I've always been one of the "good kids". I think it's a combination of being a first-born girl, my withdrawn personality, and being parented well. In elementary school I was only sent to the principal's office once, and that was only because I'd witnessed someone else's infraction (standing on the toilets in the girls' room so she could talk to her friend without the visual interruption the stall presented). I think my heart may have beaten faster during my walk of shame after my name was called over the school's loudspeaker than any of the regular offenders' would have.
Over the years I would have one or two friends that persuaded me to get into more trouble than I was used to, but nothing serious.
When I got to high school I experienced the wrong side of the Templeton High School law, and it was all my own doing. During the fall of my freshman year, a sophomore boy had taken notice of me. When my curly-haired, freckle-faced friend Sarah from the volleyball team, told me about his crush, I didn't even know who he was. But once I knew about him, I decided Jacob Rodrigues couldn't be such a bad guy. He obviously had impeccable taste.
Slowly but surely my own crush on Jacob developed. We'd call each other a few times a week, I'd sit on my bed with my green telephone, complete with a two foot long ringlet cord, as we talked about absolutely nothing. (Not in a cute awwww-they-don't-even-have-to-say-anything sort of way. A we're-tying-up-our-parents'-phone-lines-by-sitting-here-not-saying-ANYTHING sort of way.) We'd pass each other in the hallways at school, he'd smirk at me, oozing Older Boy appeal, I'd blush and giggle to whichever friend was unfortunate enough to be stuck with me at that moment.
Jacob played football, and he was #78. My friend Jasmine had a crush on a boy named Casey, who was #49. We'd attend the games like we would have anyway, but when you have someone to watch, it sure makes a sport in which I had zero interest as a 14-year-old girl a whole lot more engaging.
Jacob also worked at a classmate's family owned Pizza Place on Main Street in Templeton. I managed to talk my parents into going there for dinner on a night I knew he'd be working, becoming conscious too late of the fact that my dad would most definitely humiliate me. (Let's be real, being within the same fifty-foot radius as, having to acknowledge relation to, and most definitely allowing my newest flame to converse with my dad was horrifying. I was fourteen.)
Looking back, I can't remember if my dad actually said anything ridiculous, but simply sitting there with my family, having him serve us made all the blood in my head burn. What a stupid idea I'd had. We left the Pizza Place with my dearest dad having coined a new nickname for Jacob: Duck Man... due to the slight waddle in Jacob's pace.
Back to my brush with the THS disciplinary office.
Jacob had a last period guitar class. I had study hall the same period. Since the dawn of study-hall-period time, I would venture to say that if a high school student can get out of class, she will choose to. We had excuses ranging from needing to check out a book at the library to working on our newest ceramics project in the art room.
For the better part of my freshman year, I left every single 7th period class to listen to Jacob play his guitar. He probably wasn't very good yet, but I didn't care. I was spending "quality time" with my crush, and everyone knows a man who can play a musical instrument (or dance) is 5.2 million times more appealing to any woman.
We'd sit in the quad while he played Blind Melon and Wheezer songs, and I'd try not to drool. Our arrangement worked out pretty well until the day I decided to just not show up to study hall. How hard was it to wait for the required 20 minutes of silent reading to be over, then get a legitimate excuse, if not fibbed, written on a hall pass? Not hard. But apparently this particular day I just could not hold in my feelings. I needed to be sitting with Jacob for the entire hour and a half period or I would just die.
That same day the school called my house to report my absence from 7th period. Since I didn't have a good excuse (I can't even remember if I tried to pass it off to my mom or if I just told her), I was issued a Saturday School.
Saturday School was one of the best punishments ever concocted for the typical never-does-schoolwork, sleeps-late-every-day, hates-setting-foot-on-campus teenage delinquent. It required you to wake up early, go to school, and sit in a cold classroom with a grumpy teacher for 2 or 4 hours, depending on your crime. I was just pissed off that I wasn't in my warm bed, and missing out on part of a Saturday that I could be socializing with my friends.
