Today, after many long, penniless days of waiting was my first day of training at Red Robin. It was lengthy, and now I am exhausted. I could just lie in bed for the rest of the night and watch a movie or read a book. On the other hand, I could also go out and have some active fun because I spent the entire day working and I feel slightly like I should go out and do something. I’ll probably resort to the former, as I have no one to do the latter with me. Summer has been amazing and I cannot quite wrap my brain around the fact that I have already been home for well over one month. In some ways it is turning out exactly like I thought it would and in other ways it is not. I am reserving judgment as to whether that is a good or bad thing for the time being.
A couple of weeks ago Regan invited me to the lake with some friends of hers and it honestly felt like an answer to a prayer. I have been jonesing to go out for months and I wasn’t sure the opportunity would even arise this summer. Enter Regan. Hallelujah. I always knew there was a reason I was friends with her! It was a ridiculous amount of fun, sun, and tubing. 3 of my favorite things. I simply cannot wait to go back.
I am kind of out of blogging mode, to tell you the truth. I am only writing this because I have nothing better to do. I know I should do more, if only to force myself to write more, but for some reason it is harder in the summer even though I have much less to do. Maybe when the restaurant opens and my schedule picks up I will be more motivated to act like a productive human being and less like someone on an extended 3 month vacation from the world. But then again, maybe not.
Lily could not remember a time she hadn’t loved Tommy.
It wasn’t a hyperbole or an exaggeration, it wasn’t a feeling or a generalization or a romantic notion. She actually could not reach back far enough into her memory to a time when her heart had not belonged to Tommy Morris. She first decided she loved him when they were 6 years old and she never looked back. The better part of her elementary school days were spent doodling Tommy’s name on her notebook and secretly following him around at recess. She sat near enough to him at lunch to hear him laughing with his friends, but far enough that it wasn’t obvious she was listening. It was probably Tommy’s wavy blonde hair that caught the attention of 6-year-old Lily, but over the years she learned there were so many more things to love about him.
When they were both 9-years-old she sat next to him in art class and discovered that he was wonderfully funny. She often left art with her side aching from laughing and tears streaming down her face. She felt so lucky to have chosen someone who not only had perfect blonde hair, but was funny to boot. Her love grew with each passing art class. When they were 12-years-old and Lily and Tommy were both placed in advanced classes at school, Lily learned that Tommy was smart. Maybe even smarter than her, which surprised her to no end. He always scored better than her on math tests, and Tommy loved to tease Lily about it. Lily always received higher scores on essays, which she loved to throw in Tommy’s face. She never got weary of the completion or the teasing, because she never tired of attention from Tommy.
Tommy joined the baseball when they entered junior high. Lily, now one of Tommy’s good friends, went to every single game to cheer him on. In her mind the list of reasons to love Tommy continued to get larger with each passing day. Every time Tommy did something cute or funny or smart or athletic, Lily chalked it up to more proof that she had decided to love the right boy when she was just 6-years-old.
Lily and Tommy finally started to date when they were 15-years-old. To Lily it felt like she had waited a life time, but she quickly learned that Tommy was worth every second of the wait. Tommy was a great boyfriend. He was undeniably sweet and fiercely loyal. By the time the two were just 16-years-old Tommy loved Lily in a way his young mind could neither describe nor understand. Tommy appreciated that Lily was beautiful in every sense of the word. He felt that if given the opportunity, he could stare at her dark brown hair and crystal clear blue eyes forever. Tommy also admired that Lily had a mind of her own and an opinion about everything, which she rarely tired of sharing and was never afraid to vocalize. To the people who loved her, Lily was spontaneous and determined. To the people who didn’t understand her she was rash and stubborn. Tommy did not love Lily despite these qualities; he loved her for them. They were, however, also the source of the couple’s arguments.
