The Discount Life - Step Three and a Half: Be in The Moment

I got the call at work the following Tuesday while I was illegally viewing clothingforless.com, a sight I had sworn off, given my Discount Life discovery, but could not help but take a peak at every now and then. There were some beautiful cashmere sweaters on there. Hold your judgment. The changing of habits is a process. One can’t be expected to become an angel overnight.

That hour, my boss was out of the office and our booking agent and marketing director were out to lunch. The quiet office was mine alone. The phone rang and a familiar number lit up the caller ID screen.

“Jack! Haven’t heard from you in a while. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Hey Chloe. Am I interrupting anything? I know you’re at work.” I turned my head from left to right, slowly assessing the answer to his question. No bosses, no work & Get Some Manners opened to page 25. “I have a minute. What’s going on?”

Jack always had an air of coolness about him. He was polished, well spoken and thoughtful in the sense that he appraised all outcomes before saying anything out loud. But today, the Jack I had come to admire for his consistent display of refinement & culture, let it all slip out like he had suddenly developed Turrets. “I want to ask Mel to marry me. But she came home from your meeting on Sunday and ruined the plans I had with some talk I don’t understand. I need your help.”

My response was absolute silence. I was in shock. Mel had indicated that she and Jack had discussed marriage as a possibility anon. But the idea that it was about to happen sent me into a state of both elation and distress. Of course I wanted Mel to marry Jack. Their matrimony might be the most authentic union ever to exist in my life. Happiness for them was the not the issue. My distress arose at the thought that up until last week, I had been in a position to share this joy with Mel and now, post-Christian and mid self help book, I was in no position to mutually enjoy the fulfillment genuine relationships bring.

“Chloe? You there?” You must respond.

“I’m here. Sorry, you caught me off guard. But congratulations Jack! I’m so happy for you two.”

“Well there won’t be an ‘us two’ if you don’t help me get this figured out. I don’t know what to do now.”

“Wait, back up. What are you talking about?”

“She went to your meeting on Sunday and came back talking about this ‘all the way’ stuff. Some philosophical bull about getting to the truth and not settling for less. Which was fine. But then she started talking about us in the future and how she wanted our love to be like that and that she wanted me to be her partner and she knew that I was going to be great at this….I mean, what is that? Come on.”

I smiled privately to myself. Were all men afraid of really giving it their all? Even the ones who’ve earned the position amongst women as the paragon of male partners? “It sounds like she was complimenting you. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“My proposal sucks,” he said, desperately, the anguish in his voice comparable to a child who had forgotten to leave cookies out for Santa. My heart swooned. Jack wasn’t worried that he would lose Mel to the challenging ideals of the DLA. He was worrying himself over how he could join her. Restored. Jack was the man I’d given him credit for after all. “I want it straight from the horse’s mouth. How can I prove to Mel that I’m an All the Way kind of guy?”

“Jack, I think she already thinks of you as an All the Way kind of guy. ”

“You should have heard her. It scared me to think that her expectations have suddenly gotten so much bigger than before. And is it life in general or just the proposal that I should be worried about. They say the way a guy proposes says a lot about how much he loves her. I don’t want to fuck this up. What should I do? Fireworks, rent out a hotel, fly her to Paris. How big does it have to get, to be all the way?” His frantic monologue touched my heart. I wondered, briefly, if Stanley would spend this much time worrying about how he would propose to me. My intuition said no. He would pop a ring in a box and hand it over like a beer he’d gotten out of the fridge – here you go, thought you might like this.

“Jack, I think you’re misunderstanding what all the way means. It doesn’t mean it has to be over the top all the time. It means it has to be real. Genuine. That’s all.” He gruffed dissatisfaction at me. “Tell me how you were going to propose to her.”

“I was going to take her to a nice restaurant. Maybe a play or something first. Then dinner. Then I was going to have the waiter put the ring in a glass of champagne and when he brought it over I was going to get on my knee and tell her I loved her and propose.” I was processing the scene. My first thought was: common, although sweet. “What? You hate it, see. Tell me what to do Chloe.”

“It’s not bad Jack. Really. It’s very sweet and she would be perfectly happy with it.”

“But?”

“Buuuut…..,” I drew it out dramatically. “It’s a relatively common proposal. Lot’s of girls get it. And lots of girls get fireworks and lots of girls get Paris. And its not really what we want. I mean, don’t get me wrong – Paris is great- but it’s actually like using someone else’s idea. It only counts if you put some original thought in to it.”