But as I sat there, in the portable classroom, actually doing homework (hey, I missed out on study hall, after all), and taking breaks to daydream about my rockstar Jacob, all I could think was...
It was totally worth it.
Showing posts with label boys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boys. Show all posts
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Scars
There are people in our lives that come, stay a while, and go. Often this leaves bittersweet memories and scars that take years to heal. I have only experienced this twice in my lifetime so far. Once with a boy, once with a friend.
I am a firm believer in that everything happens for a reason. No person’s influence, no circumstance, no outcome is an accident. Every life experience is something to learn from, to grow my faith through, and to mold me into the woman I am becoming. I continually hope and pray that these things make me more empathetic toward others and a better wife, mother... person in general.
Last night I engaged in a self-inflicted opening of old wounds. The boy that came and went happened to be speaking at our youth group. I debated skipping his message and showing up just for small group time with my senior girls, knowing there was a possibility of making myself upset. Turns out all my girls were busy and wouldn’t be there anyway... meaning that if I showed up for anything, it would be solely for his speaking.
I’ve written about this boy before. Long story short, this is the one I gave a whole lot of my heart to, at a young age, and for a long, pivotal period in time. I now know that the love I had for him does not compare to the love I would eventually have for my husband Jon. But at 17-22 years old, I loved this boy with everything I had.
After years of ups and downs, being separated by county lines and continents, this boy and I had decided to really hunker down, work things out, and be together. We both felt like it was right (again, “right” feels a whole lot different with Jon... right with a breath of peaceful, fresh air, not a constant battle out of “love”), and it was what God wanted for us. Only a few months into this decision to be together, I had a wakeup call. My love was leaving me again... this time across the country to New York. It was the last straw for me, and it felt like my back was breaking. All it took was a ten minute phone call from California to upstate New York one October night in 2004 for us to tearfully realize we were not right... and we were not going to happen.
Having never experienced anything worse, and being 22 years old, I actually felt like my life was over. The world as I knew it was ending, and I truly didn’t know what I was supposed to do with myself. The boy and I had made plans. Big time, life-changing plans for well into the future. What would I do now?
Days turned into months, which miraculously turned into years. We both went on with our lives, followed paths that led us to our significant others, both of whom are perfectly and wonderfully suited for each of us. We both have children, bringing an even greater joy than I could have possibly imagined for myself. This boy and I are exquisitely happy where we are.
There’s something that happens to a human when they make a connection with another human. Mentally, physically, spiritually... it doesn’t matter if it’s one or all of these. When this happens, you carry a piece of that person with you for the rest of your life. And in many cases, like this one, the other person carries a little piece of you with them for life as well. This is where the bittersweetness comes in.
Over the years the boy and his family have lived in many places. Sometimes it’s right here in his hometown, sometimes it’s in another state or country. But because of the piece of me that he’s taken with him, every time I hear others talk about him, every time I see him in person, a flood of different emotions wash over me. From amusement to annoyance, relief to uneasiness, and even joy to anger. Some people would argue that I’m still holding this particular person and situation too tightly and I need to just get over it and let it go. I would argue that certain people, especially when they were at one time such a significant part of our life and one of the ones who knew us best, can elicit such a dramatic range of feelings whether we’ve “let it go” or not.
Last night I sat, uncomfortably at first, in the back of the room with my best friend, who showed up for moral support, waiting anxiously for the boy to start speaking. In all honesty, I was intrigued. He spoke of things I knew about and things I didn’t. He has the same sense of humor and intentional awkwardness he’s always had, but along with that he now has life experience and maturity. The ego and insecurity I knew has morphed into a humbler and peaceful man. I gained more respect for him as I sat and listened to his journey over the last thirteen years. Years I was a part of and years that I wasn’t.
