but he always made me bathe with him before sex, he'd bathe after, and then he'd get up in the middle of the night to do it again. I counted one night: four times within and eight hour span. And it wasn't in the shower either. Chronic Bather would draw himself a bubble bath.

"So, uh, where've you been?" I asked.

"Home. I sold it though. Packed up all my stuff in the back of my car. I'm moving to Atlanta after graduation. Just getting in my car and going."

"That's nice," I forced out. Hope he was going to stay with someone and she'd never pick up the damn phone.

I scanned the room again. I refused to graduate with Chronic Bather. I refuse to share this memory with him. Four feet to my left, I spied Danny. Danny and I were close friends in high school until he started dating a mutual acquaintance who viewed me as a threat. She wouldn't let him hang out with me anymore and told him I had a thing for him. Which I did, but it was innocent and harmless and moreover my self-esteem was so low that I genuinely thought any boy would pick any girl over me, so I never tried. But to my knowledge, Danny didn't go to the same college. I thought he went to the private Christian school.

"Danny! What are you doing here?"

"I transferred here to be with Laura."

"Oh? How's that going?"

"We broke up two years ago."

"Oh," I shuffled. Victory! I thought.

"I'm sorry we fell out of touch, but she hated you after we started dating," he admitted. Yeah, I know.

Danny had big plans to move back home after graduation. His mom was still running a day care out of the house. It's not like my plans were any better. I was staying in the college town, staying with my boyfriend, Poet, who was currently sleeping away my moment.

"Sarah!" I heard someone call.

I turned around to see the boyfriend of one of my drinking buddies. Despite all the time we've spent in each other's company, we were always hammered and weren't that close.

People started forming lines to walk into the coliseum. Our university was so big that we just sit within our school of degree. We'd stand up as a group and move our tassels—no name being announced, no walking across the stage, and our diplomas would be mailed to us six weeks later. I stood facing the three boys wondering who I was going to pick. Who I was going to share my moment with. I chose my friend's boyfriend.

I don't like thinking about my college graduation because it's a painful memory for me. My first thought always goes back to Poet, who chose to simply not show. Five years later and it still hurts.

So now it's a Thursday night in 2008. It's 11 o'clock at night and I'm alone in bed watching Gilmore Girls. Rory's walking across the stage and Lorelai stands up and gives Rory a standing ovation. The tears in Lorelai's eyes convey that she's giving a standing ovation not just to Rory's scholastic accomplishment, but to her life. I begin to cry because that's just so not how it was for me.

I hate thinking about my life because I hate my memories. The fond ones are few and far between and are always sullied with some disappointment later on down the road. Compartmentalizing, I don't think I'm very good at that. Not only do I hate the things that have happened to me, but I hate my thought processes. I loathe my inner voice. I'm not at peace with myself. When I'm left alone for too long, I become this incubator for self-hatred.

With perfect timing, Scott came home to see me crying in the dark over Gilmore Girls. In order to avoid looking like a wad of crazy, I told him very quickly about Poet's no show.

"Why didn't he go?" I sniffed.

"I don't know, honey. I would have gone if I was there."

"God, I just hate my memories!" I pounded.

"We'll just have to make new ones," he smiled.

I wish I could trust him. But in order to do that, I've have to trust myself first.