I feel that in our chats about the drama we’ve been watching unfold, that I’ve gotten to know all of you a little better and I also know that you’re confused about what happened at the merger. If you were to analyze the available facts in a logical way, to make timelines of events and feelings and to add in what all of us know instinctively in our guts about love, what ultimately happened between Jim and Pam just doesn’t make any sense.

 Let me Shrute it out for you:

Fact:  Jim told Pam he loved her. She told him she couldn’t reciprocate because she was going to marry Roy.

Fact: Jim left Scranton. Pam called off her marriage and ended her relationship with Roy only weeks after Jim’s reconciliation.

Fact: Pam was overjoyed to hear that Jim was returning to Scranton. She tried to hide it, but, to quote a Shakira lyric misheard by Michael Scott…hugs don’t lie.

Even if we were to factor in some time for Pam to figure things out and get a sense of who she was and what she wanted to do with her new life, someone as clueless as Creed (or dare I say, Kevin) could have figured out that the next step would be for these two to at least talk things out and to figure out where to take their relationship next based on the feelings they already had. Right?

That’s not what happened, though. Pam never told Jim about her broken engagement. Jim insulated himself by “starting to see” Karen right before moving back to the Scranton branch. Jim blew off Pam’s request to get together for coffee and then, before anything could happen, just threw Karen up in Pam’s face to avoid any real dialogue about feelings or regret or mistakes. Oy vey!

To be honest, I wasn’t as surprised and confused as you all were. I’ve known Jim and Pam for a long time and I know some of the back-story here….especially as it relates to their relationship with me. Maybe If I let you in on a few more details, I could help you all understand what happened after the merger…or more specifically….after Jim came back with Karen.  Just don’t tell them that I told you this stuff, though, okay?

When Pam was 12 years old, she wanted to be a nun.  Oh, she wasn’t all into me and religion and church, though we did talk a lot.  She had just seen The Sound of Music  17 times and wanted a life like Maria’s.  She told me that she wanted a dashing man in uniform to save her from a life of solitude and unflattering clothing.  She wanted a huge church wedding and a dress with a train a block long. She wanted to fight Nazis while putting on puppet shows. She wanted to help kids learn about the beauty of art. Oh, but she didn’t want to be a singing nun…she really couldn’t carry a tune….she would be the painting nun!  She had visions of herself, sitting on an Alpine hillside surrounded by a flock of little Von Trapps, each with their own easel.

The best part of the movie, in Pam’s opinion was when the dashing Captain Von Trapp threw away his engagement to the wealthy, elegant, sophisticated and beautiful Baroness to dance around the gazebo with the simple, witty, arty nun with the bad haircut. The fact that the Captain married Maria and not the Baroness gave Pam hope for girls like her who had mousy curls, liked to laugh, play pranks and hang out in the art room after school.

In the eighth grade, Pam’s school hosted several foreign exchange students. Pam was immediately drawn to Henk, a boy with high cheekbones, dark hair and a Schwartzenegger accent. It didn’t matter to Pam that he wasn’t from Austria, or even Germany (he was Belgian) and that he smelled a bit like weird cheese. He was her Captain. When she found out that he played the guitar, she was sold, despite the fact that he preferred Jimmy Page to Edleweiss.

Henk was also an artist (or as much of one as you can be in the 8th grade), though his medium was clay. Pam had class with him three times a week and she loved talking with him as she painted, watching his European hands mold and form the clay. They talked about all sorts of things…memories…hopes….dreams….waffles (he was from Belgium!)  They became friends. Good friends. Or at least that’s what she thought. Pam could totally envision herself leaving her self-imagined abbey and running off into the hills (wait…Belgium was one of the low countries, wasn’t it?)…and running off past the dykes of Belgium together. When Pam talked to me (and she did that a lot then) her hopes were high for a life of meaning and love.

That was until the Baroness came along. Oh, she wasn’t real royalty. She was middle school royalty…a cheerleader.  Her name was Andi and she was flawless. Her parents were both attorneys and she spent summers in the Hamptons. Of course, Henk took a shine to her. All of the boys did. Pam knew, though, how this would play out. Henk would chase after Andi for a while, but then he would realize that the perfect person for him was not the cool sophisticate, but the earthy, kind, funny friend. She didn’t have to pray to me for this to happen. She knew this would happen. After all, Maria Von Trapp was a real life person. I should have warned her.

One day, when Henk hadn’t shown up to the art room for the third day in a row, Pam went to find him. He was in the gym, watching the cheerleaders practice. Pam stood in the doorway, watching for quite some time wondering if this was going to be HER moment…wondering if this would be when Henk would carry her off through the tulip fields of his homeland (wait…that was Holland….did Belgium have tulips too?) and leave Andi behind.  That wasn’t to be, though. After the practice was over, Henk and Andi walked out the gym hand in hand…right past Pam. She must have made a small noise in her throat because Henk turned around and gave her a curious look.

“Vat are you doing here, Pam?”

“I was, um…waiting for you.”

“Vell, I’m with Andi. She is my girlfriend now, ja?”

Pam couldn’t help it. Didn’t he realize that he wasn’t doing what he was supposed to do?

“But, um, you’re supposed to be with me.”