As pictures came up on the screen, I recognized certain photos of him from a time in my own life when I had poured myself and my heart into caring about, loving, and praying for him. This is when the pangs began.
Along with the range of emotions people and memories can drum up in us, sometimes we have actual physical reactions. Looking at old pictures elicited fluttering pangs of anxiousness in my stomach. At one point in telling his story, I not only felt like he was talking about me, but that he was talking to me. This was the most painful part of the night. I immediately felt all the blood in my body rising up to my face. I started sweating like I was sitting in front of a blazing bonfire, and I felt nauseous. I was nervous that tears of anger would start involuntarily rolling out of my ducts, but as I stared at the floor and listened, uncomfortably burning up, I allowed myself to realize that everything he said was true. Knowing him, he was not intentionally speaking directly about or to me, but simply telling his story, which I happen to be a small part of.
I knowingly put myself in the position I was in, and I knew exactly what kinds of feelings it would stir in me. While I don’t regret attending his message and intentionally seeing him up close and personal, even as I sit and write this, my stomach is full of the butterfly pangs. The physical reminders of a time in my life that will never leave me, a person I will never stop caring for, and the strength I have obtained by living through it all.
The reason for writing down what happened last night is mostly therapeutic for me. But it will hopefully someday serve as a mother-to-daughter lesson for my precious girls. I am desperate for them to love without fear, and to embrace the paths set out for them. Every person Kealani Joy and Leila Jane meet, and every situation they encounter can make them stronger, if they let it.
I also want them to know that when things don’t go the way they think they want, there is always something better on the other side. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the life I am living now, with Jon, Kealani, and Leila, is exactly the life I am supposed to be living, and exactly the life I want to be living. I love every aspect of it and am so thankful for all three of them that some days I actually cry because I am so overwhelmed by my blessings.
Mr., KK, and Bobo, I love you.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
A Short List of the Boys I Have Loved
Originally written in the Fall of 2003
1. Eric Jordan. Eric was my first real best friend, first "kiss", and first proposal for marriage. He lived two doors down the street in a house that was exactly the same floor plan as my own, only backwards. He was like a brother, but my feelings for him ran deep. He taught me how to skateboard, and I showed him how to put a lawn chair on a skateboard to make a "wheelchair" (endless fun down huge driveways as long as one didn't fall off). We were born fifty minutes apart. We also decided that if neither of us were married by the time we were twenty-eight, we'd tie the knot on our birthday, April 6, in 2010. Unfortunately I was out of luck early in the game... Eric found a girl in the Air Force and married her at age twenty.
2. Teddy Swan. Teddy was the biggest boy in school, at about five feet tall, when I met him in first grade. He remained the biggest boy in school all the way through high school and used it to his advantage on the basketball and football teams. Teddy had soft brown hair and eyes, and even though he was teased for being so tall, everyone wanted to hug him. I first knew of Teddy's feelings when, in the middle of our first grade class as we sat on the carpet, he rolled up a piece of paper into a tube, raised it to my ear as Mrs. Bailey talked about finger painting, and whispered through his handmade megaphone, "I like you." My heart jumped and that moment marked the beginning of my love for Teddy. Being seven years old, "out of sight, out of mind" was reality... so this love had a deadline: the end of the school year.
3. Roy Coffman. Roy had strawberry blond hair, brown eyes, and was covered head to toe in freckles. He had straight teeth (a quality hard to come by in third grade) which were exposed often because Roy liked to smile. My friend, Erin, and I competed for his heart. She said that she and Roy were meant for each other because they both had red hair. I argued that my dad had red hair, so wasn't that close enough? No one ever knew who Roy actually liked back then. He remained mysterious about those matters. If I really wanted to know I could ask him... he goes to UCSB and works at the Beach House.
