She was late. She always was.
It was surprising that I was surprised and frustrating that I was frustrated. I had just journaled angrily a few days ago when she abandoned me in a shady bar downtown to go home with some guy she just met. “It was his birthday” she explained mildly in a tone suggesting that she was powerless to make any other decision. Unreliable was the nicest way to describe her, pathologically self-involved was more accurate. So how did I get sucked into taking a trip upstate with her?
She was a walking contradiction. She spoke with the aloof, airy huff of the very affluent as if she spent more time at debutant balls than trolling the dive bars of New York City. She wore designer clothes that couldn’t mask the smell of last night’s booze squeezing out of her pores. Her aura was wealthy, but she often maxed out her credit card and stuck someone else with her bar tab. “You get this,” she had said the night before, digging into the waffle fries in front of her, “and I’ll pay your way on the train tomorrow.” If I had even leafed through my journal I would have seen this promise made and broken before although she never accepted blame. Today I was waiting anxiously at Penn Station for her, but I could have easily been at a bar, emergency room, or farmer’s market. Looking to her for support was equally as consistent and disappointing, something I had also written furiously about. Reading my writing would have shown me that while she was always magic at a party and fun in the wide shot, real talk did not hold her attention and problems were for someone else to fix. But I didn’t read it, and so got to enjoy the feeling of sweat rolling down my back as I clutched my duffle bag.
Then, I saw her, floating through the crowd, her high forehead made higher by her pulled-back hair. I waved and she smiled, her ivory teeth reassuring and shiny. As we ran for the train we were both out of breath, but where I was ruddy and damp she was flushed and exhilarated, erasing every moment of doubt I had experienced seconds before. I had never seen anyone pay with a check on the Long Island Railroad but when the conductor came she whipped out her checkbook with a flourish, making good on her promise to buy my ticket. I put my bag on the floor and leaned into the seat, relieved. Sure, I had raged in my journal about her selfishness, her allergy to responsibility, and her guilt-free tendency to screw over her friends, but maybe it was different this time. As the train pulled from the station she folded her hands, sat for a beat, and then turned to me.
“I don’t have any money.”
Don’t just use your journal to vent, read it over and take it seriously. Let it show you patterns in yourself and the people around you and it just might save you from paying for someone else’s waffle fries.
