I live in Africa

16 November 2008

So after three and a half long weeks of being in a semi-comatose state, the reality hit me on Saturday night: I live in Africa.

I panicked.

I called S., sort of forced him to stay up all night with me, as the reality sank in.

I was like a three-year old.

“I live in Africa,” I kept repeating. And then, on occasion, “I am all alone.” Then, just for some added drama, “I don’t know what the hell I am doing here. What am I doing here? I am alone living in Africa.”

S. to his credit, was immensely patient with me. He stayed up all night with me on Friday, all day on Saturday (night for me), and even was decent enough, realizing that I had decided to get completely drunk off my ass on Saturday night, to join me…although he wasn’t terribly pleased on Sunday when the whole exercise in “staying up with your girlfriend who is normally very calm and self-assured but has suddenly turned into a panicked and freaked out mess” had handed him a ruthless hangover.

Because, ultimately, I am too vain to admit that I am ever afraid at any given moment, I decided to delve into his entire past history in an attempt to distract myself from my own terror and, honestly, because when you have had ten glasses wine in four hours, you kind of lose any sense of what might be appropriate or inappropriate to broach with your significant other (women are GREAT at this…or at least the women in my family).

“Why did you get married to your ex-wife?” “Tell me absolutely EVERYTHING about every single relationship you have been in up until you met me.” “Why do you love me?” “DO you love me?” “Do you love me more than them?” “Why do you love me more than them?”

p.s. “I live in Africa.”

Good shit.

S. to his credit, drank the six bottles of Coors Light needed to get him through those questions and then said, exhausted some time during his afternoon on Saturday and my middle-of-the-night, “Love, can we please just go to bed? Or, rather, can you please just go to bed? Or, or, maybe we can talk about something else? I know you live in Africa, I know you are losing your shit a little bit, but…please?”

I slept. For three hours or so. Then I called him back.

“You awake?” I asked.

“Um, no…but yes, I am awake. I am here. What’s up?”

“I live in Africa. I am scared. Can we talk for ten more minutes, please?”

Naturally, ten minutes turned into another three hours.

To say that I am not normally “like this” is fairly accurate. I tend to go the opposite of ‘needy’ when faced with some cosmic crisis like the discovery that I had just moved to Africa…a month after the case.

I tend to clam-up, hide, become inaccessible, and silent.

“Patti: the insecure chatterbox” was interesting to me. I haven’t seen a demonstration of this side of myself since, oh, high school or thereabouts.

Finally, after I had worn myself out, I granted my poor S. release from this insane woman that he had no idea he was in love with.

“I’m tired,” I announced, “I need to go to bed.”

“OK,” he said, “sleep well and I will talk to you tomorrow.”

Then, because I had tortured him for a few hours with my own torture, he wrote me one of the most brilliant and introspective emails answering all of the questions I had forced upon him over those long hours on Friday and Saturday night. Quite plainly, I had no idea that a male of our species was capable of this sort of introspection.

So, of course, I called him back.

It was in the middle of the night, my time, and very, very, early, his time.

“I got your email, I want to talk about it.”

“OK.”

“And, by the way, I just had an aborted talk with my mother and I told her to call you since we are able to speak and she and I are not because she hasn’t set up Skype yet…hope you don’t mind.”

“No, it’s OK.”

I managed another hour or two with S., until, finally thoroughly exhausted, I decided to go back to sleep.

Today, Monday morning my side, I got another email.

My mother had called him almost directly after he had finished (or thought so) an entire 48 hours of meeting “Patti: the Wreck,” and they spoke for two hours.

Dutifully, he reported the entire conversation to me in an email.

Naturally, I called him back.

It was about 0900 my time, 0100 his time.

“Hi! It’s me!” I said.

“Yes, I know. Are you OK?”

I said yes.

I meant no.

He stayed up with me for another couple of hours.

Somehow, somewhere, I wonder if I saved a bunch of drowning orphans in a past life to be granted this level of tolerance from another human.

I kept telling him, and I meant it, “I know I am exhausting you right now, I know I am pulling on all of your reserves of strength and tolerance, I know I am depleting you in my neediness…but, I promise, I will always do the same for you.”

He knows.

Still, I wonder who this strange person is sometimes. I wonder why, clearly knowing that S. is about at the end of his rope with me, that I called the local taxi cab driver and asked him to take me to the mall…

There, where anyone would listen, I announced,

“I live in Africa.”

“Yeah?” they said, “so do we.”

I am afraid again for the first time in about a decade.

Oddly, it feels OK.

Because I feel alive again.