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IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY. A Monday. One year shy of the big four-O. On my big day I got the most beautiful e-card from my Egyptian princess. What I liked most about it was that it was not at all sentimental, with flowers and hearts or cuddly animals that so many women find appealing but which are revolting to the male half of the human race. Instead, there was a tree from which leaves fell and in the background a string orchestra was playing something classical that I did not recognize. Words of poetry fell from the tree: Of all the friends in the world, I cherish you the most.
Once again my princess had shown her thoughtfulness toward me like no one else did. I asked God why Layla had to be living so many miles away from me. Surely she was good wife material. And then she wrote something that left me amazed: I will light a candle for you today and every time I think of you, I will send you wishes for your happiness, peace and prosperity.
Rie sent me a text message that simply said, “Happy Birthday.” Since that night when we had spoken at her gate, she had been cool towards me. Officially, we were still friends, but we had stopped hanging out and joking around. No amount of apologizing or trying to make up for hurting her could mend her heart that I had broken by suggesting that she might have been unfaithful to her husband, if only in her mind. She had even stopped walking with Trevor and was now walking with her father. I missed her but this was one of those things that only time could heal.
I took the day off from work and spent some time reflecting on my life. I usually did the reflecting on two occasions during the year: on New Year’s Eve, and on my birthday. I did not like to go from one year to the next without setting goals. I had to evaluate what I had accomplished and I wanted to plan where I was going.
As I looked at my life there was one thing I was sure of: I needed to make some changes. My life felt like old shoes that my feet had outgrown. An image of old potatoes left out in the rain to decay came to mind. I desperately needed a change.
As much as I had enjoyed the good relationship I had with my students over the years, in spite of how much I treated them like little brothers and sisters, in spite of how much they valued me, I still yearned for something permanent. I longed to have a family of my own.
I compared myself to the royal poinciana tree on the school compound as I pondered my relationship with my students. The tree was big and strong and provided shelter and a nice place to hang out with friends. The senior students usually occupied the benches under the tree, and spent all of their free time there: before the start of school, morning break, lunch break and after school. Some of them carved their names and the years of their enrolment at the school in the bark of the patient tree. And they never really imagined how different their school experience would have been without the tree. They took it for granted. Then they moved on and the next year, the other seniors continued the tradition of their predecessors.
Never once did I ever hear a graduate enquire about the tree. I never saw the alumni come back to visit the tree or to reminisce about the great times they had enjoyed in the shade of its branches. And I hated the image I had of myself as that tree since it represented solitude at the end of the day – the very thing I was afraid of for myself.
This year, I had to make a drastic change. What was promising was the fact that my work as a freelance filmmaker was being talked about. I was getting kudos. I was on my way to somewhere. My half-hour documentary on HIV/AIDS in my country was aired several times on national television and I was getting writing jobs with production companies. I needed something to tip the scales for me to plunge into that world without a safety net. I had taught high school for more than a decade and I was happy with the free time a school day offered me. Working with a production company would definitely consume all of my free time. So I was told anyway.
I had a truly decadent breakfast of chicken sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies and strawberry ice-cream. It was going to be a day of celebration and I allowed myself the luxury of eating something I liked, not being careful to let sound judgment and reason dictate just this once.
Later, I checked my e-mail and was surprised at the number of people who had remembered my birthday – old friends, from as far back as high school, and former students. My current students called me at times I thought they should have been in classes. Our school had a zero tolerance policy when it came to the use of cell phones by students during school hours and should they be caught, I would disavow any knowledge of the said call.
After responding to e-mails and completing a proposal for yet another documentary on HIV/AIDS, this time exclusively among young people, I went to work on my biceps, back, traps and shoulders. I showered while listening to the newest Switchfoot CD I had bought myself and then went to have lunch with one of my past students who needed to talk to me about getting some direction in his life. I considered it an irony – the blind leading the blind.
I had agreed to meet him for it seemed right to do something selfless on my birthday. I bought lunch, I dispensed the advice and he did not even know that it was my birthday.
After that I rushed off to the multiplex to meet an old friend from my university days who was home on vacation from her humanitarian work in India. We saw a romantic comedy which, surprisingly, I enjoyed. It helped that one of the co-stars was gorgeous and I felt sure that if I met women like those in the course of an ordinary day, I would have been a very happily married man.
I visited my mother as she had prepared dinner; my sisters were at home for the little celebration. I think that my family relationship improved greatly after I moved out. We talked more – like adults – with respect for each other. Before I moved out, Mom’s manner had been condescending, as if I were a little child. Now she sought my advice and I related with her like I did with my older female friends or with the parents of my friends.
After dinner we lingered at the table and by eight o’clock I made my way home and retrieved all the voice messages with wishes for a special birthday from friends who promised to call me later in the week to take me out. But I felt fulfilled and had no desire to prolong the celebration as if I were back in my teenage years.
As I turned in that night, a tinge of sadness came over me: I was still single. What was worse was that I had not yet enjoyed the sexual pleasures I had heard even my students talk about.
Was that childhood promise I had made to myself to keep my underwear on until marriage still valid? It had been prompted by fear, a child’s fear, but I was an adult now. I knew things. I knew how to protect myself from sexually transmitted diseases. I knew how to keep from impregnating a woman. And if, by chance, I did father a child, I was well off enough to take care of it.
Sometime over the next year, I was going to have sex.
The only problem I foresaw was: with whom? My experience had taught me that I could not maintain an erection if I was not attracted to the person.
So who was I attracted to now?
And which of them would be willing to have sex with me?
Just sex.
No relationship.
How did I go about finding out?
It seemed to me that women usually confused sex and relationship.
The other alternative was having anonymous sex. Meet a perfect stranger and hook up for a one-night stand. Those were my options and neither appealed to me. Of course there was the remote possibility of my finding someone that I would fall in love with.
However it happened, I was not going to become a forty-year-old virgin.
