Alyssa Hursh - The Date Jar

 

 

My boyfriend started telling me bedtime stories, because my insomnia had gotten so bad that I wouldn't even try to fall asleep without having something to listen to. He told one story in particular that I really loved, the story of a sloth, a little girl sloth, who did not have insomnia. 

 

Every night, her friends took her on a magic carpet ride all across the world. But every night, she was too sleepy to enjoy the sights. They took her to Egypt, and she slept through the pyramids. They took her to Peru, and she slept through Machu Picchu. Every night, he would look at me and he would say, “Where to?” I would give him a list of destinations, Morocco, Antigua, Antarctica. He would describe the sights, and I would sleep right through it. If there was an end to that story. I never heard it once.

 

We've been dating for a while and things were going really well. I knew almost from the first date that he was the one. Very handsome, very well dressed, salt and pepper hair. He showed up at my house so often with flowers that I almost got sick of it. We had this really fun and flirtatious dynamic together, even a couple years in. 

 

And so, one morning, we were in bed, just wasting the day. I looked at him, and I said, “Wait here.” I came back with a court mason jar and a stack of index cards. I handed him those index cards, and I said, “Write a date idea on every one of those cards. We're going to make a date jar.”

 

The thought was that if we were ever too stuck in a routine or we wanted an adventure, but we didn't know what, we would pull an idea out of that jar and we would do whatever it said. We decided that literally anything counted as a date idea. We also agreed that we wouldn't tell each other what we were writing down. We filled the whole jar. 

 

We did a lot of hiking together. When I hiked with him, I liked to ask him questions. Questions about how he was doing, about how we were doing. And one day, I asked him if there was anything that was missing for him with us, if there was anything that he needed and he wasn't getting. And he said, “No, no” He said, “Well, actually, there is one thing. I wish that we watched more television together.” [audience laughter]

 

Now, I am accommodating, and that is a pretty easy request to accommodate. And so, a couple weeks later, we were watching TV before bed. And the episode ended. And that Netflix screen came up, the one that says, “Are you still watching?” I looked at him, and I said, “Are we still watching?” And he said, “Nothing.” I said, “Do you want to watch another episode?” He said, “Nothing.” I said, “What is going on?” And he said, “I think I need to move to Chicago.” 

 

Now that almost made sense. He had a lot of friends in Chicago. He traveled there really regularly to visit them. But he knew I didn't want to move to Chicago. My friends, my family, my career, my whole life was in the Pacific Northwest. I also got the impression that he wasn't inviting me to come with. But I said, “If you think you need to move to Chicago, then we need to get you there on a trial. Could send you there for four months, spend the summer, see what you think and then we'll figure it out.” 

 

He fell asleep first that night, he fell asleep without telling me a story and he fell asleep with a smile on his face, this smile of relief. He slept with that smile the whole night, which I know because I did not sleep. I tossed and I turned looking at him and then looking at my nightstand and sitting on my nightstand that date jar full of adventures that we hadn't gone on. But the next morning, we got up and I got to work helping him make plans. 

 

I took photographs of his house and wrote the posting to sublet it on Craigslist. I coached him on talking to his boss about working remotely. I started planning him a going away party. I wanted him to know that he had my unconditional support, no matter what that meant for us, but I wanted that support to be the reason that he came back home to me. 

 

We decided that we wouldn't talk to each other during the summer, because I knew that I couldn't go with him. I knew that I couldn't give up the life that I had built for myself to follow him there. I wanted him to know what it would be like, if he actually left me. So, we decided that we would have one phone call a month while he was gone. It took about six weeks to get the plans together. And in early May, I took him to the airport and dropped him off and I said, “Have a good summer.” 

 

But during the time that I was planning, his good summer, I was also planning a good summer of my own. See, I had that jar of date ideas. I knew that if he didn't come home to me, I didn't want to get stuck with it. I wanted to stay busy. I wanted to spend that time with my friends. I wanted to have stuff to do. I knew that even though we weren't going to be in communication with each other, that he was still going to creep on my social media profiles. [audience laughter] I wanted him to see what I was doing and I wanted him to feel like he was missing out. [audience laughter] And so, the day he left, I sent an email to 40 of my closest friends and I said– [audience laughter] I said, “I'm going to need your help.” There are 31 dates in the jar, and I have 16 weeks to do every single one. My best friend, Jen, took the first date. We went swimming in the Columbia River. It was May, so it was cold. And the Columbia is not a swimmable river. [audience laughter]

 

I wrote that date idea. And technically, the card said, “Get your head wet in the Columbia.” And technically, we did. Date two, my friend, Hoyt and I took a card game to the bar, where Hoyt was dating the bartender. We tapped two strangers on the shoulder and we asked them to play with us. I remember being so nervous about it. I remember telling them that I was on a scavenger hunt. [audience laughter] They said, “Yes.” We played the game. We sat around telling stories, just shooting the shit. It was a really nice night. Date four, Ellie. A game of horse at the basketball courts in our neighborhood that ended in so much laughter, I almost died from not being able to breathe. Every single one of these dates, I thought about him, especially the dates that he had written. But I was busy and I was having fun. 

