It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... Wait… what? No, no, no. Let’s start again: “It was the worst of times.”
It was springtime 2017 in Fort Collins, Colorado, the time of year I normally love. All the snow had washed away the sins of the past. Everything was fresh, clean, and green, ready for new beginnings. The birds were happily singing; the trees were waking up from their long winter slumber. Some were so overjoyed to see springtime that they erupted into vibrant celebrations of color and rich bouquets of flowers. A few got so excited they bloomed only their flowers and forgot to let their leaves see the sunshine. You could smell the air again, and the air was like a warm blanket after the cold winter.
But instead of feeling that vibrancy, I felt myself sinking. Eight years after the financial crisis, and I was still trying to get back on a sustainable path forward. My girlfriend had been living with me for almost two years. She was pretty, funny, sexy, gregarious, and could be unbelievably fun and interesting. She was an artist and worked out of my house, painting and getting ready for art shows. I was fascinated by her vision – she had fled from the Czech Republic before the fall of the Soviet Bloc and the Berlin Wall and told stories about the scary Santa in the Czech Republic. Krampus. It was a children’s nightmare version of Christmas. She had been a foot model and appeared in a short scene in a Czech movie.
But as we sat sipping a glass of wine, we were not celebrating who she was anymore, or who I should have been. We were past the fighting and the arguments, down to the logistics of her moving out. The need for terse discussion was over; trying to be cordial was the only thing left. We spoke about when she would move out, what she would take, and whether I should be there for it or not. I wanted to be there. She wanted me to go to work so “it would be easier for both of us,” but I knew that was a lie. I already knew about her new boyfriend, and I was guessing he would be the one doing the moving for her, but there was no purpose in bringing it up now. Fine, I would go to work, and she could move out on her own terms.
She claimed to have a photographic memory, but then would complain about how hard it really was to have to remember everything she had ever seen, even if she didn’t want to remember some things. The humble brags were one of her trademark moves, read: “It’s just so difficult being so exceptionally brilliant and gifted, sometimes it can be exhausting, but it’s just a part of who I am.”
We tried to change the subject and started talking about traveling – we both loved to travel. She discussed how she was going to schedule a trip to France, and yet she was so frustrated. “Do you realize it will take me two weeks to learn the French language?” She was so put off, the general idea was she is so brilliant it should only take one week, or 2 days.
Classic Anna. Her brilliance is unmatched.
The shocking thing at that moment was, I heard that exact sentence – word for word – from someone else. And I was equally annoyed with that person the last time. I heard those words, the tone, the self-aggrandizing, the blatant form of “I am better than you, I am smarter than you” – all those years ago. Even the same language, the same travel plans that triggered the need to claim the brilliance that may or may not exist in reality. Those were the exact words of my mother. And like an avalanche of ice and snow, suffocating you with its immense pressure and kinetic energy, I simply got swept away. I couldn’t breathe.