So what happened between us?  I don’t think I know.  Okay.  So I know what happened.  Well – I know what I know.  She knows something entirely different.  What she knows.  But what really happened?  Who the hell knows that?  I’d love to have a sit down one day with “who the hell.”  Maybe he can shed some light on some stuff.  Confused?  Yeh, me too.

I won’t go in detail.  That, whatever it is, is between the two of us.  But here is what I think I know.  I got angry and said some things, she got angry and broke up with me.  That’s all anyone but “who the hell” needs to know.  

I’ve spoken with her a few times since it happened.  Needless to say, nothing was accomplished.  How could it be?  It was like Pee-Wee Herman meets Carol Channing.  I would say something that she didn’t understand.  She would say something I didn’t understand.  She would look at me and yell, “You just don’t get it!”  I would look at her with squinted eyes, wondering what the hell to say next but thinking to myself, “She just doesn’t get it!”  Even Johnny Carson wouldn’t be able to sort through the conversations we had.  And surely Fellini is rolling over in his grave with jealousy because he didn’t come up with this stuff.

I am not laughing here.  I find none of this funny.  We really should know better and try.  And when we fail, we should try some more.  It’s just that sometimes it seems that we are from different planets.  We are after all one man and one woman.  Frankly, I want to be on the same planet as she.  And I want to be there forever.  I have quite a journey ahead of me, but damn it, I want to arrive at my final destination soon.

Often our problems are that neither of us seems capable of letting go of our respective argumentative positions.  My Grandaddy Mangum was the best at handling things like this.  No matter how unreasonable the woman in his life seemed to him, he never argued with her.  He would always just rub his white hair and lower and shake his tired head as he left the room.  He always seemed to end up on the front porch alone and reading his Burlington Times News.  Two minutes into reading the front page, and the entire incident was history for him.  And for my grandmother, too.  Why didn’t they both pass this crap along to me?  I say to myself often these days, “Nanny! Grandaddy!  A little advice here would have been helpful!”

I’ve tried to be like Grandaddy Mangum.  He would do anything for the love of his life.  I’ve tried really hard the past few months to be like him in that regard anyway.  My problem is that I have a bit too much Joe Moon in me.  Joe was my dad.  And the Moons have a slightly different slant on things than do the Mangums. Pure “Moon” is this:  Someone pisses you off, even a loved one, and you pounce.  You don’t think.  You pounce and you point and shake fingers and you throw in a few cuss words along the way and you violently scratch the back of your head as you think of more angry words to sling about.  You stand your ground, and your world becomes centered again.  The difference between Joe and me?  Joe didn’t seem to worry much about the consequences.  And the Mangum in me keeps much of my Mooness inside me until the explosion is far worse than what it would be otherwise.  It’s one thing to explode without reason.  Like Joe. It’s something far different to reason and to think and to hold back and then ignite.

I’m not blaming my dad and grandparents here.  I screwed up.  Not them.  But I am growing weary of screwing up what I have with the woman who loves me.  Does she carry any blame for all this?  At this point I really don’t care.  I just want us to be able to center ourselves without the whole Moon thing getting in the way.  So that we can just love each other.

I may be way off base here.  Maybe the woman really doesn’t love me at all.  Sometimes, I guess, I am not all that loveable, especially when I’m scratching the back of my head.  And my ignorance of such things as love and relationships and reading signs and taking hints and truly understanding clearly apparent things is quite well documented.  I don’t think I’m off base.  But I am Pee-Wee Herman after all.

The point is, I guess, that often trying to understand each other is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.  I think what bugs us both is that we really want that damn peg to fit.  That’s not a bad thing really.  Being loved enough by someone who feels so strongly about making things fit is actually comforting.  But it sure as hell is aggravating as well.  To her.  And to me.  

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