Lily and Tommy fought, but it was nothing that caused anyone to bat an eyelash, least of all Lily herself. In fact, in Lily’s mind, their arguments were healthy because they were few and far between and always resolved themselves as quickly as they had come. Tommy understood that Lily often made decisions quickly, but he could never understand why she refused to amend those decisions even when he knew she wanted to. He always assumed her pride kept her from admitting she had been wrong, or that she wanted something different today than she wanted yesterday. In reality, however, Lily was just afraid of moving backwards. Once she had made a decision she moved forward with it, because in her mind moving backwards was the opposite of living. Lily wanted desperately to live.
Lily could not remember a time she hadn’t loved Tommy which is why it came as a shock to everyone, most of all herself, when she broke up with him.
Lily woke up early one summer morning and before she had even opened her eyes she felt stifled and bored. She immediately threw her blankets off of herself to see if that helped the situation. It didn’t. She turned over onto her side and faced the wall in her room. It was painted lime green, which suddenly seemed ridiculous to her. She turned over onto her other side and faced her bedside table where a picture of her and Tommy sat directly in her view. She was on his back and the two were smiling in a way that her friends always made fun of them for. It seemed as if they never stopped smiling. Lily would be seeing Tommy that night, but suddenly she was not excited about the prospect. It would be the same as every other day that summer had been, and the same as every day after it would undoubtedly be. Lily sat up in frustration, but after a minute she laid back down again. She felt her emotions bubbling to the surface but she did not want to deal with them. Every inch of her body was screaming from boredom. Somehow in one short night she had gone from loving her life to dreading the rest of the endless summer.
She looked at the picture again. It was new, taken just a few weeks before as she and Tommy had celebrated their fourth anniversary. At the time, it had been wonderful. Now, bathed in the soft light that appears between night and dawn streaming through her window, Lily realized it was ludicrous. Four years! Four years with the same person. She was 19-years-old and she had been in love with the same boy for 13 years, the last four of which they had spent every waking second together. The longer she thought about the more distressed she became. She loved Tommy with every inch of herself and yet and she stared at their picture, she felt nothing but smothered.
Was this living? She asked herself. Never trying anything new? Never experiencing anything uncomfortable? Tears sprang to Lily’s eyes as she fought back the nagging feeling in her stomach. No discernable part of her wanted to do what the troublesome feeling was telling her too. She did not even think she would have the strength to do it. Breaking up with Tommy was unthinkable. Not unlivable, by any means, she knew she would survive, but definitely unthinkable. Ending their storybook perfect romance had crossed her mind only a handful of times in their four years together, always during a fight, and never out of the blue like this. She continued debating with herself for awhile so that by the time the sun was fully up and she was drifting back to sleep, she had almost convinced her brain that she wasn’t about to do the thing her heart had already decided upon. What she didn’t realize was that no matter how hard she tried nothing would ever be the same again.
Lily broke up with Tommy that night, although she had not consciously planned on doing so. On any other day she would have had a great time cooking dinner and watching a movie with Tommy but from the moment she had seen him everything had been strained. He sensed something was wrong from the first cheery “hello,” and assuming Lily had been victim to a rotten day, he tried valiantly to cheer her up. It utterly broke her heart to watch him struggle to make her happy. The movie ended and Lily and Tommy sat snuggled together on the sofa. Tommy bent his head to kiss Lily, and she, fearing she would explode from misery if she waited another second, finally decided to bite the bullet. She looked up at Tommy and opened her mouth to speak. Instead, she burst into tears. Tommy held her while she cried for 10 minutes, unaware of what was troubling her so much and deeply concerned. She finally tried again to speak, but relapsed into sobs after only a few words had escaped her lips. It didn’t matter, however. Comprehension dawned painfully on Tommy. Tears began to silently stream down his face. Lily and Tommy held each other and cried as their beautiful relationship came to a sudden end. When Tommy asked Lily ‘why,’ she searched every facet of her brain to come up with something to say. Anything at all. Tommy deserved an answer. Instead, all she managed was, “I don’t know.”
