the upper hand

why i care whether people i no longer speak to still think of me

there are a few things i’m extremely proud to be associated with in other people’s heads. blue moon is probably the biggest one.

when we were still friends, people who are no longer in my life would send me pictures of blue moon with “thinking about you” or “this reminded me of you.” one came from a guy i used to be friends with, who saw one at an event and sent me a picture. a few other friends told me i got them on the “blue moon wagon.” i’m still proud of that. i’m also still waiting for my commission check from the blue moon marketing team.

i didn’t give those messages much thought when they were arriving. i do now, mostly because i no longer speak to some of the people who sent them.

sometimes it was an airport or an airplane because i’m a massive avgeek. an ex friend once told me i cured her flight anxiety when we flew to nashville together. i’m pretty sure she just saw how drugged and scared i was and realized her fear wasn’t the worst one on the plane.

we also flew on a 737 max 8. back then it had a shaky reputation, which i knew all about before we got on. yes, i’m an avgeek and very scared of flying. weird, i know.

blue moon and airports i know because people told me. espresso martinis too. taylor swift is more me guessing. i have no way of checking now.

for me, it’s a bar we used to go to. there were two, actually. at one, i drank pumpkin beer with one friend. every wednesday, another friend and i took our laptops to another local spot for “coffee office,” then found happy hour somewhere else. i loved those wednesdays, and i can’t think about either bar without thinking about who i went there with.

dates are probably even bigger.

last year around this time i flew to colorado partially for work and to visit a friend. she lives in a small town about seven hours from denver, where she introduced me to her friends and the life she has there.

it was my first real trip after years of barely leaving new york and new jersey. it was full of nature, drinks, good conversations and meaningful memories. i was also facing my own fears and doubts while i was there. the flight was one of them, but clearly not the only one.

i was on an extremely necessary break with my girlfriend when i met someone there in passing. we talked and made vague plans, even though i had no idea what i would want once i came back to nyc.

once i was home, my girlfriend and i got back together. i kept texting the woman from colorado here and there.

my trust was a mess by then. i had told people things in private and found out later that other people knew. a few things i was afraid of had been used against me too. after a while i was suspicious of pretty much everybody. my girlfriend included.

my girlfriend and i were back together. i was the one still treating it like a maybe. when i stopped doing that, i stopped texting the woman from colorado. around then, my girlfriend found out. it blew up. of course it did.

this week i started going through the colorado pictures again. i thought about the woman i met there and what happened with my girlfriend. i thought about the friend i traveled with too. we don’t speak now. i don’t speak to the people she introduced me to either.

we stopped talking while i was having a really bad time. i did everything i could to look fine. they believed me. i got angry about it anyway.

and maybe the rent free thing is just something i tell myself. i know i thought about them when the colorado date came around. i have no idea if they thought about me. i’m choosing to believe they did.

i still believe it, though. i’m not imagining them sitting around missing me. i’m talking about a second. one of them sees a blue moon and thinks of me. an airport too. maybe an espresso martini. taylor swift is still a guess.