“With you? Please, Pam…you are nothing…you are just a plain girl. Andi is a cheerleader! And she’s beautiful and wealthy. Why would I want to be with you?” (8th grade boys…even European one…have no tact, do they?).

And then everyone….Henk, Andi, the rest of the cheerleading squad…was laughing at her as she ran off, out of the school, down the street,  into downtown Scranton….a billion miles away from the Alps and her dreams.  That was the day she stopped talking to me on a regular basis.

When Jim Halpert was a senior in high school, he joined a cult.

Now before you start freaking out, let me explain. This wasn’t a head-shaving, bed-sheet wearing, self-castrating kind of a cult (yeah, I know which of you are breathing a sigh of relief at that!). This was one of those groups of young people led by an older, charismatic guy who sits backwards on folding chairs, lets you call him by his first name and who uses young people and religion to feed his ego and delusions of grandeur or to meet high school girls.  I’m sure there’s been an episode of Law and Order about a similar “holy man” and I thoroughly disapprove of scams like this. They always end up bad and people get mad at me…as if I had something to do with it.

Jim started attending meetings at “Chip”’s house because of a girl. Her name was Riley and she was beautiful…not in a Playboy model sort of way but she had one of those inner, wholesome glows. Maybe that should have screamed, “Danger, Jim…Cult” but it didn’t.

Jim wasn’t exactly a loner in high school. He had friends and had the basketball team, but there were times when he just wanted to be alone…to think and to talk things over with me. We had a good, casual relationship.  One day when he was sitting on the steps waiting for his mom to come and pick him up from practice, Riley sat down next to him and put her hand on his shoulder in a very intimate way.

“Hey, Jim…right?”

“Yeah….you’re Riley. Cool name!”

“Thanks. What are you doing?”

“Just waiting for my mom to come and get me.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Do you have a good relationship with your mom?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Jim didn’t understand why Riley cared about his parents, but she was cool and pretty, so he didn’t mind the slightly odd direction that the conversation was heading.

“I sometimes feel like my parents don’t get who I am inside, you know, Jim?”

“Um…yeah…totally.”

“Really, you understand? Listen, there’s this really cool guy that I know and well, some of us hang out at his house and we eat pizza and talk and he really gets what it’s like to be young and unsure. Would you like to come to his house with me some time?”

“Um…sure….sounds cool.”

So, Jim started accompanying Riley to Chip’s house where they would rap about problems and issues like drug use and teen sex. Jim caught on pretty early that there was something “off” with Chip, but he liked spending time with Riley and felt like they had a really good connection. He didn’t mind thinking about some of the spiritual topics brought up at these meetings. Jim and I had some good talks at that time even though he had never really been religious before. It caused him to open up his mind and think outside of his life in Scranton.  He also felt like he was falling in love with Riley. She had a way of making him feel special.

One night, though, after most of the kids had left, Jim went  for a walk to chat with me after some particularly deep conversation about free will and fate. Riley had said she was going to help pick up the pizza mess. You can see where this is going, can’t you? Unfortunately, naïve and trusting Jim didn’t.

Sure enough, when Jim returned from his walk, he barged right in on Riley and Chip in an, um delicate position on top of the pizza boxes and Coke bottles still on the kitchen table. He stormed back to the living room, grabbed his letter jacket and was half-way out the door when Riley caught up with him.

“Jim, does this mean you are quitting the group? That you aren’t going to officially join?”

“Yeah, I think it does, Riley.”

“But, the only reason I got to be with Chip was that I recruited you. You were number five!”

“What…..you ‘recruited me’? Are you saying you used me?”

“Well, Jim…I love you….as a creature of the universe loves another, but the whole goal here is to be with Chip…to achieve enlightenment. We can still be friends…we’ll always be friends.”

Jim felt like a schmuck as he slammed the door behind him.

Then there was a lot of cursing and a lot of taking my name in vain. I understood, though. Jim swore that he would never let himself be used again…never let himself be vulnerable enough to be taken advantage of. And to some extent, he kept that personal vow.  He used people, women especially…not in a malicious way, but for self-preservation. They were a  wall against getting hurt.  You all saw him doing it…with Katy, with Brenda…. You all also saw what happened when he took that wall down and allowed himself to be totally exposed with the one person who mattered most of all to him. He told himself time and time again that he should have known better. So, when the merger came through, and he knew he’d have to spend time with Pam again, he latched on to Karen as a buffer to use against the onslaught of feelings that were sure to come up again. It wasn’t fair to Karen…he knew that, but he couldn’t help himself.

I know it is trite to suggest that we are all only a reflection of the bad experiences we had in our youth. That’s not exactly true. We learn and grow. We add battle scars and calluses to our hearts and minds as we go through life (well, you all do….not me). But sometimes, we latch on to former hurts and let them define us…or at least our actions. Both Jim and Pam started talking to me again periodically after these incidents, but it was never really the same until they met each other in that office in Scranton. It’s hard for you humans to let go…maybe it’s a design flaw on my part. I should have made you more adaptable. Whatever the case, these old hurts and wounds rose up to the surface when Jim and Pam met once more in that parking lot the evening of the merger.

 “I just think I should tell you that I sort of started seeing someone.”

“Um, okay…good”

“We’re friends…we’ll always be friends”

“Right”

“Good to have you back”

“Yeah…good to be back”

After that night, I didn’t hear from either of them for a long time.