4. Philip Patti. Philip was my first "bad boy" experience. In fifth grade my class was made up of mostly the Bad Kids. Long before I had the strength to stand up against bad influence, I let myself become a delinquent for one year. Philip and I sat together in the back of the classroom and talked through most of the lessons without getting caught. From those conversations I learned about condoms, drugs, and Metallica. At some point Philip and I decided to "go out" (of course meaning that we would continue sitting together in class, talking through lessons, and never see each other outside of school), but two days later it was over. Probably because I had to talk him into going out with me in the first place. I've had a thing for bad boys ever since.
5. Roy Coffman. Ok, so in sixth grade I liked Roy again. Old flames never die. At least this time he liked me back.
6. Chris or Pat English. The new twin brothers who joined our school in seventh grade. First of all, they exhibited fresh faces, as opposed to the ones we'd been staring at for the last six years and watching grow out of their fat phases. Secondly, I was enchanted by their tall stature, dark hair, green eyes, and beautiful brown skin. Chris had a quieter and sweeter disposition. Pat was funny, possessed straighter teeth, and his voice changed first. I liked Pat because he happened to be in my wood shop class. The Twins did quite a number on all the girls' hormones at Templeton Middle School. Ask any girl in our class, and all of them are sure to say they liked either Chris or Pat at some point. If they're like me, they switched back and forth between the two for years, the Chosen One being whoever looked in her direction more often or shared a class with her.
7. Steve English. No relation to Chris and Pat. The truth is I never really had a thing for Steve. He was the sweetest, most polite boy in our class, and he had a high GPA. For some reason, in the minds of all my friends, this meant we were perfect for each other. We were both polite, sweet, Christian, relatively well-liked, and good at school. Basically Steve and I got talked into going out by the whole eighth grade class, only to converse a few weeks later and mutually agree that we didn't even like each other. We're still friends.
8. Jacob Rodrigues. Jacob was the good-looking, popular sophomore bad boy who one day decided that Heather Eaton was the "cutest girl in the freshman class". This information, passed to me by a friend on the volleyball team, instantly formed a good opinion of this Jacob in my mind. I hadn't noticed him before that point. Once he was brought to my attention, I liked what I saw: dark features, a great smile, and a football player's build. We mostly communicated through mutual friends, and eventually I got brave enough to start ditching study hall so I could sit and listen to him play in the quad during his guitar class. He called me occasionally, and we even met at the movies a couple of times with a bunch of friends (behind my parents' backs since no dating was allowed until I was sixteen... I had just turned fifteen). We would hold hands while his friends snickered behind us, and I'd catch him staring at me out of the corner of my eye. I assumed if I returned the gaze, he'd try to kiss me, and since I was petrified of this scenario, I stared straight ahead and didn't move during the entire flick. The magic lasted for about a month until Jacob realized the good girl appeal that had attracted him wasn't what a teenage guy with raging hormones needed, especially when he was going to have to wait a year until I could legally go out with him.
9. Jordan McCaffrey. Jordan and I met at our youth group's winter camp sophomore year. On the bus ride up, he and his friend happened to be sitting across from my friend and me. We all started talking, because that's what we did on bus trips: talked to the people around us and sang praise songs loudly and off key. I developed a crush on Jordan in the six hours it took to get up the mountain to the snow. He had scruffy dark hair, brown eyes, big white teeth, and huge biceps. Unfortunately, when the bus stopped, and everyone stood up, I noticed immediately that looking into Jordan's eyes required me to look down. No up, not straight, but down. My crush continued for a couple months after winter camp and Jordan called me several times a week to talk for hours at a time. He came to my sixteenth birthday party and gave me a beautiful cross necklace. But the height thing bothered me, so the next time he called I told my mom to say I wasn't home. (Oh, the travails of being gifted with above-average height.) When Jordan first locked eyes with me across the bus aisle, he couldn't have guessed that he would be my first experience blowing a guy off.
