Thursday, August 14, 2008

With or Without You

The U2 song which gives us our title today always makes me sad, and it has for over 12 years now. This is a flashback to days long gone by, long before I even had the 'burg in my mind. Back in college, in Dallas.

It's February, 1996, not long before Valentine's Day. I was, as far as my very right Christian friends were concerned, single.* Of course, they were all as well (but for real), so we all had decided to go to the campus "Valentine's Day Dinner" as a large group of fourteen (you had to buy tickets in pairs). Among the fourteen was Karen.

Karen was by far my best friend at the time, to the point where everyone was wondering why nothing had happened between us (that didn't last too long). In fact, there was a brief period in the fall that got me very confused, because I started convincing myself that there was something between us and I wasn't gay. This, just FYI, is what happens when one is raised to believe that only one thing is "right." One of those moments was actually at a school dance, where we danced to this very U2 song, With or Without You. Either way though, she remained my best friend all year, and even throughout our sophomore year.

The day before Valentine's day, Karen's father passed away. He had been battling leukemia for a long time, and was in his 70's, so it wasn't necessarily a surprise, but of course it sent us all reeling. I remember feeling very torn up inside, and I had never met him, I could only imagine how Karen was feeling. (This is one thing I sort of miss about college, the fact that you become so very close to people that when things like this happen, everyone falls apart. Just as when great things happens, it affects you so strongly as well.)

Karen flew home to St. Louis on the fourteenth, and we couldn't find anyone who didn't have plans to come to our dinner. So we had only 13 people. Most of us weren't really up for it, but well, we went. The table we had was set up with six chairs on the long sides, one at the head, and at the foot of the table. I was sitting at the head, and the foot of the table was empty. That was Karen's chair, I couldn't help thinking.

No one really spoke much, except for those who weren't as close to Karen, and thus were trying to make conversation to get rid of the horrible awkward feeling around us. Then it happened. The band there played "With or Without You," and I couldn't handle it anymore. I thought of the night a few months before, and I thought of Karen, and how miserable life was for her at that moment, while we were all out, "having fun." I broke down.

This would be a more dramatic story if I had run out of the cafeteria, off to my room. I didn't. The dinner lasted probably another hour or so, and I didn't speak the rest of the time. Afterwards, I left without saying anything, and went back to my dorm.

I didn't sleep much that night, and now whenever I hear that damned song I think about this moment. I haven't spoken with Karen in years. Part of this came from us drifting apart when I fully came out in college, and she had issues dealing with it. Not to say she didn't try, and in fact she was always very loving, but it did break apart our closeness we had in those first two years of college. But also, she has since become a nun in a convent in Nashville. I hear updates about her every so often, but I'm not sure how much she hears about my life.

I hope she is doing well. I would like to think she wonders about me from time to time, although I imagine that will disappear as the decades pass us by.

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*These were pre-out days, and my secret affair was very much a secret to every single person who knew me. Interestingly enough, the man with whom I was having the affair joined our group of fourteen attending the dinner that this story is about.

by Topher at 2:21 PM |