Adele

"Don't forget me- I beg. I remember you said, 'Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead.'"

Fuckin' Adele.

This song crept up on me. When I listened to 21 straight through the first time, One & Only was the one that took me out. Its like she read about my Unicorn and wrote a song for me to sing to him. But this song, this Someone Like You song... it goes out to ALL the ones that didn't work out, doesn't it? Or for me, those that never really were in the first place.

One of my best friends in high school just got married in the fall. He played Jesus in Godspell our senior year. Those of you who are musical theatre enthusiasts know the type- limitlessly charming, childlike, a Pied Piper, bringing everyone up for it on the ride. And we were in separable. We started as two people who really didn't like each other in art class to finally connecting as friends and then got incredibly close while we had rehearsal every night after school. He & I lived far away so we would just hang in the auditorium until rehearsal, maybe grabbing McDonalds in between, until our director got wind of this and invited us for dinner at her house nearby every afternoon. And that...was magical. Her kitchen was where my life would expand, having 'grown-up' discussions about faith and love and art for the first time. It was where I became an Artist, with a capital A. She always saw us as equals and we blossomed under her care. Although I tried so hard to avoid it, I began to fall in love with JIG. I fought harder to not show it.

Cool Girl was all I was at that time; my feelings for JIG in a tight vault. He talked about love and sex and girls and I would bristle with excitement on the inside but was debating and challenging on the outside. Then I liked Love in broad terms; the specifics were not a safe place in my world. His big blue eyes surrounded by impossibly long eyelashes and thick curly hair and long fingers that danced across the piano and husky voice that sang the blues were landmines. If he did not return my feelings, I surely would die. So I'd just add another number to the vault's combination. I learned to pour cement around my heart. The three of us were a happy trio, banter and ideas ran freely, and I was in my own private, safe Heaven.

And then he invited her over for dinner.

Her being The Popular Girl who was in the play as well. She didn't need to come to the director's after school; she lived nearby. She was there because he wanted her. I shriveled up inside. But here's the thing, at rehearsals, TPG and I had a blast. We loved singing harmonies together (I think we beat to death "More Than Words" HA.) and had a great time doing the play. But it was clear she wanted him, too. And all of a sudden, I was the third wheel. And it suuuucked.

One rare moment in her kitchen, our director and I were alone. JIG & TPG were off somewhere perhaps; I don't really remember. She cautiously brought up the topic of them being a couple. I thought it was because she was concerned about the play if they, God-forbid, broke up. She shook her head. "I just don't know if she's someone who's right for him." I was taken a-back. I asked, "Well, who would be right for him, then?" I mean, she was everything: rich, popular, thin, smart, funny. And then she looked me right in the eye and said, "You. I was always hoping he'd be with you." Tears welled immediately. She'd cracked my vault. I felt naked. I think I literally folded up inside myself on the bench in her kitchen. She silently came to sit by me and wrapped her arm around me. And we sat like that for a while.

Over the next few weeks, I took refuge in our director being 'in my corner', like it was a fight, or something. But JIP asked TPG to the prom, which he gave me every last romantic detail of. And Cool Girl strengthened her resolve. He kept asking me who I was going to the prom with. Cool Girl was so fierce, she was not going to the prom at ALL. He protested. I stuck to my guns and my excuses. The Junior Prom sucked (it did for me), I didn't have money (I'd stopped working my part time job to do the play), it was something made for couples and not for friends (the closest one that revealed the truth). At one point he begged. I was stubborn and said a firm, "No."

He made love to her for the first time after the Prom. I kept a good game face as he spilt the specifics. The play ended; our time together slowly became less and less frequent. I saw him in art class still at least. Dating the popular girl wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I didn't think they'd make it passed graduation. But they did.

I got accepted to a small Liberal Arts college in Staten Island that none of my 630 classmates managed to find out about. It was a chance for me to start over. He went to a college in Amish Country. This ended up shaping our futures more than we realized at the time. He & TPG eventually broke up for good and I had quickly become the biggest fag hag this side of the Staten Island Ferry. My first 'boyfriend' in college ended up being gay. I made a joke that instead of the Midas Touch, the Touch of Gold, I had the Touch of Gay. Even made a skit out of it with my good friend Wesley Boozer. It was the hit of the theatre department. I saw JIG when I went home for Thanksgiving, sometimes Christmas, sometimes Easter. He always had serious, intense long term relationships and I had my career aspirations. He became a real hippie and started a great trance band which he still makes music with. I sang with them once when they played in NYC. He even had a pottery shop once.

He met a woman studying to be a doctor. They married last year and he'll follow her to wherever her residency takes them: Arizona or Vermont I think were the last choices I heard about.

I had the heartbreaking task of telling him I couldn't afford to fly in for his wedding. Sometimes being an Artist with a capital A sucks. Maybe the Universe was protecting me (and him) from my reaction. I hardly think I would've pulled an "I Object!" moment at his ceremony but with this new found truthfulness I've been growing into, a church-side confessional about all my hidden high-school feelings may have slipped out. Very Non-Cool-Girl but very selfish.

I love JIG, but in such a different way now. He's someone who is safe with my dreams; to this day, I can always slip into a beautiful conversation with him about faith and love and art just like we learned to all those many years ago in that warm kitchen. And Adele's lyrics could never be truer...

"Nevermind, I'll find someone like you. I wish nothing but the best for you two."

I had a strange daydream during Mother's Day Mass on Sunday night. The priest invited all mothers and mothers-to-be to stand about the altar for the Liturgy of the Eucharist. I had a vision of me at next year's mass joining them with a baby bump of my own. It made me believe in the possibility of tomorrow like I haven't in a long time. Who knows what it will bring...