Just Call Me Alice

My love life is ruled by one emotion: fear. Usually this manifests as dread and cramping in my lower intestines, causing me sleep plagued by nightmares and days stormy with indigestion. This is a visceral prediction of a dating crash and burn. As soon as I get that “bad feeling” I know it’s about to hit the fan.

It was easy to be a romantic growing up in the wilds of Montana, all glorious in its rugged terrain and unpredictable weather. For much of my life, home was a single-wide, falling-down trailer house in the foothills overlooking the Boulder River. When the wind blew hard, as it often did, the windows rattled and the structure swayed back and forth. I thought for sure it would collapse around me.

When the temperature drops to nearly forty-below-zero our nose hairs freeze, and the world grinds to a halt as batteries and distributor caps seize. We trudge through feet of snow to play "Fox and Geese," bundled into the standard winter uniform of the west: packs, long johns, and full snow suits. We waddle back inside where our mothers wait with hot chocolate, and underneath all that gear we are drenched with sweat, faces flushed with cold and activity.

As the mountains thaw to spring, a wonderland of beauty awakens from the frost. Wild flowers, shooting stars, violets, and rose hips pepper the ground. Rivers run high, fish abound, and everything turns to green. The wildlife give birth, and each new creature blesses the world with its comical wobbly-kneed attempts at walking.

My best childhood friend and I chased geese down the riverbank. We rode sheep. We bridled up “dude” horses and took off bareback through fields behind their ranch. We were always aware that if one of us fell off we would be walking back.

While I might feel like Sleeping Beauty in the enchanted forest, truthfully I’m more like Alice, tumbling clumsily down the rabbit hole. Every chance at love and adventure brings the equally frightening possibility of having my head forcibly removed.

This fear is one with which I am unfamiliar. I suspect it is a side effect of caring about someone. If I didn’t care, it wouldn’t make me so sad that days go by while my text messages go unanswered, or that more and more I’m doing the initiating when it comes to phone calls. If I did not care, I would not believe or accept the apologies and promises that we’ll figure it out, and make it work, in time. I would not see beyond my own selfish desire to have him all to myself and understand that his priorities are right where they should be, even if I’m not at the top of them.

Yes, you may as well just call me Alice. Because I am definitely lost in a land full of wonder, struggling to keep my head.