Shock

I don’t get shocked. I am not sure why and who cares why any way. I just don’t. Loyal couples cheat,  people die, world trade center gets bombed, wars start and end, people are unlawfully incarcerated, bankers get paid a percentage of our GDP while everyone else goes broke, nothing surprises me. I think I turned cynical day two of my life. Just opened my eyes and saw all that wasn’t right or safe and expected it.

Though I never accepted it. I am also deeply idealistic. It doesn’t make sense to most Americans, being idealistic and cynical at the same but it’s completely rational in Iran.  We have the world’s only theocracy. There is so much idealism in that you can’t imagine. One dude is empowered by god to do right by all of us.  No checks, no balances. Utopia. And then he doesn’t and no one does and we go to jail for farting and thus cynicism develops at a very young age. Not that I was born or raised in Iran. I wasn't. 

I felt shock for the first time that night. You stood before me and told me you weren’t coming home with me.  I didn't even know it was an option. She stood behind you while you said it. I asked you 'are you going home with her?' And you didn’t respond.  I looked at you in the eyes. I was shocked.

I thought too much was between us for that to happen.  Right now you would respond ‘but I told you I wanted to be friends, I told you that I don’t fall in love, I told you I was an asshole.’ You did. You also held my hand down the street and back over and over and over again. And it was you who bought me flowers. Twice. You were also the only person who knew how to let me be.

All that was unspoken, all that was unsaid, seemed to me to say the most.  That we were bound to each other in our mutual eccentricity, our mutual understanding of that strangeness inside.  And because of this, we were the most important to each other. And you seemed to say that to me each time you returned, and each day that we passed together. Though it said nothing of the future, of our structure, of our commitment, it said so much to me. It said everything that needed to be said.

But it wasn’t true. I learned that people are not just who they are but what they believe. You might have been my equal in spontaneity and individuality but you weren’t my equal in belief. You didn’t believe in our chance, our luck. You didn’t believe in love.  But most importantly you didn’t believe in yourself to do more. You leaned back into your cowardice, you dug your heels into your selfishness, and you sat back into your indifference. And you let me get shocked and turn around and never see you again.