Her crying picked up again, and Tommy let her be. He was confused and crushed, but seeing Lily this upset was the worst part of all. He did not want to worsen her pain by demanding answers he felt certain she didn’t have.
Tommy drove Lily home that night and walked her to the door. He wanted to beg her to change her mind, but he knew it would be futile. He left the love of his life with nothing more than a hug and a goodbye. After Tommy drove away Lily completely fell to pieces. Soon she was hyperventilating, hands and face numb. She had never had a panic attack, but there was a first time for everything. And as she would soon learn there was a second, and a third, and a fourth time for this. It took everything she had to pick herself up off her doorstep and stumble inside. Lily loved Tommy with all of her heart and he had taken it with him when he left. When you kicked him out. A voice inside her corrected. She had kicked him out. He could do whatever he liked with her heart. It had belonged to him for 13 long years.
The next month was torture for Lily. She cried herself to sleep every night, if you could even call what she did sleeping. She kept a box of Kleenex in her bed, and every morning the entire thing was covered in tear soaked tissue. She would sleep in fits, always dreaming of Tommy, always waking in a sweat to a gnawing pit in her chest. Night time was the worst, she mused, as she settled into bed, because it left her with nothing but hours to think. As the sun rose each morning however, sleepless night after sleepless night, Lily decided that days were the worst because she was expected to function like a human being and the gaping pit in her chest often left her gasping for air and tears streaming down her face when she was supposed to be doing anything else.
Lily and Tommy tried to stay friends at first, but it was too painful for both of them. Eventually they let each other slip out of their lives unacknowledged, but certainly not unnoticed. Tommy thought time and time again about asking Lily for another chance, but just as he did the night they broke up, he knew it would be like asking rain to be dry. It just wasn’t her nature. Sometimes to stave off the hallow feeling that followed him around like a shadow, Tommy became angry. Angry at Lily for ripping his heart out, angry at her for lacking a good reason, angry at her for clearly wanting him back, and angry at himself for not seeing it coming. Lily loved adventure, and he should have known that someday she would want something new. Lily also entertained the idea of reconciliation and every time she did she felt equal parts happiness and misery. She wanted more than anything to be back in Tommy’s arms, but she refused to live her life in reverse. What would happen in one or two or three years from now when she woke up bored and aching for change? All this wretchedness would not be in vain, and she would not risk it again.
One morning after another near sleepless night Lily could not get out of bed. She was tired. Tired from lack of sleep, tired of crying, tired of being sad. Exhaustion washed through her entire body, overwhelming her. She closed her eyes, giving into the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual fatigue. She pulled the covers up close to her chin and settled in, ready to wallow in self-pity for as long as she could. She had been doing it for a couple of months now and she was becoming quite the expert. Lily looked miserably at her lime green walls that were now bare as she had taken down every picture from them, and then, for no reason she could put her finger on, she sat up in bed. Lily decided to stop being sad. She would stop drowning her sorrows. She would forget about them. She made the decision to be happy. She got out of bed, went to the store, and painted her room. It was the first step in her active recovery. Lily decided to find herself.
Lily wrote and she took pictures. She spent time outdoors. She stopped pretending she had no friends. She began to breathe, and it felt good.
Eventually Lily started to date again. In some ways it was harder than she imagined and other ways it was easier. She naturally compared every guy to Tommy, and while few of them came close, they brought excitement into her life. She found herself experiencing nervous butterflies that she had forgotten existed. She had first kisses and fun surprises and loved learning new things about the men she was dating. By the time she and Tommy had gotten around to a first date, she knew everything about him. Not knowing everything was a welcome adjustment. Lily broke a couple of hearts and had hers dented a time or two, but as nothing could come close to the hurt she’d felt when she broke up with Tommy, she managed the new heartaches quite well.
