15 Years Later

I really thought I was done after six.

A friend asked what it would take for me to try again, hoping that my answer would be absolutely nothing.  I wasn’t absolute about it, but I was adamant that Ivy would have to make a consistent effort, communicate clearly, and show sincere intent.  To me, that seemed impossible.  It would have been a miracle.  I wished beyond the clouds for that miracle because the feelings were still there.  But frankly, I did not believe for a second that she would ever make that effort.

But some small part of me wouldn’t let go of the idea.  Spring had come around again, and I found myself in a unique situation for me: alone in my apartment drinking and watching Ratatouille.  I couldn’t focus on the movie.  My mind wouldn’t stop running.  I couldn’t help it.  Unfortunately, I still remembered her number.  I grabbed my phone, opened my texts, and wished her a happy birthday.

Damnit Mike.

Her response was warm and welcoming, but I talked myself back down.  This was simply to put any bad feelings behind us and get on good terms.  We exchanged infrequent messages from there, usually just sharing memes.  I told myself that this was all it needed to be.  I was comfortable with it.

Then Ivy messaged me one day out of the blue.  She invited me to go on a run.  I declined.  I was willing to be friendly, but I didn’t want to go through the same old thing again.  I was on my guard as much as I could be.

Ivy began to text me regularly.  All the time.  She would compliment me.  She would ask me about my day, my life, my hobbies.  And she would share hers with me.  She was opening up about parts of her life she never had before.  Whenever a conversation would come to a natural end, she would ask me about something else, as if she never wanted to stop talking to me.

Okay, this was actually different.  Still, I resisted.  She had stated feelings for me in years before, but mutual interest wasn’t enough this time.  I had set the standard, and I wasn’t going to accept anything less.

Then she began looking for time to see me.  She gave me clear availability and asked when I was free.  She came up with several ideas for activities we could do together, and actually made plans to do them.  We started hanging out every week, even multiple times.  Even if she was tired or had to work earlier in the day.  No excuses.  

She was making an effort.

It seemed foolish to even consider it, but she had taken drastic steps in the right direction.  Maybe people really can change once in a while.  Maybe, after all of these years, Ivy finally knew what she wanted.  And what she wanted was me.  I was on high alert for any red flags.  Except each time I came across a flag, it came up green.  Was I being cautious – or paranoid? 

I was slow to tell my friends.  They were rightfully skeptical.  Each time I finally told someone I’d say, “I’m talking to Ivy again, and it’s… going well?”  With the questioning inflection and everything.  I was cautiously optimistic.  Could this really be the miracle turnaround?

Enter Tim Larsen.  We had already met a handful of times to discuss our project.  This time, our unspoken format of bullshitting for the first drink was thrown out the window.  I told Larsen the Ivy story – the long version.  I still didn’t truly know what Ivy wanted, and I couldn’t tell if my gut was telling me to run away or into her arms.  He listened graciously and provided some sound perspective.   

“The thing is, she does like you!  But you’re her safety valve, and you’ll never be more than that until you put it all on the table.”

I had to let go of any idea of friendship.  That clearly wasn’t what I wanted.  I had to be all in.  If I wasn’t, we would keep doing this dance forever.  She would never let go of that safety valve.  If I took that away I would get an answer.  And that’s what I really needed, an absolute answer.

He also told me it probably wouldn’t go well.  I didn’t hear that part.  Funny how that works.

A few days later, I invited Ivy to see Larsen’s band play at Danny’s Pub.  She accepted, but it seemed like she was preparing for an early exit.  She was late to respond and vague about when she would arrive.  There it was.  This was the red flag I expected but hoped not to see.  A familiar sensation quickly crept into my stomach as I took a seat at the bar.  I wanted to be excited to see Larsen’s band for the first time, but I felt sick.

But she arrived with a big smile on her face, and, well… we had a great time!  We laughed, we found ways to communicate even with Larsen taking up all of the available sound space.  We took a picture together.  We went for a walk during an intermission.  She was present.  She didn’t keep checking her phone.  She didn’t leave early.  Ivy was one hundred percent there to spend time with me.

At the end of the night, we walked to her car.  I gave her a hug… and then we kissed!

I can’t describe the butterflies that began darting around inside.  The night was peaceful, but my mind was exploding with joy.  This was actually going to work out.  The fairytale ending.  This time really was different.

Ivy and I hung out three more times that week, culminating in seeing fireworks together on the Fourth of July.  It was my last day before leaving for my first travel assignment.  Ivy had already been looking for the first time she would visit me in Wisconsin.  But we hadn’t discussed what was happening between us yet.

So I put it all on the table.  I reinforced my feelings over the past several years and told her I wanted this to be a relationship.

“What is this, what do we want from it, what are our intentions?”  I asked her.

I was expecting her to give a drawn out, confusing non-answer as she had so many times in years past.  I decided that this time, a non-answer would itself be an answer.  As my cousin once told me, if it’s not a ‘Hell yes,’ it’s a ‘Hell no.’  I braced myself for the inevitable disappointment.

She answered:  “I really like this so far.  I’m not going out with anyone else, I’m only seeing you.  And I’d like this to turn into a relationship.  That’s what I want to happen.  Those are my intentions.”  If this story didn’t eventually end the way it did, this might have been the happiest day of my life.