10. Nick Jangaard. Nick was the class clown and a troublemaker, and looked the part. He had dark red hair, green eyes, and a devilish smile. His sarcastic sense of humor meant that people who didn't know him were offended by his remarks (actually, sometimes so were the people who did know him). We became close friends until eventually Nick decided that we should "be together." We'd hung out every weekend and enjoyed each others' company, so why not? We had even been voted Junior class Winter Prince and Princess (an enormously high honor... so much so that as far as I know, THS has never had a Winter Court since). So we switched our status to "dating" and proceeded to cause the downfall of our relationship. We didn't talk to each other much because we didn't know how. As friends we had never had deep conversations, so now what were we supposed to do? We basically held hands while watching movies and went to each others' sporting events. One night he mustered the courage to kiss me for the first time, and it was not the wonderful experience I had envisioned. Kissing a good friend, I realized, is like kissing your brother. Gross. Not long after that we ended it, and it took months for our friendship to return to normal. I knew I was over it a few months later when my best friend Lauren started dating him and I didn't care. About five years later, I was a bridesmaid in their wedding!
11. Abel Miller. I fell for Abel the summer before my senior year on our youth group's annual trip to Mexico. He had just graduated. I fell for his sense of humor, his charm, his heart for other people, and he wasn't too shabby looking. I spent the majority of the following school year wishing that we could date, but having to wait until I was officially out of high school. Abel had joined ABC's Jr. high youth group staff. At the time there was rule stating that staff members could not date students. The reason for this rule was to keep pervy twenty-somethings from perusing the selection of teenage girls. Unfortunately for us, the rule went across the board, and it infuriated me that an 18/19 year old guy couldn't date the 17/18 year old girl who had become infatuated with him. We would hang out in big groups, and a couple times even went on "dates" with other couples. (We wouldn't call them dates, since most of the time we left from our youth pastor, Rich's own house.) Finally June came, and the night I graduated, Abel kissed me goodbye before I hurried to jump on the bus for Grad Night. The next night he officially asked me to be his girlfriend. I left for college in Santa Barbara, and we proceeded to make our relationship work for two years. A break or two later, along with living on different continents, brought us to a place where we finally understood that we weren't meant to be together. As painful as it was at the time, after five years courting/dating/waiting/reuniting, I'm so very thankful that we didn't force it to work. I will always be grateful for the time spent with Abel; for what I learned about love from him, and the relationship I had with him. I believe I was better prepared for my next and last love, because of the many hurts and trials of this first serious relationship. My first and only real broken heart was over Abel.
12. Jon Richert. I've chronicled much of Jon's and my relationship. We were best friends for two years before we started dating, and got married a year and half after that. What Jon and I have together is more than anything I ever expected from marriage. In a world that gives up far too easily and a society where "starter" marriages are a growing trend, I am thankful to say that I have an accomplice who won't give up on me when things get difficult. We work together, and enjoy doing so. Sure, there are days when we may not feel very romantic, but at least when the romance is stripped away, we are still each others' favorite person to be around. I've seen Jon grow from a young man who is fiercely loyal and respectful to his mom, to a man who takes pride in taking care of his family, to a man who is just fearless enough to pursue a career that may have at one time seemed impossible. I respect him as a man, a friend, a believer in Christ, a fellow traveler, my husband, a provider, and as the father of our daughter. I can't imagine having the same life I enjoy now with anyone else.
1. Eric Jordan. Eric was my first real best friend, first "kiss", and first proposal for marriage. He lived two doors down the street in a house that was exactly the same floor plan as my own, only backwards. He was like a brother, but my feelings for him ran deep. He taught me how to skateboard, and I showed him how to put a lawn chair on a skateboard to make a "wheelchair" (endless fun down huge driveways as long as one didn't fall off). We were born fifty minutes apart. We also decided that if neither of us were married by the time we were twenty-eight, we'd tie the knot on our birthday, April 6, in 2010. Unfortunately I was out of luck early in the game... Eric found a girl in the Air Force and married her at age twenty.