When Lily was 24-years-old she met Dale. Dale was 26 and had his feet solidly on the ground. Lily, well on her way to becoming a grown woman, still spent much of her time with her head in the clouds. Dale and Lily fell in love quickly, although Dale was often exasperated by her stubborn ways. One night after a particularly nasty argument Lily put it all out on the table for Dale; she was stubborn, rash, and incomprehensible at times. If he couldn’t deal with that than he should leave. Even as she said the words she felt a pang of regret. She did not want him to leave.
Dale looked Lily square in the eye, meeting her defiant gaze. “I love you regardless of the fact that you are stubborn, rash, and completely incomprehensible to me most of the time. I love you with everything I have, and it is going to take a lot more than one stupid argument to get me out of your life.” The next week he proposed. Lily said yes.
By the time she walked down the aisle in her white dress Lily would sometimes go days without thinking about Tommy, and as the years passed weeks would go by without a thought of him. When he did cross her mind however, it was always accompanied by an overwhelming feeling of either fondness throughout her whole body or sorrow right in the middle of her chest. Lily never quite forgave herself for the way she allowed things to end, although she learned not to dwell on her regret. She had after all, a marvelous life. She and Dale had four beautiful children, all of whom she loved more than she thought humanly possible. Dale was a good father and a good husband to Lily. They were in love. They still clashed however and sometimes when they did Lily thought longingly of Tommy, his strong reassuring arms, and his calming voice. Occasionally Lily would find she was bored and would momentarily consider leaving to find a new life, but these thoughts never took flight. All she had to do was think back on her time with Tommy and she realized she would not allow herself to make the same mistake twice. She would not live in reverse.
Lily knew that Tommy also married shortly after she did, although she never met his wife. Through the grapevine she learned that he had a crop of kids of his own, and rumor had it that he and his wife were very happy together. She walked a fine line of emotion when it came to the subject of Tommy, sometimes feeling true happiness for him, sometimes feeling jealousy that it was not her he had married.
Lily and Dale grew old together, and their children grew up and had children of their own. When Lily was 65-years-old she was devastated by Dale’s heart attack and sudden death. She had lost her companion of over 41 years, and she struggled with it for a long time. She was once again accompanied by sleepless nights and fits of crying. She felt lost. Once, at the mention of a boy named Tommy on television, it occurred to Lily that what she needed more than anything was to hear the soothing voice of her first love. She actually stood up and walked over to the phone, only to realize she had no number to call. She figured she could find it easily enough, but by this time she had partially learned how to reign in her impulsive nature, and she hung up the phone and returned to her seat.
Her thoughts turned to Tommy more and more as the next years went by. Almost 12 years after Dale’s heart attack, on her 78th birthday, Lily was looking through a box of her stuff from when she was a teenager that her daughter had recently found for her. Lily pulled out a picture, dusted it off, and looked into her smiling 17-year-old face, standing next to an equally happy Tommy Morris. She stared at the picture for what felt like hours. Or maybe it was hours. Time did not matter so much to Lily anymore. As she gazed fondly at the picture she realized she could not remember a time when she hadn’t love Tommy.
Right then and there Lily made a decision. She walked to the phone and called her everyone she could think of until she found Tommy’s most recent know phone number and address. She was about to call him when she realized he lived only about an hour outside of town. She grabbed her purse, stuffed the picture in it, and got on a bus headed for Tommy Morris’s house.
Lily’s nerves didn’t pick up until she was knocking on Tommy’s front door. She tried to steady her breathing as she waited for him to answer. Instead of Tommy, however, a 40 something woman answered the door. Lily was extremely taken aback. She checked the address on the slip of paper in her hand against the address on the house. Finally she looked up at the woman.
“I’m looking for Tommy Morris.” For a second she wondered what she would do if Tommy did not live there. And then for a much scarier second she wondered what she would do if Tommy had died and she had not heard about it. As all of this was racing through her mind Tommy Morris’s daughter looked at the old woman standing on her porch, wondering who she was and why she was here to see her father.