“So, I’m off the hook with the fireworks?”

“Look, the secret is, all girls want to know that you have thought them through one hundred percent. That’s the biggest, best thing you could ever do for her. A proposal shouldn’t just be a display. She knows you love her. She wants to know that you understand her at a level no else does.”

“And Paris doesn’t say that?”

“It can. It depends on how you do it. In Mel’s case, Paris itself does not say I’ve thought about you. That’s what a proposal should focus on. The tiny little things that make her- her. Not the fireworks.” I heard a small sigh of relief on the other end and realized I forgot one important thing, “and the ring. The ring is important. What kind of ring did you get?”

“It’s antique. I bought it from this vintage store she took me in once. She wanted to buy this pin for a friend, some orange thing with woman’s face on it, and I looked over and saw this ring and I thought that would be good for when I ask her to marry me. I really hadn’t been thinking about proposing but then I saw this ring. And after that, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I bought it.” I hate to be a downer here – the story is endearing and in the beginning, its retelling will bring her hours of sentimental nostalgia. But practicality says, ten years from now when the kids are puking and he’s late coming home from work…again, the story is going to matter much less then the way it looks.

“What does it look like?” His description, in typical Jack fashion, used every six syllable adjective in the dictionary and still managed to reduce the visual image of the ring to a piece of crinkled tin with a diamond in it. “Why don’t you just send me a picture of it.”

“I will. But you still haven’t helped me plan the proposal. I need you on this Chloe.”

“Jack, I’m not going to plan your proposal for you for two reasons. One: An all the way guy shows his love by doing the work himself. A good consultant doesn’t hurt but you have to put in your own sweat. And two: You love Mel so much, I know if you think about this you’ll do it perfectly. You can’t get too cheesy. Go rent a Meg Ryan movie and force yourself to watch it until the end. Just remember, any guy with money can do the big things. It all comes down to the small things - how much you think and the small things,” I stopped. “And the ring.”

“Can I pass it by you if I feel like I need to?”

“Of course. And, by the way, when are you planning this small but perfect proposal?”

“I was going to do it Thursday night. Should I wait?” Thursday was Mel and Jack’s date night until my cooking class had forced them to be flexible and make date night Wednesdays. But, in all sincerity, another evening alone, with Mr. Handsome, sounded far superior to sharing him with Mel. “You should do it.”

“Alright. I’ll call you later.” When we hung up I was filled to the brim. Where earlier I had felt such degradation toward the idea of watching my friend be truly loved in a way that I was not, now I felt excited by the notion that I had helped a genuine love grow stronger.

I was surprised, as well, that our DLA meeting had had such an effect on Mel. It was nothing to speak of, no grand epiphanies. In fact, the first official meeting of the DLA took place on the park bench where I first met Tucker. There were four people in attendance: myself, Mel, Tucker and Tucker’s sponsor from AA, Lizzie. “He asked me to sponsor him in this new organization he was trying out,” she’d said. “I figured, why not, right? You can always learn something about yourself.” Our meeting was less official than the sheriff in the Ronald McDonald gang. It had been more of a chat. I had yet to come up with a Step Four, given that the Step Three process of working on goals was so perpetual it hardly left room for more discovery, and in lieu of official business we sat for an hour and talked about the goals we’d set.

“My first goal is to find a real place to sleep,” Tucker had said. And my first instinct was to jump in and say he could stay with me. But Get Some Manners made it clear that rescuing people kept them from taking control of their own lives; people have to save themselves. Attempted savings only prolong their true recovery and your own self-sacrifice. Assess what it is to save someone versus what it is to help someone. Heeding the advice of my page shrink I said, “Why don’t you look into a shelter? There’s one a couple of blocks from here.”

“He’d have to stop drinking,” Lizzie said, throwing Tucker an expression that said we’ve discussed this a hundred times.

“Well, that’s a goal too. Find a place to sleep and stop drinking,” he said.

“Both good,” Mel added.

“Both good if you’re going to go all the way with them,” I said. “If you’re not going discount yourself, then you’re going to have to give in all the way. Be like Nike, just do it.”

“You have no idea what that takes little lady,” he said.

“You’re right. I don’t. But I know that every time you choose not to follow through, you choose to discount yourself. And before you were just you…”

“And me and AA,” Lizzie chimed in.

“Okay but now you’re you plus the DLA and AA. I think you’re running out of room for excuses.” He laughed and slapped my knee with his dirty hand.

“Alright. I’ll look into the shelter. No promises though.”