2. Teddy Swan. Teddy was the biggest boy in school, at about five feet tall, when I met him in first grade. He remained the biggest boy in school all the way through high school and used it to his advantage on the basketball and football teams. Teddy had soft brown hair and eyes, and even though he was teased for being so tall, everyone wanted to hug him. I first knew of Teddy's feelings when, in the middle of our first grade class as we sat on the carpet, he rolled up a piece of paper into a tube, raised it to my ear as Mrs. Bailey talked about finger painting, and whispered through his handmade megaphone, "I like you." My heart jumped and that moment marked the beginning of my love for Teddy. Being seven years old, "out of sight, out of mind" was reality... so this love had a deadline: the end of the school year.
3. Roy Coffman. Roy had strawberry blond hair, brown eyes, and was covered head to toe in freckles. He had straight teeth (a quality hard to come by in third grade) which were exposed often because Roy liked to smile. My friend, Erin, and I competed for his heart. She said that she and Roy were meant for each other because they both had red hair. I argued that my dad had red hair, so wasn't that close enough? No one ever knew who Roy actually liked back then. He remained mysterious about those matters. If I really wanted to know I could ask him... he goes to UCSB and works at the Beach House.
4. Philip Patti. Philip was my first "bad boy" experience. In fifth grade my class was made up of mostly the Bad Kids. Long before I had the strength to stand up against bad influence, I let myself become a delinquent for one year. Philip and I sat together in the back of the classroom and talked through most of the lessons without getting caught. From those conversations I learned about condoms, drugs, and Metallica. At some point Philip and I decided to "go out" (of course meaning that we would continue sitting together in class, talking through lessons, and never see each other outside of school), but two days later it was over. Probably because I had to talk him into going out with me in the first place. I've had a thing for bad boys ever since.
5. Roy Coffman. Ok, so in sixth grade I liked Roy again. Old flames never die. At least this time he liked me back.
6. Chris or Pat English. The new twin brothers who joined our school in seventh grade. First of all, they exhibited fresh faces, as opposed to the ones we'd been staring at for the last six years and watching grow out of their fat phases. Secondly, I was enchanted by their tall stature, dark hair, green eyes, and beautiful brown skin. Chris had a quieter and sweeter disposition. Pat was funny, possessed straighter teeth, and his voice changed first. I liked Pat because he happened to be in my wood shop class. The Twins did quite a number on all the girls' hormones at Templeton Middle School. Ask any girl in our class, and all of them are sure to say they liked either Chris or Pat at some point. If they're like me, they switched back and forth between the two for years, the Chosen One being whoever looked in her direction more often or shared a class with her.
7. Steve English. No relation to Chris and Pat. The truth is I never really had a thing for Steve. He was the sweetest, most polite boy in our class, and he had a high GPA. For some reason, in the minds of all my friends, this meant we were perfect for each other. We were both polite, sweet, Christian, relatively well-liked, and good at school. Basically Steve and I got talked into going out by the whole eighth grade class, only to converse a few weeks later and mutually agree that we didn't even like each other. We're still friends.
8. Jacob Rodrigues. Jacob was the good-looking, popular sophomore bad boy who one day decided that Heather Eaton was the "cutest girl in the freshman class". This information, passed to me by a friend on the volleyball team, instantly formed a good opinion of this Jacob in my mind. I hadn't noticed him before that point. Once he was brought to my attention, I liked what I saw: dark features, a great smile, and a football player's build. We mostly communicated through mutual friends, and eventually I got brave enough to start ditching study hall so I could sit and listen to him play in the quad during his guitar class. He called me occasionally, and we even met at the movies a couple of times with a bunch of friends (behind my parents' backs since no dating was allowed until I was sixteen... I had just turned fifteen). We would hold hands while his friends snickered behind us, and I'd catch him staring at me out of the corner of my eye. I assumed if I returned the gaze, he'd try to kiss me, and since I was petrified of this scenario, I stared straight ahead and didn't move during the entire flick. The magic lasted for about a month until Jacob realized the good girl appeal that had attracted him wasn't what a teenage guy with raging hormones needed, especially when he was going to have to wait a year until I could legally go out with him.
