Gemini Girl

Did I ever tell you about the time that I was almost killed?

Almost crushed to death?

Pinned under an 18-wheeler?

I was 20 years old and decided to go out one night with my sorority sisters to a mixer (IE where one fraternity and one sorority hang out for the night). It was supposed to be a wonderful night full of laughs, and smack talk about other greek life.

It didnt end that way.

We piled into a car and were supposed to be following someone Else’s car on the road since we didn’t have directions.

It was one of my sorority sisters car -that her parents had purchased for her. She had been driving for a while, but never on the highway.

This was her first time.

I rode shotgun.

I rode shotgun because I was the heaviest of the crew.

4 girls sat in the back seats.

She was in the left lane.

It was a Friday night.

She panicked.

She swerved uncontrollably into the 18 wheeler Fed Ex truck to our right.

The time seemed to be going in slow motion as we flew in the direction of the truck.

Many things race through your mind.

Is this the way I’m going to die?

Why was I so obsessed with that boy who didn’t love me?

You sort of get some sort of enlightenment when you know it’s all going to end. The meaning of life rushes into you.

And then the car stopped.

I opened my eyes.

I was alive.

The girls in the back found their way out of the car, but me and the driver were stunned.

I couldn’t move.

I was in shock.

A friend of ours who was in a car that was following us, jumped out of his car and ran like the wind to us. He pulled the driver out from her side of the car, and then proceeded to pull me out form the drivers side since the car door on my side was crushed.

They screamed for all of us to run.

We didn’t know if the car was going to set fire.

It smelled of gasoline.

I remember standing on the side of the road with my “sisters” as we all stood their in shock. The car was crushed. And yet, we were all alive.

How?

I remember screaming:

“How are we ALIVE?????????”

“HOW?”

I was hysterical.

A man on a motorcycle who was stuck in the traffic of it all, consoled me.

He hugged me.

I will never ever forget that.

The kindness of that man.

The kindness of the friend who pulled us out of the car.

As I walked to the ambulance, I remember having to pass the wreck.

My knees buckled and I fell to the floor.

I could have easily died.

The worst part of that wreck was on my side- technically I should have been gone.

But there I was, not a scratch on me.

I remember my hair being full of glass from the windshield.

Even my jean jacket pocket had shards of  glass in it.

When you go through something so life changing, you realize just how precious life truly is.

How it can be gone in a moment.

How at the end of the day, life’s mundane problems don’t mean jack.

They really don’t.

I try to remember this when I become upset that I am not where I should be financially.

I try to remember that when my kids wont stop screeching.

I try to remember that when my husband doesn’t throw out the garbage and my house stinks.

I try so hard, but sometimes I forget.

Why is it that it has to take being ((this close)) to meeting your maker in order to appreciate your life?

We all have one.

The one who your heart belonged to for so long, yet went unrequited.

Mine was, and will always be *Henry*.

When I was a Freshman in  college and unsure of what I wanted to major in, I decided to give Theater a go.

Since I was 3 years old, I proclaimed to the world that I was going to be an Actress.

Not “If” but “When”

I took a few classes and was asked by a senior to be in one of his student films.

 I was more than excited.

The film was about two college students who try to go on a date and hi-jinx ensue. I swear, I don’t even remember what it was about (and I was the lead). It was a silent film exercise so there was no dialogue. Cant blame me for not remembering.

Most of my scenes were set  in the cafeteria, and that is where I was to met the “director” and the rest of the crew.

After arriving on my first day on set, there he stood, a classmate of the director.

His name was *Henry* and he was there to help his fellow classmate with anything he needed. He was the star pupil and did what he could to help others.

In the few hours that we spent together, I learnt that besides for being adorable (and not in a conventional movie star sort of way) he was Swiss. He had the most dreamy french accent. He was an aspiring film maker and I was a sucker for artists.

Henry was  4 years older than me, and his brother and Parents all moved to Israel the summer prior. He was Jewish and brought up conservative (like me)! He even spoke fluent Hebrew.

 That was all I needed to hear.

I was already wondering what we were going to name our children.

I decided that I was not going to leave that night without exchanging numbers- and we did.

I ran home and called my best friend Franny and proclaimed “I have met the man that I am going to marry.”

Henry and I became fast friends.

The emphasis being on the word- FRIENDS.

He never tried anything romantic on me, and for a VERY long time I wondered whether or not he batted for another team. I mean, he never spoke of women .. or men for that matter.

I met Carlos, one of his good friends and I spilled my heart  out to him. I asked him what Henry’s deal was. He too was puzzled.  When my gay best friend met him, he said his Gaydar (which is totally almost 100% dead on) went off. I said that it wasn’t that Henry was gay, he was just European.

One day, Henry called me up and asked if I wouls help him. He was doing his student film and his actress backed out on him last minute. He wondered if I could replace her.

Anything for him I thought.

Anything.

So I agreed.

The shoot was filmed outside his home, and went on all night. He asked if I wanted to sleep over.

Y to the E to the S

“Sure” I said.

When he was shooting the other actor, I was upstairs in his apartment snooping.

What would I be able to find?

Other than some suspicious looking potato bread that was in his fridge, I went into his bedroom and found a stack of pictures.

Nothing incriminating either way.

Just then the phone rang.

Me: “Hello?”

Voice on line: “Hi, can I speak with Henry?”

Me: “He’s shooting his film downstairs, but should be up soon”

Voice on line: “OK, tell him that his girlfriend called”

And thus began my descent into darkness.

GIRLFRIEND?

