secret boyfriends and mexican coke.

Some weeks ago, my Secret Boyfriend presented me with a bottle of Mexican Coke. That's one of the perks of relationships; when you find yourself with an inconvenient abundance of something, like say banana bread or valentines or something, you give it to your significant other and suddenly your unwanted bounty becomes a Gift representative of the Cornucopia of Your Affections laden with all this Meaning undoubtedly showing your s.o. that you are so much more than fussy and that your vocabulary goes so much deeper than the usual endless stream of profanity and bitching-- with a Gift, you speak The Language of... well, you get it because this is how it is. So it was with the Mexican Coke, which I of course stored in the fridge for a special occasion.

Time passes, and of course with the commencement of summer, Secret Boyfriend leaves and with this leaving becomes Former-Secret-Boyfriend-Who-Is-Now-Just-A-Friend-Who-Calls-
Periodically-And-We-Both-Still-Care-but-We've-Agreed-to-See-Other-
People. You know how it goes, right? Well anyways, he left, leaving me to ponder terms such as "Spring Fling" with discomfort as I realize how caught up I was in everything that was going on at the time. In the wake of something so monumental as a Secret Boyfriend-- hey, after a dry spell of impressive magnitude, such language seems appropriate, though inflated-- I have worked to quell any lingering longings by keeping the company of an immensely lovable two-year-old performance artist or listening to alternative music or This American Life or really anything that kills my over active inner monologue, like having a Screwdriver while I do a craft project on the airplane. Because of course, this is what you do.

So anyways, I finally found myself drinking this Mexican Coke tonight, amidst a stillness that can only be achieved when alone at work at 11:12pm on a Tuesday in an empty 100 year old building. I noticed everything about it-- the way the bubbles seemed tinier and finer, the way the Coke left the same corrosive grit on my teeth but had this sweet finish at the end. Mexican Coke is subtitled "refresco" on the label and I couldn't help but feel like for the first time Coke felt light enough to genuinely and honestly be called refreshing.

Secret Boyfriends are like Mexican Coke. You keep it to yourself, hoping that nobody has noticed it's there. You have no expectations of it really, until after a while you do. You worry that somebody will steal it for themselves. You savor it but you wonder about the consequences. You delight in its use of the metric system, and in drinking it-- experiencing it-- you find yourself realizing that you have never, ever enjoyed Coke like this. You know that at some point, somebody will offer you a regular Coke and it won't be quite the same. And that's ok, because by then your inner cynicism will be restored and you will be emphatically saying how you hate Coke and that it's personal policy that you avoid Coke at all costs, because all Coke will ever do is break your heart...

*ends metaphor before it gets out of hand*
*goes to bed*