The Awkwardness of Bill Hayden
Photograph by Natalie Silver
By Jenn Ashton
On my last birthday, Bill woke up early (for him) and took the recycling out for me. But he did not ever say “Happy Birthday” to me. Rather, some hours later he said, “I guess it's the Birthday Girl today?”
There is never a hug or a kiss. Or, well, sometimes there’s a very awkward hug, but never a kiss.
Never a kiss.
Once we got really drunk on tequila shots and we kissed, but then I threw up and we never kissed again.
I tried to replicate the drunkenness but to no avail until later years when we both stopped drinking and I stopped trying. That door had closed.
New Year’s Eve, another famous kissing night, is even worse. We sit stiffly on the couch watching a movie and sometimes mumble “Happy New Year” to each other once we are in bed, but mostly we complain about the fireworks and sit hugging the scared dogs, waiting for it to end, because the dogs refuse to go outside for their evening toilet until it's quiet.
Since the beginning of my youth, I've liked kissing. I've been with some really great kissers, but in the end it doesn't really matter, even though for years I took it personally. I couldn't understand why somebody who would want to be with me who didn't want to kiss me or like, you know, touch me.
But then I realized that it was very much not about me, and when I knew that, everything else sort of fell into place, like so many things being juggled in the air that finally bowed to gravity. Plonk. And I felt solid on the ground.
We have never said “I love you” either, another famous modernity. I know in his mind he repeats "The cavemen didn’t say, I love you.” And it's ok, it's not something I need to hear.
Once I was sitting in my office and a co-worker was telling a story about her husband and she said,
“And then he kissed me on the cheek, he never kisses me, we never kiss.” I could not believe it and I probably said something like,
“Never kissed? How weird.” And now I am ashamed that I said whatever it was because that is my life now too.
I think back on that for balance to know that it's not just me and that sometimes “Love language is in the act of service” as one of my students says, and that is exactly what I have.
I have pastries show up on rainy days and back rubs every night. I have surprise Christmas gifts and gallantry and Bill who is a gentleman. I have a man who would bring a Christmas tree home before he went to the hospital for a collapsed lung and so on.
Sometimes I do need to re-school myself, and by that, I mean readjust my expectations, because some days I just feel like I need somebody to wrap their arms around me and feel the warmth of that. But that feeling is fleeting, and my life has shown me that a hug is not something to be relied on, it means nothing and it is not indicative of any sort of promise. People who hug you may not love you and that can just be confusing.
So I’m glad we're clear, and after all these years I finally let my anxiety go, when I know in my heart that Bill is just one of those special people that shows love in a different way. I don't need to look at why. It just makes things awkward.
Jenn Ashton is an Award-winning author and visual artist living in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. She is currently completing a book about the history of her First Nations family in Vancouver and is a Teaching Assistant in The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University, where she is helping others learn how to tell their stories. You can find her works at: www.JenniferAshton.ca.