What girlfriend is this?!?

We had been friends for almost a year and never a mention of a girlfriend.

At least he wasn’t gay, I thought.

Then suddenly, as if a curtain had been lifted from over my eyes- I noticed a photo on the wall.

HENRY AND HIS GIRLFRIEND.

Oh great.

Wonder-fucking-ful.

When I went back down, I let him know she called- but he was too busy working.

That night, after the shoot wrapped, we sat on his couch and drank some cocoa and talked for hours.

He told me about his girlfriend and how they were often on/off.

If he wasn’t going to  try anything then, he was never going to try anything.

And he didn’t.

And that was it.

For years I pined for him.

It was though he was blissfully unaware.

A part of me felt like he did like me, but was holding back.

Or maybe… he JUST WASN’T THAT INTO ME.

I mean, not everyone is going to feel for you the way you feel for them.

That’s just life.

I myself ended up finding someone who actually loved me.

Henry finished up his degree and moved to California.

Until this day, we speak every few months or so.

He is such a genuine person, and has become quite successful in Hollywood.

Love hasn’t been so kind to him, and a girlfriend who he adored ( a sometimes dancer on DWTS) left him when she found out he was sick and needed to go through months of treatment. 

 He is still undergoing treatments  and surgeries for his ongoing condition.

I hurt for him when he told me this.

He is a VERY good man.

I told him he needed to find someone who would love him and be with him through it all.

I truly hope he finds that special someone one day- just as I have found mine.

I am proud to call him a friend.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent*

Question: Do you ever think about “The one that got away” ?

Last month while at Blogher, I was fortunate enough to attend a panel where Anissa, Tanis and Izzymom   were speaking. It was about blogging identity. Two of the women have been open with their full names on their blogs. One remains anonymous.

When I first started my blog, It was for me.  No one was supposed to read it. I didn’t even think anyone would ever want to read it. I’m just another small blog in a sea of AMAZING HUGE POPULAR blogs. I was sure this was my baby. No one would read it.

Since the age of 7, I have written in journals. I swear, I should post some of the things I wrote back then- because THEY ARE so funny.

 Once I became an adult, I was scared. I was worried that one day, my husband or someone else would come upon my words, my secret thoughts.

 Thoughts I didn’t want anyone to know.

The sentences and words that I strung together were a way for me to work out how I felt. I didn’t want an invasion into my soul. I didn’t want documented proof.

So I stopped writing.

And then I heard about something called a blog.

It was a time when I REALLY needed to sort out how I felt.

I was battling infertility.

I needed to write, to vent.

I was 25 and infertile.

No one else my age who I knew IRL was infertile.

But there I was, one of the lucky few who was in “the club”.

The club no one wants to be a member in.

Believe me.

I was worried someone I knew might stumble onto my blog one day, so I chose a moniker.

A name to hide behind if you will.

And then the blog took on a mind of its own, and people came by to see how I was doing.

People came by to offer support and encouragement- when I needed it the most.

And although I do not post my full name or my husband’s name, I do post my children’s names.

I’m ok with that.

Many of my blog friends, have turned into my real friends. They know what my name is, where I live, and where I work. They know everything except my social security number.

When my husband and I went to LA this past January and I told him we were going to meet Heather, Mike & Maddie : he thought I was crazy. “You don’t know these people” he said to me.

But I did.

At one point when we were all on the Santa Monica pier, Heather and Mike went on a search for Diet Coke (of course) and left Maddie with my husband and I. He just didn’t get how they could trust us with their baby (with their golden child). By the end of the trip, he “got it”.

I write about my family and my fucked up childhood. I write about how I wish I was more appreciated at work, and how I am not living up to my full potential.

My friends know I have a blog, but don’t know the name or anything else for that matter.

One of my best friend’s (who knows about the blog but never checked it) was on my blog for the first time the other day (he got the name via his boyfriend who is my twitter friend), and he called me to say that I post a lot of pictures of my girls.. and maybe that just wasn’t a good idea.

I know there are some sickos out there.

But I am living under the assumption that 99% of the people that come to my blog or read my words care for me in some way and are invested in my life and the lives of my children. These are people that were there for me through IVF, through hospital bed rest, throughout their premature births and NICU stay.

Why should I hide their beautiful little faces from all of their “Virtual Aunts & Uncles” ?

In retrospect, I maybe should have given them “fake” names, but what’s done is done.

My brother googled my first name and the girls names a few months ago, and my blog came up.

My nightmare fulfilled.

I started having to take down posts.

Why would I need to do that in my personal space?

I did it because I wrote about him, how I suspect he has Asperger’s Syndrome- even though he has never been diagnosed (we went to private school and people were unaware in the 80′s about Autism and such). I wrote about how his AS effects out relationship- and my (somewhat) acceptance that I will never have a normal relationship with my only sibling.

That’s why I don’t plaster my full name or too many intricate details about my life.

 If I did, and was public about it- I wouldn’t be able to write how I feel.

And that to me is being untrue to myself.

It stifles my soul.

I wish I had the balls to be like Eden Riley… a woman who slashes her wrists  and bleeds all over the pages of her blog.

She went by the name “Topcat” for a few years, but said fuck it and stopped hiding behind it.

She was now Eden.

I still cant do that..

I don’t know if I ever can.

Does that make me a sham?

I just want to be able to be free, and open… something that I wouldn’t be able to be if I was to come out from behind the facade.

Do you remain anonymous on your blog, or are you loud and proud about it? If so, why do you choose to do so?