Ordinarily Happy

The funny thing about Yue is that the hour still ends.

After everything we've talked about over the years, everything I've wondered, projected, misunderstood, remembered and occasionally turned into a fucking archaeological dig, the clock still does the most emotionally intelligent thing in the room.

Time's up, mate.

Go home.

I saw her again today.

It had been a while, but the rhythm came back quickly. The teasing. The stories. That strange familiarity you get with somebody you don't see often enough to call part of your everyday life, but know well enough that you don't have to start from the beginning.

There was no big reunion.

No swelling soundtrack.

No moment where she looked into my eyes and revealed that she'd secretly been waiting for me while a violinist appeared from behind the massage table.

Thank Christ.

We just talked.

And somewhere during that ordinary conversation I realised how much had changed since the first time I met Mimi.

That was her name then.

Mimi.

I met her at White Orchid in western Sydney during one of those periods of my life where everything looked more stable from the outside than it felt from inside my own head.

My relationship was breaking apart.

I was back visiting massage shops.

And if you've read enough of me by now, you'll know those two sentences have historically enjoyed each other's company.

Mimi was different, although I'm careful with that word now.

Men have done some magnificent creative writing with the sentence, She's different with me.

Sometimes she probably was.

Sometimes I was probably just horny.

Both things can be true.

What I remember most about those early visits wasn't actually the sex.

It was the ease.

She spoke good English. She was funny. She didn't seem desperate to fill every silence. We could talk without me feeling like I had to manage the room.

At the time, I thought that meant chemistry.

Looking back, I think part of it was simpler.

My life was noisy.

She wasn't.

That can feel a lot like love when you haven't slept properly in years.

Then one day Mimi came to my place.

No uniform. No work presentation.

Trackies. Sneakers. Hair pulled back. Woolies bag.

Just a woman who'd finished work.

She told me Mimi wasn't her real name.

Her name was Yue.

I tried to pronounce it.

She corrected me.

I butchered it again.

She laughed.

For a man who spent half his life looking for hidden meaning, naturally I made a meal out of this too.

She'd given me her real name.

Access.

I was getting behind the curtain.

Except I don't think about it that way anymore.

Mimi wasn't fake.

Yue wasn't the "real woman" waiting underneath to be rescued from her alter ego.

Mimi had a job to do.

She read men. Managed boundaries. Negotiated. Watched the room. Protected herself.

Yue decided when she wanted to put the armour down.

Same woman.

Different access.

Over time, the strangest part of our relationship developed after the part I'd originally paid for was finished.

We talked.

Sometimes for ages.

I told her about my breakup. My dreams. My writing. My childhood. All the shit I was beginning to pull apart while trying to understand why a grown man could be reasonably intelligent in most areas of life and still become a complete fucking idiot when somebody he loved started walking away.

Yue listened.

She didn't therapise me.

Didn't tell me I was brave.

Didn't give me seven steps to healing my inner child.

She'd just listen, then occasionally drop one sentence that made the previous forty minutes of my analysis look like unnecessary paperwork.

Once she told me, basically, that I spent too much of my life trying to please other people instead of being myself.

Cheers, Yue.

Could've saved me a fortune.

That's why I eventually thought of her as the Dream Listener.

Not because she understood every dream.

Because she gave them somewhere to land.

One conversation stayed with me more than most.

She told me about her son.

When he was younger, he'd asked whether she would still love him if he didn't get good marks at school.

Of course she would.

She wanted him educated because education gave him choices. His marks weren't the entrance exam for his mother's love.

That landed somewhere uncomfortable in me.

I'd spent a lot of my life behaving as if love had KPIs.

Be useful.

Be funny.

Provide.

Fix things.

Understand people.

Earn money.

Say the right thing.

Become difficult to leave.

Then maybe you get to stay.

Her son had asked the question directly.

If I stop performing, do I still get loved?

And his mother had said yes.

Yue told me what she wanted for him.

Not extraordinary success.

Not some genius child she could parade around.

She wanted him to be ordinarily happy.

I haven't forgotten that.

Maybe because ordinary happiness sounded almost offensive to the younger version of me.

Ordinary?

Fuck that.

I wanted extraordinary.

Extraordinary love.

Extraordinary chemistry.

Extraordinary reconciliation.

Extraordinary sex.

Extraordinary pain.

Even my disasters needed production value.

Something always had to be happening.

Yue seemed to understand another way of living.

She once planned a trip to Queenstown with her son. They got to the airport and discovered a visa problem.

Old me could've turned that into a three-act tragedy before reaching the car park.

Yue changed the destination.

Cairns?

Yep.

Winter clothes out.

Summer clothes in.

Off they went.

Another time she wanted to see The Phantom of the Opera on Sydney Harbour.

Her son didn't want to go.

So she went alone.

There's something almost embarrassingly simple about that.

Want to see something?

Go see it.

Plan breaks?

Change the plan.

Nobody wants to come?

Go anyway.

No committee meeting required.

No referendum on whether you're loved.

Just live your fucking life.

Of course, I still complicated Yue.

At some point I asked the question men ask when they want reassurance without admitting they're asking for reassurance.

Was she like this with everybody?

She pushed back.

She wasn't the same with everyone.

Neither was I.

"It's mutual," she said.

Wonderful.

Give a recovering overthinker the word mutual and watch him build a fucking condominium on it.

Mutual what?

Attraction?

Comfort?

Sexual chemistry?

Affection?

Familiarity?

Good service?

Something genuine inside something commercial?

I don't know.

That's the answer I couldn't tolerate back then.

It's also the only answer I'm comfortable giving now.

Money changed hands.

That matters.

We also laughed, talked, remembered things about each other and shared pieces of our lives.

That matters too.

One fact doesn't magically cancel the other.

Maybe the mistake was thinking I needed a verdict.

I used to believe uncertainty was a problem you solved by getting closer.

Ask another question.

Send another message.

Find another clue.

Get access to another room.

Eventually there would be nowhere left for ambiguity to hide.

Except people aren't houses.

There isn't always another door you're entitled to open.

Over the years Yue became important to me partly because our relationship refused to become the thing I once would have tried to turn it into.

Months could pass.

I'd see her again.

She'd remember something stupid I'd said.

I'd remember her nine-headed bird story from back home.

We'd laugh.

We'd talk about her son, travel, property, life, whatever ridiculous subject wandered into the room.

Then the hour would finish.

And I'd leave.

That sounds like nothing.

For me, it wasn't.

Because there was a time when warmth immediately created a question.

What does this mean?

Then another.

Does she miss me?

Then the dangerous one.

Could this become something?

Connection became evidence.

Evidence became possibility.

Possibility became attachment.

And attachment eventually became a job.

Today I didn't need to give myself the job.

I don't know exactly what Yue feels about me.

I don't need to downgrade the connection into "just business" to protect myself.

And I don't need to upgrade it into some secret love story to make myself feel special.

I know what happened in the room.

I know we were comfortable.

I know we laughed.

I know there is history there.

I know she matters to me.

The rest belongs to her.

Maybe that's what presence looks like when nobody is watching.

Not enlightenment.

Not detachment.

Not pretending you don't want things anymore.

Just being able to want something without immediately trying to own the outcome.

Yue once told me she wanted her son to be ordinarily happy.

I thought she was talking about him.

Maybe that's why the sentence took me years to understand.

Because today the hour finished.

Nothing extraordinary happened.

I went home.

And for once, that was enough.

Rico Holt  ·  ricoholt.com