I’m Nursing this One

I was going to go to a party this week-end, tagging along with Nurse Betty again, but I got a cryptic message from her on Friday saying that “the shit hit the fan” with her boyfriend, and they broke up.

My first reaction was shock. Though I’ve wanted her for a long time, ever since I first met here, really, it seems unreal somehow. As long as I’ve known her, she and this handsome dude, (whom I’d never actually met, and now presumably never will), had always belonged to each other. But I suppose I should have seen the signs, and so too should she.

In fact, I did see a few signs, but I figured I was only seeing what I wanted to see. It’s funny how we often do that. I thought it was odd that he spent so much time away from her. She said it was work, and perhaps there was a degree of truth to that, but still, something seemed off.

In one note I published on facebook, under my real identity, I described a woman whom I desperately wanted to know I was alive. Actually, it was Make-up Girl, in case it matters. Nurse Betty read it, and commented on my phrase “eyes with burning sharp intelligence behind them” and she said:

“I wish he would say things like that to me.”

We all need people to see these things to us. And though I couldn’t say it tactfully to her, that’s how I’ve always felt about Nurse Betty too. But she wanted her boyfriend to say that to her, not me. And I suppose that’s what I really wanted too.

To be honest, I’ve been trying to ignore my crush on her, and I think it’s been working. Maybe not, but right now, I’ve got my eyes on someone else – the subject of the last two poems. No, scratch that. I also wrote that thy-touching poem since. The subject of “Bright-Eyes’ Haiku” and “A Paradox Unclear” is my current crush. Perhaps there’s no reality behind this crush, as I had hoped to get her to join a study group for this week-end, just to get to talk to her a little more, not to mention share with her some really terrific notes on the English Renaissance. But I guess this week-end, nobody gets what they want.

Now my heart is filled with angst, not knowing what to say to either of these women. Bright Eyes is cute, but I need to get to know her better first. I *think* there could be something there, but until I can get more than 45 second spurts to talk to her, I can do naught. But Nurse Betty, I know very well, and she’s actually one of the few people I really feel I connect with. There are so many things about her. Maybe it’s that she reminds me of N/A, or maybe it’s that she likes those stupid facebook pass-it-on surveys as much as I do, but whatever it about her, she’s always on mind. I don’t know what to do about her, because it seems tacky to tell her now, while the corpse of her old relationship is still warm. I tried to send her a message to comfort her yesterday, but somehow, the right words never came.

I suppose if I had to choose between them, (he says, as if his black heart had a chance with either of them anyway), then I don’t know who I would choose. When Bright Eyes is away, I never think of her, but every time she is near, and we talk, I am filled with excitement. But this feeling is present whether Nurse Betty is or not.