Oh I’ve known this one too. Thermal Henley, some heather color … jeans that define ‘boyfriend jean’ before boyfriend jeans were a thing. He played Doom and skipped composition and couldn’t watch enough of Sheryl Crow’s lips in that video everyone knows… He specialized in ‘aw shucks’ charm and a veneer that was designed with such thorough craftsmanship that it shouted authenticity in a way that authentic could never shout. I trusted him despite my best efforts not to. He seemed too good.
He lost so many sweatshirts and Henleys … young women were somehow always chilly in his presence and he was quick to remove whatever outer layer he was sporting to be a hero … it was chivalry and he NEVER asked for anything in return… and now I’m here, tasting him for the first time and wondering how a man like that ages? How did that over-authentic veneer hold out over two decades? And how did I never taste him when I had the chance?
He’s heavy about the middle now, softer, somehow MORE beer filled than he was in college or, perhaps, less able to hide the fillage. An Irish flush has him most of the time, but grows when a woman is too bold or a man is too awful … some things never change. Right out of college, with a degree in mechanical engineering, he pursued his career with a vengeance and found that his ‘authenticity’ served him incredibly well navigating the political climate of the automotive company for which he worked. It turned out, to his surprise, that his engineering skills were secondary to his people skills and he was quickly promoted out of a position of functional import and into an office and a tie and a smile that opened doors and exponential salary increases he never expected.
White and attractive and educated and wealthy he is the epitome of privilege. He truly is also kind, color me surprised. In his early thirties his parents were killed in a car accident and he attended the funeral alone, leaving behind his long term girlfriend, and stood separate from his sister and her husband and children. He was orphaned and felt the sharp pain of it in a way no one would have expected from such a simply gentle man. He felt rage he couldn’t explain and shame at that rage he couldn’t process.
His sister tried to reach out to him, physically stretching her arm across the grassy space and he stood solidly out of her reach, alone, stoic. There was no charm here but also no tears, no vulnerability. His humanness hadn’t been beat out of him by trials or tribulations or trauma or hurt .. it simply had not been cultivated as the surface and gentleness had served him so fucking well. Making people feel good had become a habit that he lived so thoroughly there was nothing of him left to muster tears unless they were for someone else. But those tears, the ones who fell for others – those were real and authentic, I think. They fell just as they ought to, but is that part of the veneer? Is that part of the wood grain authentic that was crafted with such shocking skill even at the age of nineteen?
Now, he is still single and alone and comfortable with it. Finding his way he accepts his rage and embraces his shame and tries, every day to be more. But the kindness, the ‘veneer’, the exquisite craftsmanship of gentleness and generosity and simple goodness – those were all real all along – and he cultivates them consciously now as he feels the rage and loneliness burn on. He protects those things carefully, he values them fully – and I do wish I knew him now and could tell him it’s okay to let that rage out sometimes, it’s okay to take some of the gentleness he gives to everyone else for himself.
What is it that leads him to believe that rage and hurt and fear are not appropriate? What world do we live in where this beautiful man feels he must hide? What can be done for him to know the truth, that his rage is also a beautiful part of him and that he is worth so much more than the good he can make others feel?
And every time I try to look at him closely I see myself and others I love. I see my friend who cries only when it’s safe and my friend who is angry only in my presence and my friend who has so much fear she struggles to think clearly sometimes (okay that last one is me). We are not alone in this, we all struggle. I am not objective but it’s my blog… I make the rules. I have spoken.
I wish I could tell him that ‘he’s aight.’ And really he is much more, but we start there.
Who am I drinking? 