Watershed

And just like that I’m sixteen years old again, or nine, and terrified.

My friend Michael invited me last week to hang out with him and a few of his friends at a bar on Sunday night. They get together every week and sit and talk and drink beer and eat nachos and listen to bluegrass. So I went. Michael is one of those people with whom you look for excuses to spend time, so my first visit was a no-brainer. I’d been invited and I went. Had a great time. Didn’t say much (what did Mark Twain say about giving away the fact that you’re an idiot?). Met some interesting people. Crackin’ good fun. No problem, right? On with life.

But then this past Sunday afternoon Michael calls again about something unrelated (if that’s a concept you’re comfortable with) and as we’re hanging up he mentions that “you only get invited once” and that I’m welcome to join them again sometime. And I panic. By “sometime” did he mean that evening—two times in a row? And then maybe again? Or that I should make an occasional visit? Or did he not mean it at all and he was just being Christian? Got off the phone with him around six in the evening which gave me a good two and a half hours to develop an ulcer trying to decode what I’m sure was to Michael a pretty unambiguous statement. Do I go? Or is two in a row inappropriate? Would they think I’m trying to horn in on their Sunday night thing? Would I seem like Michael’s kid brother (you could do a lot worse) tagging along with the big guys when they went to play ball. Would they smile and act nice and then after I left ask, “What’s with that guy?" Who do I think I am anyway?

And just like that I’m sixteen years old again, or nine, and my family has just moved and I’ve changed schools again, and though I’m terrified I have to sit through the horror movie of trying to find people who’ll be okay with me when all I want to do is leave the theatre. Will they make fun of my shoes? Will they greet me at the door with an appalled, “What are you doing here?” These things have happened to me. God knows how many experiences I missed growing up solely because I was too afraid to risk the rejection. Somebody cheesy once said something like, “The longest distance in the body is from the head to the heart.” Which is the kind of thing I generally dismiss as just so much bullshit, except that there I sat on a Sunday afternoon aware—giving cognitive assent to the fact—that Michael loves me (whether he’ll say it out loud or not) and wouldn’t hang me out to dry, wouldn’t set me up to be destroyed like that, probably wouldn’t hang out with the kind of people who would—and yet I was completely unable to act on those convictions. "You can stand there and agonize till your agony’s your heaviest load."

And just as I feel my first ulcer beginning to open up and say hello, I (with the encouragement of the Best Wife Anyone Ever Had) made a decision to act on a principle rather than on the nightmare that my emotions were presenting to me. One of my great fears is that in five years or ten or twenty I’ll look back on stuff like this and say with tears, “I could’ve spent some Sundays with those guys.” And I realize that I have to go. We talk a lot around here these days about Life, and for me, on Sunday, November 9, 2003, Living was meeting those guys at The Comet. Not because what happens there is earth shattering, but because the factors that would have stopped me are death surer than cancer. Wasn’t easy. In fact I stopped at a gas station on the way and called Michael just to make sure that he meant what he’d told me. Actually used those words—“Did you mean that?” If he were less gracious he could legitimately have been offended. As it is he'd probably be completely astonished that I made this big a deal about it.

But I went. Had a great time. As far as I could tell, no one minded my being there. I’ll probably go back, but probably not this Sunday—I’m still not quite over the trauma.

“Every choice is worth your while.” Emily Saliers