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Julie beamed with glee. “I had a feeling, but I wasn’t totally sure.”
“Well, now you should know.”
“Ok,” Julie laughed.
The park was not too busy for a Sunday. I was happy to see that. It was just busy enough to be interesting, but not crowded. We all decided to have some leisurely fun in the park that Sunday afternoon and get out in the fresh air a bit.
I felt happy, truly happy. I had everything that I could have asked for. But deep down, I still had some fear that it might all just disappear in the blink of an eye. I hadn’t told Julie about the nightmare from the other night. I thought there was a good chance it might freak her out somehow. Maybe one day I would tell her.
“So, I need to tell you something,” Julie said.
“Ok,” I replied. “I’m all ears.”
“I got accepted into the art school. The one in New York.”
The words hung in the air for a few moments, as if they were waiting around to punch me in the face over and over again. My blissful mood quickly turned sour. I felt angry, and a bit betrayed. And I felt fear, real genuine fear in the form of some anxiety creeping up inside of me. But I knew I had to keep my emotions in check and handle this responsibly.
“Really? That’s great, but I thought you weren’t going to apply there.”
“I never said that,” Julie replied. “I thought I would keep all my options open and now here is a really big opportunity that has opened up for me.”
“Yeah, but didn’t you agree that having a degree isn’t really going to do that much for you, at least not with what your long term career plans are.”
“In some ways, that is right. But I also want to have a chance to study and improve my craft. They have some amazing teachers there. Besides, I’ve always wanted to seek higher education. I’ve never had that college experience everyone talks about.”
“That college experience is mostly about partying, sleeping until noon, and waking up in strangers’ beds. That is acceptable college behavior when you are nineteen,” I said. I could hear a bit of anger creeping into my voice. I had to keep my temper under wraps. I’ve always had a bad temper when I get heated about something. It takes a lot to get me going, but if I feel I’ve been lied to, nothing else fires me up like that.
“I have no interest in any of that,” Julie said. “Are you angry that I applied to school? That sounds ridiculous.”
“No. I’m angry that you lied to me about it. I thought we had an understanding and now it feels that you are pulling the rug out from under me. This affects me, too. It affects us. It affects Zoe. What? Do you think she is suddenly going to be ok with you being eight hundred miles away for most of the year?”
Julie sighed. “You are blowing this way out of proportion. I will visit as often as I can. This is important to me. I’m sure Zoe will understand that. I’m not going completely away.”
“I just don’t see how you could not tell me about this. Why did you hide it from me?” I asked. I felt like I was getting out of line and I could hear the anger rising in my voice, but I felt powerless to do anything about it right then.
“I didn’t lie to you. I just did something on a whim. I figured I’d never hear from them. It was just a fluke.”
“You thought I was just going to be ok with you leaving for several months at a time? Do you have any idea how hard long distance relationships are? They almost never work out. And you gave no thought to how this would affect Zoe. That blows my mind.”
Julie shook her head and groaned. “That is entirely not true. Of course I’ve thought this through. Why in the world do you think I haven’t? I am doing something that means a lot to me. It doesn’t change how I feel about you or Zoe. I care so deeply about the both of you. Do you have any idea how hard it is going to be for me to be that far away from you? Any idea at all?”
“Oh, I’m sure it will be tough,” I said with sarcasm in my voice. “This isn’t just about you chasing your dream. This is about you doing whatever you want with your life when there are other people in your life that your decisions affect.”
“You are being entirely unreasonable. I thought you would be supportive of me on this. I thought you would be happy for me and that you would be willing to make a hard sacrifice to offer that support. That is what people who love each other do. They don’t worry about themselves. That is selfish behavior. Now you are standing in the way of me achieving my dreams. Who are you? I thought you cared about me. This isn’t what you do when you care about someone. I’ve made a decision. I’ve decided that I will make my dreams happen and I won’t let anyone stand in my way. Not even you, Ricky. If that’s the way you feel, then this won’t work.”
“Oh, and you aren’t thinking about yourself? This is your dream. And you don’t seem to care how this is going to hurt Zoe. And how it’s going to hurt me. I can’t believe you right now. And you think I’m standing in your way? Wow, that is crazy. I’ve been your biggest cheerleader from the beginning. I urged you to go out there and showcase your talents. I gave you that confidence because I believe in you. And now you throw it in my face and tell me that I am trying to sabotage you. Do you even hear yourself right now?”
I was utterly disgusted. I thought deep inside that I was overreacting, but that was my reaction to her underreacting. Julie thought that I would be alright with her just abandoning us. I had big plans for us. I wanted to propose. I’d already started looking for rings. Zoe was going to have a strong female role model in her life, someone she could lean on and look up to.
“My dream is not getting in the way of your happiness,” Julie said. “And if you depend on me to be happy, then that is on you, Ricky. I love you and I need you in my life, but I don’t depend on someone else for my own inner peace. That is too heavy a burden to place on anybody. That’s not fair to me.”
I tried to see things from her point of view. She had made some good points. She was right. I did depend on her for a lot of my own healing. And that wasn’t right. I loved Julie, but not just because she’d help me heal so much of my inner pain. I loved her because of all she added to my life. The pain I felt, the turmoil I’d racked up in my life—those were things I had to deal with on my own. I couldn’t hold her accountable for helping to fix those wounds by just being with me. That was childish and it was inappropriate. When had I started to do that? I’d never been the type of guy to ever lean on anyone. I wasn’t going to start now.
I promised myself that I would swallow my pain and I would do my best to be supportive of Julie and her dr
eams. It was the right thing to do, even if every bone in my body made it feel tragic.
“Baby,” I said. “I’m sorry. I want to help you in any way I can. Your dreams are important to me. And I know you will do amazing things in school. Zoe and I will be here cheering you on every step of the way. I’m going to miss you like crazy.”