 

Date seven, Katie and I made strawberry ice cream from scratch. 11, Theresa took me to Jamba Juice. 12, Gillian and I climbed trees in the park. At that point, we'd had one phone call, he and I. And things were going really well. He'd found a place to live. He'd found a desk in a coworking space. He bought a bicycle, and he was using it to get to know the city. 

 

He didn't ask me about the dates that I was going on, but I know that he knew. 15, Shannon, The top of Rocky Butte at sunset with a picture-perfect view of Portland's three volcanoes. We were wearing sparkly capes that I had borrowed from my three- and five-year-old neighbors. Again, my date idea. [audience laughter] 

 

16, David invited a bunch of his friends over cooked dinner. They sat in absolute stillness, listening to me tell all of the stories of the dates I'd been on so far. And then, we played Pictionary. That was the date. And then, they took me out for ice cream on tandem bicycles. By that point, we were halfway through the summer. It was July, and it was time for our second phone call. I remember the day exactly. I remember being so nervous, but so excited to get to hear his voice. 

 

And that evening, he called me. I was sitting on my front porch. He called me and he said, “Hi.” I said, “Hi.” He said, “I've made a decision. I'm breaking up with you.” I remember feeling like my stomach had fallen out of my body, or my body had fallen into a black hole. I remember thinking, “No.” I remember saying, “No.” [chuckles] I don't know how we got off that phone call. I remember getting into bed and just crying. 

 

It was a Wednesday. I had plane tickets for Friday to go to San Francisco to visit a couple friends and do a couple more dates. I almost canceled. I thought, “What the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this to myself?” But I kept those plans, and I'm so glad I did. 

 

That weekend, my friends passed me from one to the next, like I was a baton in a relay race. My old friend, Rob, picked me up from the airport. Date 17, we spent a defined period of time together in silence. [audience laughter] It's a weird date idea, right? But it was really good. We walked the entire length of the Golden Gate Park from the de Young Museum to the ocean without speaking to each other. When we got to the ocean, we took off our shoes, and we put our feet in the sand, and we sat down, and I put my head on his shoulder and I watched the tide go out. Rob handed me to Jesse, date 18. Jesse and I put together a pinhole camera, and then we went around the city taking panoramic pictures on 35-millimeter film. 

 

The first half of the dates had felt like I had something to prove to myself or something to prove to him. The second half of the dates felt like my friends had something to prove to me. You can imagine that I was not sleeping through the night. I felt like death. I wanted to cancel everything, but they wouldn't let me. 20, Laurel and I went to Astoria to see the shipwreck on the coast. 25, Kevin and I pretended to be newlyweds and went house hunting. [audience laughter] We argued about where we were going to put the nursery. [audience laughter]

 

30, Liz and I played putt-putt golf at the art museum. By then, it was September. At that point, he had moved home, and I had exactly one date left in that jar. It was the date that I had been saving for him. It was a date that I couldn't do with anybody else. 31, write down my bedtime story. So, I sent him an email and I said, “Will you do this date with me?” He said, “Yes.” 

 

He picked me up at my house. We drove out the Columbia River gorge to the Dog Mountain Trailhead. We hiked to the top, and we sat on the summit. He pulled out a notebook, and he looked at me and he said, “Where to?” We started writing down that story. I looked at him and I said, “You know, I actually don't know how this ends.” He said, “I've been telling you the ending, this whole time.” In the end, sloth wakes up as if the whole thing was just a dream. I looked at him and I said, “I don't like that ending. That's not my ending.” In my ending, there's always room for one more adventure. In my ending, there's always room for a sequel. In my ending, her friends keep showing up. 

 

We hiked back to the car. He drove me home. He dropped me off at my house. And that was it. It was over. You don't always get the ending that you wanted. But I did get a couple of things. I got rid of that date jar, and I had the summer I set out to have 31 dates in 16 weeks. It was a summer full of adventure, a summer full of friends who just kept showing up. Thank you.