Monday, December 06, 2004

 

ENTRY 155: GOODBYE TO ALL THAT


If I were to be really, painfully honest, I would admit that I've never quite acknowledged the full truth of what happened in my relationship with Hamilton. There are things I've written here that are unquestionably accurate: the pain of trying to deal with Ham's depression and its repercussions; the awkwardness I felt when, long after I'd decided to move on, he would suggest another try at dating or sex; my frustration at being unable to penetrate all the layers of the wall he built around himself.


But, like most people, I cheat in my own favor.


I wonder sometimes whether I strung him along in some way. We'd dated initially in the spring of 2001, and then had another romantic involvement in the month or so before I departed Austin for New York. During that time it was Hammy, the former New Yorker, who encouraged me and told me I would do fine, who gave me advice about moving to the city, who cuddled up against me on those cold February nights before I stepped onto a plane and away from everything I'd known before.


When I left, Ham promised me that he'd finish fixing up the house he'd bought in Austin, sell it, and follow me to New York as soon as he could. And I was glad for that, and looked forward to being in the same city as him again, and he talked about wanting to see how things would go between us once we were both out of Austin--which he hated--and in New York.


But then things dragged out, as everything seemed to unravel for him and he descended into a funk. Ham's work on his house slowed nearly to a standstill; in the meantime, I was in the big city where men were starting to notice me and my neophyte aura, which always seems to attract somebody, I guess. And I didn't want to feel tied down by someone thousands of miles away, someone I wasn't really sure was right for me.


So in subtle ways, my demeanor toward him cooled, and he would express puzzlement about it, wonder if something was wrong. I would always say no, even as I tempered my responses to be slightly less enthusiastic, but not so much as to provide irrefutable proof of my loss of interest. I was hurting him as I tried not to hurt him, in a way and to a degree that would leave him wondering whether he was, in fact, hurt.


I try not to blame myself too much, for in a way I felt very much abandoned. I had been promised a source of concrete support in this new city to which Ham had encouraged me to move, and then he failed to show up himself to help me take my first faltering steps in Manhattan. And I realized that he didn't feel strongly enough about the possibility of something deeper between us to be able to overcome himself, his depressive inertia and often-unconscious self-absorption. As I saw it then, he didn't hate Austin enough to leave, or love me enough to get to New York. So I shut him out.


When he finally did arrive, about a year later, I had moved on, and he had to catch up, and it was uncomfortable and sad and vexing to me. Yet this was someone who had done so much for me, had shown me many kindnesses. I probably wouldn't have made it to New York if it hadn't been for him.


These are the things Ham and I have never talked about, and the source of some guilt for me. I have made a conscious effort to relinquish that guilt, but, like all such efforts, it will take time.


On Saturday I saw him for the last time before his move to Copenhagen. We had dinner in Chelsea, and it was slightly awkward, as though we were both feigning a kind of nonchalance that both of us recognized and recognized that the other person recognized. He commented at dinner that it was our last chance to have sex, and I just smiled and said nothing. When we left the restaurant and stood on the cold corner, I pressed myself against Ham and he wrapped an arm around me and leaned down to kiss me on the forehead and said, "I'm going to miss you."


"And I'll miss you," I said, and he told me I needed to visit him soon in Denmark, and I said, "But everyone there is European, and the plugs don't work," and then I promised I would come someday.


And in the theater before the movie started we somehow got on the topic of Terms of Endearment and how I thought it was a great film and that Debra Winger was amazing in it, and he said that it was such a manipulative work, and I said, "Isn't that what movies do? Manipulate you? Just like any piece of fiction?" And then one of the commercials preceding the trailers was for a TV movie starring Debra Winger, and Ham muttered, "There's your girlfriend," and I replied, "She's not my girlfriend. We just fuck."


And afterward we stepped out into the blustery evening. Ham walked me to my subway stop before I realized that he had gone in completely the opposite direction of where he was headed. We stood there at the busy corner, in a semblance of that cliché New-York-movie parting moment, and we both might have smiled a bit sardonically at the sight of ourselves if we were someone other than ourselves but like ourselves.


I told him I knew he would do just fine and make a success of whatever he chose to do, and he replied, "That would definitely be nice if it works out that way," and I said, "It will. It's my job to know these things." And I dug into my bag until I finally found the farewell card I'd bought for him, and he said I shouldn't have, as I knew he would. And I told him he could read it later, and he exacted again a promise from me that I would visit him in Copenhagen.


Then we stepped into each other and I circled my arms around him inside his jacket and said, "I love you," and he said, "I love you, too," and I knew that next time he needed someone or felt lost I wouldn't be around, that I would have to simply let go of the strange sense of responsibility I'd always felt for him. My Hammy would be on his own now.


With a small wave and a smaller smile I turned to cross the avenue against the frigid wind, and, just as I never came more than close to the full truth with Hamilton, I only came close to letting the tears fall from where they wavered as I vanished underground without looking back. But I would carry the lump in my throat all the way uptown. I would carry that, and much more. So much felt unfinished. So much always would be.

10:33 PM

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