This Won't End Well

by Camille Pagán

I laughed even harder, which was truly a shame, because the woman’s mirror neurons kicked in and she started laughing, too.

almost every behavior and thought is soon revealed to be part of a pattern.

I think intelligence is mostly a construct made of curiosity, opportunity, and plain old hard work, sometimes it is the thought that counts.

“Not unhappy is not the same thing as being happy, you know.”

I’m not trying to upset you, and I’m certainly not saying you’re a pushover. But you are entirely too skilled at putting other people’s needs ahead of your own.”

It takes money to live, and I don’t have a trust fund to fall back on. (I know you’ve told me repeatedly that what’s yours is mine, but if I’ve learned anything from years of watching my mother check the mailbox for child support payments, it’s that a woman must have money of her own in order to feel at peace.)

Never again. Because come to find out, the bright side is blinding.

I decided it was better to skip a brief tutorial about the conditions in which sinkholes form, and instead impart upon Bess that groundhogs are solitary creatures. Their mating season, as my own has turned out to be, is quite brief. Then they return to their pleasant, self-sufficient existence. The young, I assured Bess, stay with their parents but a few months before setting off on their own. (On that count, groundhogs and I differ.)

While I would argue that the best way to stop worrying about wrinkles is to reject societal norms that dictate women should avoid signs of aging at all costs (while men with gray hair and laugh lines are considered sexy—what’s that about?), the fact remains that you’re 27 years old—i.e., a little young for crow’s-feet.

Aristotle said that nature abhors a vacuum. While there’s some debate as to the scientific validity of his statement, it certainly applies to my life.

But it could be worse.” “That could be said of every situation until the moment of one’s death. And possibly even after that, though I somehow doubt it.”

I lugged the Rogers’ vacuum back inside, locked the door behind me, and put a hand to my forehead as I wondered what on Galileo’s round earth came over me.

And at once I had a sudden (and admittedly ridiculous) need to show her that I was fine. Better than fine, really—as demonstrated by the fact that I would soon engage in that time-tested female bonding ritual of sipping fermented grape juice from a goblet while swapping confessions I would later regret or forget.

Maybe she’ll tell me she’s sorry and ask for the play-by-play like she used to. Or maybe she’ll tell me to heal my wounded heart with a piece of rhodochrosite, not stopping to ask herself how a mineral mined by small children in a third-world country could possibly have “good vibes.”

He grinned again and lifted his coffee cup to me. “Great minds think alike.” As it happens, most great minds think independently, and die long before the rest of the world comes around to their brilliance. “Great minds,” I said.

“People make mistakes. Sometimes you just need to stay hopeful and give it time.” He said something in Arabic, then added in English, “My mother always says that. It means, ‘What is coming is better than what has gone.’”

“What about intuition?” he said. “How often does your intuition fail you?” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Almost never.” “Almost never means sometimes,” I said. “Man, if you were any brighter, I’d need sunblock.”

“You don’t really believe that thing you said, do you?” “Which one?” “‘What is coming is better than what has gone.’” I guess I expected him to flash his dimples. Instead, he looked at me with an expression so raw that he might as well have been standing there naked. (I’m blushing as I write this. See what I mean about neural pathways? I’m not even attracted to him and yet here I am, having untoward thoughts.) “Of course I do,” he said. “Even if I’m wrong, I don’t want to go through life thinking the worst is yet to come.”

There are days, many in fact, when I remain convinced that women cannot win. We ask for equal pay and a seat at the table, and instead we’re handed control-top pantyhose and pink wine with cupcakes on the label.

Maybe she’s an heiress, or starred in some Disney show for tweens and is now sitting on a pterodactyl-sized nest egg.

“Oh, Annie,” she said. “How terrible for you. This isn’t your fault. You know that, right?” “I know I didn’t cause any of it to happen, but I feel like I was too optimistic. I think of myself as a realistic person, yet I was so busy believing life would stay on track that I missed major warning signs about how far off the rails it was all about to go,” I admitted.

Eleven—that pivotal point when impulse control develops, yet childhood dreams haven’t disappeared yet. I remember being eleven. I still wanted my father to come home.

For the first time, his sunny demeanor made some sense to me. Maybe optimism is the only thing standing between him and giving up on the daily slog of human existence.

“Why don’t you want to draw attention to yourself? Do you think that asking for attention will automatically lead to the wrong kind? Because if so, that’s not true. People make bad choices in spite of what you do—not because of it.”

The man can boast all he wants about his Berkeley dual MBA/PhD, but he skipped Common Sense 101.

Humans have had at least two hundred thousand years to settle into codependency—and that’s discounting the time our more primal ancestors spent getting us ready to mingle. Though that number may be but a drop in the bucket of the universe at large, it’s still breathtaking in scope. And yet I’ve been operating as though I—having leased space on planet Earth for a mere twenty-seven years—am somehow exempt from the behavioral inclinations my forebears fostered for millennia.

And yet I just wanted to enjoy being with Jon again. I didn’t want to think (which is nothing if not proof that too much time away from the sciences is softening my prefrontal cortex) or have the moment be ruined by some slip of the tongue on either of our parts.

The price of self-protection may, in fact, be higher than the cost of vulnerability.