Suzanne Belcourt's Marshmallow Girl
April 25th, 2006

Run, Baby, Run

I have a new crush on someone. I bet if I told him that I have schizophrenia all bets are off. It’s best to tell someone at the outset though, just in case you’re on a first date and your eyes glaze over at some point in the evening—it is just too much information to process and it’s not because you’re not interested. Or when he tells a joke and you don’t laugh; it’s not because he’s not funny, it’s because you just had a little too much medication the night before.

I had a boyfriend once upon a time. (This was before I came down with my illness.) He turned out to be the Prince Charming from the movie Shrek 2 rather than the Prince Charming from the classic Cinderella fairytale.

I thought the first time we kissed that he was IT—not the ONE, but IT—because my knees went weak. But this illusion was to go up in smoke quickly when during one drive back home in his truck after picking me up from work (when I had a job) he asked me if I noticed anything new. I looked around and I couldn’t see what he was speaking about. He thus pointed to an ashtray located in the dashboard: “Sue, do you like my ashtray?”

I knew that we were not meant-to-be in that exact moment and I couldn’t help but look out the window of the truck and roll my eyes in utter disbelief. Now I used to love a good coffee and a cigarette, but if a new ashtray was the sole purpose of holding a relationship together then I also knew we were starting to head downhill.

The first date we went on was good, however. I remember we went to the movies and our knees accidentally touched and I felt a lightning bolt surge through me. We did fall in love eventually even though he never read a book before. He told me over a plate of Chinese food that he was in love with me. He said, “I think I’m in love with you.” I asked, “When will you know for sure?” That night was great. But then he kind of ruined it when he asked me what colour his eyes were. I looked at him quizzically. I thought it was obvious so I said, “Blue.” “No,” he said, “What do they remind you of?” Then I realized that he wanted me to describe the colour of his eyes in a romantic way…like, “your eyes remind me of the sea.” I then sensed that he was kinda into himself instead of me that night.

He wasn’t all that bad, except when he bought me a brand of perfume during our first Christmas of togetherness that was his ex-girlfriends favourite.

(He told me early on in the relationship what kind of perfume she used to wear and told me I should get some.) Or when he drove me past his ex-girlfriend’s house and told me which house was hers. I should have known he didn’t really love me when (I know this is a faux pas) I opened his wallet and in the first slot where photos go, the first picture was his ex-girlfriend’s—who loved the same perfume I now owned.

So the end was near. The first in the two grand finales in this soap opera was when he didn’t take me out to breakfast one morning after I stayed over at his place. (It was our routine that we went for breakfast at a local diner the next morning before we both went to our jobs.) And I kind of got the hint that he no longer cared for me when he threw a keg party and didn’t invite me. So I decided to break up with him. It was a hard decision because he was my first boyfriend, but I did.

So one evening I told him that what he really needed was a dog. That, “You want someone who will fetch you your slippers and greet you at the door when you come home from work. I think you need a dog and the pet stores are open until 5 tomorrow night…” I walked away. Believe me, it was hard on me.

And I cried a lot over the loss. But then my mom told me that he drove by my house with another girl in his truck where they both pointed at the house (he lived on the same street as we did). She was apparently smoking a cigarette and maybe this was his new girlfriend because she liked the ashtray and it was the first thing she noticed as soon as she got in his truck.

So we were not meant-to-be. And looking back on it I am happy that I fell in love. It was perhaps with the wrong person, but I experienced the feeling of being in love, the joy it brought and I have no regrets about him and that he was my first boyfriend. I just hope that if there is a second boyfriend out there & that he doesn’t like ashtrays; that his sole dream in life is not to work for the Bell telephone company climbing up and fixing the telephone poles. And that he’s strong enough to overlook my mental illness, or rather accept it for what it is and like me despite it, and that we are meant-to-be. I still believe in fairytales—even though Cinderella does not have schizophrenia—and that there is still a Prince Charming out there who reads.

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