At first, it was great.  She would text me all the time.  We would talk on the phone for hours.  She asked me for my new address so she could send me mail.  I finally let my guard down and just accepted the idea that this time was indeed different, and it was good.  Even a couple of my friends had been convinced.

My first weekend on the road was the first weekend Ivy visited me.  It was a blast!  Soon after she arrived, we went for that run she requested months before.  We both had roots in cross-country and track, running for rival high school teams back then.  We likely had been at several of the same meets.  This was a true bonding experience for us.  When we were done, we both had huge smiles on our faces as we just looked into each other’s eyes for a few moments.

We went back to my temporary residence to change for dinner.  Ivy humorously bragged about how efficiently she could shower and talked some mad trash when I returned from mine.  It was funny and it was adorable.  We were teasing each other and laughing throughout the night.

I didn’t know the town too well, so we went walking up and down the block, pointing out potential restaurants to each other.  I suggested one in the distance, which turned out to be closed.  Well, we weren’t sure if it was closed or just very dark and sketchy.  But we both agreed to try somewhere else instead, as she teased me about my initial choice. 

We ended up at a Japanese steakhouse, where we cooked our own food from a miniature fire pit at the table.  We sat on the same side of the booth in the faint light, laughing and enjoying each other’s company.  The next day we went for a walk along the river.  She decided she needed to charge her phone before she left, giving us a little extra time to spend together.  I kissed her before she got in her car and wished her a safe drive home.

It was the last time I ever saw Ivy in person.

I immediately noticed a change in my interactions with her when she got home.  Over the next few weeks, she spoke to me less and less.  She seemed irritable.  And when I volunteered to drive home to visit her on another weekend, she said she didn’t want to “risk being stressed or busy.”  Things had clearly taken a turn.  I was rapidly becoming an anxious wreck.

I tried addressing it with her multiple times.  I was blunt about our past, and that I was noticing some of the same things I’d noticed so many times before.  Ivy continued to insist that her feelings hadn’t changed, that we were still on the same page.  So despite my instincts, and the nagging, aching familiarity, I kept giving her the benefit of the doubt.  Meanwhile, that little voice began making itself heard again.

My parents came to visit me a few weeks later.  I didn’t want to ruin the weekend, but as we sipped fancy drinks in a Wisconsin supper club, everything poured out of me.  The Legend and the Champion were exactly as supportive as you would expect if you’ve been following 15 Years Later from the beginning.  It was the reaffirmation I needed to make the hard decision.

A few days later, I finally called it off.  Ivy was barely talking to me.  I had planned to drive home to confront her, but someone convinced me to call her and be done with it.  She didn’t pick up, so I left her a voicemail.  No more energy invested.  No more time spent.  That was it.

The seventh circle started differently than the others.  There was real intent.  But it ended the same way it always did, with one exception.  There would not be another round.  It hurt just as much as ever, though.

A few weeks after that, Larsen and I had our second Ivy-centric meeting.  He did remind me that last time, he mentioned it likely wouldn’t go well.  Whoops.  But then he listened to me vent about all of it.  How much I was hurting, all the frustration, the anger, the feeling of being kept on the hook.  He jokingly timed me for how long it took to “land the plane,” but he intently listened to every bit of it.  He also pointed out that yes, it sucked, but if I hadn’t gone all in, Ivy and I would have gone through this for another ten years. 

After finally processing it all, he told me what anybody would at that point.  No more contact.  If she texts, just say, “Nope.”  If she calls and wants to talk about things, “Nope.”  He told me that any time I so much as thought about reaching out to Ivy, just imagine him saying, “Nope.”

He even took my phone and recorded a short audio clip of him saying, “Nope.”  He sent me a one-word text the next day just in case: “Nope.”

That’s the first day I remember feeling better than the last.  A few months later, as the spring came around again, I went hiking in Hawaii and skipped the happy birthday text.  Once I let that pass, I finally began to heal and be at peace.  

I’ve grown so much more emotionally in the three years since than I probably had for a decade.  I’m a completely different person.  I don’t let myself get so strongly attached so fast or easily.  Rejection hurts for a little while instead of ruining me for months at a time.  I’m a lot more logical about dating in general.  I know the difference between something I want and something I need.  It sure is amazing how much growth you experience when you’re not overly attached to a situation that’s toxic for you.

I don’t think Ivy is a bad person.  She just wasn’t a healthy fit for me.  And I must acknowledge that I have my own responsibility in this story.  I’m not a fan of how she dealt with her part in our situation, but I know she has her struggles, too.  The only thing I hope for her is that she found a way to grow as well.

As for my emotions, I’m much more effective at dealing with them in a healthy way.  It’s a lifelong process of learning, just like confidence.  But now I have the tools and experience to apply whenever my mind starts to falter in bad times.  Now I can combat the negative self-talk and the logical fallacies.

Now, when that little voice in the back of my head starts to whisper about how unlovable I am, how I’m not good enough, it’s a lot easier to tell it to shut the fuck up. 

Or, as a certain high school teacher once said, “Nope.”