I Miss You, Uncle Robert

Coming back to Pittsburgh remains a bittersweet experience for me. It's where I received my first kiss, got drunk for the first time, fell in love and out of love and into love and out of love and into love again. It seems as though every corner of every street is imbued with some hint of a memory, a scent you can't quite place. No matter when I arrive, I think it will always be home for me now.

Before I left for Pittsburgh on Friday, I knew two things were inevitable about my visit.

1. I was going to a wedding reception.

2. I would have to talk at length about my ex-fiancee.

There was also an outside possibility of The Ex attending said wedding reception, but I didn't think it was likely somehow, even though I felt he had more claim to the friendship of the bride and groom than I did. (He would be invited to their parties, and I would tag along, bearing macaroons.)

I didn't care if he came or not, honestly--except that, had I known he would be attending, I would have worked yet harder to look absolutely fabulous.

As it was, he was a no-show. This is a shame, since he would have really enjoyed the frosting on the cupcakes.

After a long afternoon rolling around on K.'s floor, coating myself in dust while helping her pack her belongings and move in with her charming boyfriend, I put on my favorite dress and maid-of-honor heels (from my younger sister's wedding), and drove off. I valet-parked my car for the very first time, and felt like, at the very least, a C-list celebrity.

When I got to the reception, no one had arrived yet. I should have learned this lesson long ago from countless MFA parties: no one in Pittsburgh is ever quite on time. But soon, everyone began to trickle in, and the storytelling began. I think that my Ex is under the impression that I am vindictive and cruel, waiting to lash out and eviscerate him, that I am secretly concocting screenplays that will portray him in the worst possible light. It's just not true. I'm over it--somehow, quickly, miraculously.

But I did have to change my thinking a little in Pittsburgh about the character of my loss. In my own grief, it hadn't occurred to me that I wasn't alone in mourning the man I had intended to love for my entire life. I wasn't the only one who had to watch his warmth dwindle and vanish, wasn't the only one unsure whether I should try to embrace him or not. In talking about him, I discovered that I am not alone in missing the person that he once was.

I still have a few tears to shed for him.

I don't know whether he will regret losing me for the rest of his life, as one of our mutual friends posited. I am glad that he is communicating with the people who care about him; learning that brought me a little bit of ease, because I knew I couldn't have born having no one to rely on in the past month and a half.

A month and a half later, and there I am, straightening Uncle Robert's tie and hearing, in the back of my head, as an echo, The Ex mocking me for my "old man fetish." A month and a half later, and I'm dancing badly among the people I love and left behind in my old city, Prince is singing, and everything just might be right in the world, if only in this place, if only for a moment.

And yes, back in Virginia, I'm doing exactly what I do worst/best--holding out my messy heart to see if he might like it. He might, I think. At least, he said so. I would afraid if he weren't showing me a messy heart of his own.

More later on exhibitionist love tactics and how to make candles fly.