I had dinner tonight with my friend Abby, who recently got engaged to my other friend Kortny. They’re old pals of mine from LA, in town to watch Notre Dame play a sport against another team that plays that same sport. They invited me to come along to the game and I couldn’t say no fast enough.
Tomorrow we’ll meet up with Trish, another old friend from LA, who got engaged a few months ago to her boyfriend.
Other friends who have gotten engaged and/or married recently: Sarah, Melissa, Carmen, Cristina.
I remember sobbing with each and every one of these girls over past boyfriends. Abby ditching a work event early to drag me out of my apartment to a movie and a bar after my live-in boyfriend moved out and I barely knew how to get out of bed. Holding her hand when she feared she’d made the biggest mistake of her life by ending her relationship with her college boyfriend, that she’d never again fall in love. Trish, frustrated for months by a crush who refused to notice her and later by a boyfriend who refused to tell her that he loved her. Sarah, mascara smeared, sobbing over the loser guy we all hated when he dumped her (we were relieved). The supposed love of Carmen’s life left her to go back to his ex-girlfriend. Cristina caught her first fiance cheating with a colleague on a business trip. Melissa wondered for years if she’d ever find a serious boyfriend.
I want to graph it — to plot, somehow, the break-ups and first kisses, the proposals and hysterics, the nights we drove up and down PCH for hours, consoling or congratulating one another. I see our love lives as multi-colored sine curves, intersecting and embracing. Their lines have terminal points now. I want to solve for mine.