“The promises you make aren’t to us,” Mel said. “They’re to yourself. That’s the point of all this.” She raised her eyes to me as if to ask right? I nodded to her and smiled to myself. The core of it was all the same and, much like I had told Jack about the proposal, it was the small things that made it different. “Just be truthful with yourself Tucker,” I said. “Keep working on it. That’s all you can do.”

“True. True. And how about you?” he asked, “Do we have a step four yet?”

“It’s coming,” I said. “But no. It’s like once you set your goals and challenge yourself to really working on them, what step do you have after that? It could take years to finish these goals. Where do we go now?”

“Maybe you should try just being in the moment,” Lizzie said. “You’re processing right now. That’s a step in and of itself.”

“Yeah and 12 steps is a lot,” Mel said. “You might not need all 12 slots.”

“Or you might,” Lizzie retorted. “But this whole thing is a practice. It’s not a given. It’s a process. You’re willing to allow Tucker that. Allow yourself that.” I wanted to say but Tucker is a homeless alcoholic. He needs a bit more processing room than your average short sticker. But instead I said, “I’ll think about that.”

In the end, the DLA was like a therapy session for the latently self-observant. Four people on the road to a better life and when the closing hour descended and we’d stood to make our good byes, Lizzie said, “here” and handed me a miniature AA handbook. “I want you to have this. You might find it applicable, if you take out the alcoholic stuff.” I accepted, thanked her and put it directly at the bottom of my purse. The last thing I needed was for people to think I was going crazy and that I was an alcoholic. But having Lizzie there had sparked an idea: What if, like AA sponsors, we chose DLA partners? We closed the meeting by agreeing to meet three weeks later on the same park bench, at the same time, only we’d each bring another person.

As the week drew on, I intended to make my focus finding a DL partner but I found my attention drifting constantly to my cooking partner instead. Tuesday turned into Wednesday and I ran and played the violin. Wednesday turned into Thursday and I sat, impatiently through work, until finally it was time. I would be alone with Mr. Handsome …again, and Mel would have a ring on her finger. The anticipation of a great evening was almost more than I could bare.

In class we were making Eggplant Velouté and Roast Pork Loin with Cinnamon Apple Glaze. The eggplant we were asked to do alone, an instruction to which my body had a physical reaction. I wanted everything in this class to involve Mr. Handsome when possible. The pork we were told to complete together, to which my body reacted much more positively.

The first hour of class was a relative drag, made mildly better by the mischievous facial expressions tossed at me from Christian when he turned around to check on my progress.

“Don’t fall behind,” he said, “I want to get to that pork as soon as possible.” I feigned indifference and rolled my eyes. “Oh, bad mood?” he said, making a deeply exaggerated frowning face.

“No,” I said firmly. “I just have a lot on my mind and I’d like to get my eggplant finished, thank you very much.” My intention was to be curt, but my scoff could not belie my emotions. I was apprehensive to encourage him too much. I would lose my dignity if he thought I was that into him.  And what little I had left I intended to keep.

The clock ticked on and Alex announced we could take a quick break before beginning our pork. I debated whether or not I should go to the restroom; a moment missed with Christian was a moment I would lament. But he surprised me, leaned over my island and asked, “You want to get drinks with me after this? You seem like you’ve got some stuff to talk out.” How should I respond to this? Is it kindness? A man, interested in a woman’s thoughts because she seems bothered. Or is it mischief? A man ,interested in a woman, using her troubles as a vehicle for extra time together. My instinct said both and I felt my pheromones spike again. I unbuttoned the next button on my shirt to keep from overheating. Or so I told myself.

“Maybe coffee instead? I’m a bit of a light weight. You’d have to carry me home if we did drinks.” He raised his eyebrows and tipped his head as if to say I wouldn’t mind that, but responded with, “Coffee it is.”

I went to the bathroom, secure in the knowledge that I would have plenty more time with Mr. Handsome before the night was over. As I walked away from him I faught the sway of my hips and mentally acknowledged that I did not know what I was doing and that I had no exact plan but that I was, subsequently, in a state of processing. That small affirmation was a minor miracle and I said to myself, “Be in the moment” before I let my focus slowly drift into fantasy.

Step Four:  Awknowledge Your State of Processing

At the end of class I checked my phone. It had happened. Jack had proposed. A text message from Mel, followed by a lengthy voicemail detailing the goings on, confirmed that he had, indeed, done a perfect job on his proposal.......(next week:  a proposal, a date? and a higher power)