“He went for a walk but he should be back soon. Would you like to wait for him?” The woman asked kindly. Lily smiled gratefully, relieved to hear that she had come to the right place.
As she waited for Tommy she became acquainted with his daughter. She laughed just like her father, which gave Lily a feeling of home in this strange place. She walked around and looked at pictures from Tommy’s life. Him and his wife, their children, family vacations, family pets, weddings, graduations, births. So much of his life she knew nothing about. She felt a sharp pang of sadness. Lily was just getting around to inquiring about Tommy’s wife when she heard the front door open behind her. She turned slowly around and came face to face with the man she had loved for 72 years. She felt like she was staring into the face of a 19-year-old boy again and she also felt 19. She blushed.
Lily had not thought this far ahead. She was at a loss for words. She opened her mouth and uncharacteristically nothing came out. After a minute or more of silence Tommy made his way to her and wrapped her in a hug. It was the sweetest sensation Lily had experienced in years. She began to cry, as did Tommy. She was home again.
Lily soon learned Tommy’s wife had died 5 years earlier, and his children took turns visiting him so he didn’t get lonely. There were 6 kids, 3 lovely girls and 3 handsome boys. They were his pride and joy. He beamed when he spoke of them, and she saw love in his eyes when he spoke of his late wife. She was surprised to find that she did not feel jealous, however. She was truly happy that life had been so good to him, and as she told him of her life, she realized it had treated her pretty well too. The two of them chatted for hours, smiling and laughing the whole time. They slipped back into old patterns, as if the last 72 years had never happened. The sun was already setting by the time Lily realized how late it was. She was worried about riding the bus home in the dark, which gave Tommy the perfect excuse to ask her to stay the night in the guest room. His daughter had gone home to make dinner for her own children, so it was just Lily and Tommy left in the house.
The conversation eventually turned to their break up, and Lily was frankly glad to be able to talk about it. She told him of the stifling feeling she suffered the morning they broke up, and the boredom she was inexplicably overcome with. She explained that the same feeling happened after a few years with Dale, but she learned from her first mistake and hung in there until things got better. Tommy looked sad as he heard her speak of the first months they were apart, tears stinging his eyes. He never had any idea she endured so much pain. He wondered if he had known how much she wanted to change her mind if he would have done anything differently. Lily explained to Tommy that she loved Dale very much, and they had a happy life together, but she could never stop loving Tommy. He looked at her for a long time after she said this, sorrow apparent on his lined face.
“Lily, you get everything you ever set your mind to. It is one of the things I love most about you. You decided to love me when we were 6 years old, and you did. You decided to date me, and you did. You decided to break up with me, and you did. But you must have never decided to stop loving me, or you would have. I wish for your sake you had made that decision.”
This statement hit Lily hard. Would it really have been that easy? That possible? She wondered. Initially his statement made her cringe with regret and sorrow and pain. She did not say anything for a very long time. Instead, she thought back on her life. She decided to break up with Tommy. She decided to stop being sad about it. She decided to date other people. She decided to marry Dale. But Tommy was right; she had never made the decision to stop loving him. She held onto her love for him her entire life. It was the only way she knew how to live. After this realization she still did not speak. She spent some time wondering if it would have made a difference. If she had consciously decided to let go of Tommy would her life have been different? Would she and Dale have been happier? Would they have fought less?
As she considered what Tommy had said, she decided it was a moot point. Loving Tommy was the only way she knew how to live, and she was ok with that. It is what brought them back together now. It is what gave her strength to stick through the tough times in her marriage with Dale. If she hadn’t loved Tommy, she might not have learned from her mistake so many years ago. She might have spent her life running at the first sign of boredom. She looked at Tommy.
“I will never make the decision to stop loving you. I decided to love you when I was 6-years-old and I knew then that I would never look back, Tommy Morris. I love you. I always have, always will.”
She smiled to herself.
There would never be a time when Lily wouldn’t love Tommy.