9. Jordan McCaffrey. Jordan and I met at our youth group's winter camp sophomore year. On the bus ride up, he and his friend happened to be sitting across from my friend and me. We all started talking, because that's what we did on bus trips: talked to the people around us and sang praise songs loudly and off key. I developed a crush on Jordan in the six hours it took to get up the mountain to the snow. He had scruffy dark hair, brown eyes, big white teeth, and huge biceps. Unfortunately, when the bus stopped, and everyone stood up, I noticed immediately that looking into Jordan's eyes required me to look down. No up, not straight, but down. My crush continued for a couple months after winter camp and Jordan called me several times a week to talk for hours at a time. He came to my sixteenth birthday party and gave me a beautiful cross necklace. But the height thing bothered me, so the next time he called I told my mom to say I wasn't home. (Oh, the travails of being gifted with above-average height.) When Jordan first locked eyes with me across the bus aisle, he couldn't have guessed that he would be my first experience blowing a guy off.
10. Nick Jangaard. Nick was the class clown and a troublemaker, and looked the part. He had dark red hair, green eyes, and a devilish smile. His sarcastic sense of humor meant that people who didn't know him were offended by his remarks (actually, sometimes so were the people who did know him). We became close friends until eventually Nick decided that we should "be together." We'd hung out every weekend and enjoyed each others' company, so why not? We had even been voted Junior class Winter Prince and Princess (an enormously high honor... so much so that as far as I know, THS has never had a Winter Court since). So we switched our status to "dating" and proceeded to cause the downfall of our relationship. We didn't talk to each other much because we didn't know how. As friends we had never had deep conversations, so now what were we supposed to do? We basically held hands while watching movies and went to each others' sporting events. One night he mustered the courage to kiss me for the first time, and it was not the wonderful experience I had envisioned. Kissing a good friend, I realized, is like kissing your brother. Gross. Not long after that we ended it, and it took months for our friendship to return to normal. I knew I was over it a few months later when my best friend Lauren started dating him and I didn't care. About five years later, I was a bridesmaid in their wedding!
11. Abel Miller. I fell for Abel the summer before my senior year on our youth group's annual trip to Mexico. He had just graduated. I fell for his sense of humor, his charm, his heart for other people, and he wasn't too shabby looking. I spent the majority of the following school year wishing that we could date, but having to wait until I was officially out of high school. Abel had joined ABC's Jr. high youth group staff. At the time there was rule stating that staff members could not date students. The reason for this rule was to keep pervy twenty-somethings from perusing the selection of teenage girls. Unfortunately for us, the rule went across the board, and it infuriated me that an 18/19 year old guy couldn't date the 17/18 year old girl who had become infatuated with him. We would hang out in big groups, and a couple times even went on "dates" with other couples. (We wouldn't call them dates, since most of the time we left from our youth pastor, Rich's own house.) Finally June came, and the night I graduated, Abel kissed me goodbye before I hurried to jump on the bus for Grad Night. The next night he officially asked me to be his girlfriend. I left for college in Santa Barbara, and we proceeded to make our relationship work for two years. A break or two later, along with living on different continents, brought us to a place where we finally understood that we weren't meant to be together. As painful as it was at the time, after five years courting/dating/waiting/reuniting, I'm so very thankful that we didn't force it to work. I will always be grateful for the time spent with Abel; for what I learned about love from him, and the relationship I had with him. I believe I was better prepared for my next and last love, because of the many hurts and trials of this first serious relationship. My first and only real broken heart was over Abel.
12. Jon Richert. I've chronicled much of Jon's and my relationship. We were best friends for two years before we started dating, and got married a year and half after that. What Jon and I have together is more than anything I ever expected from marriage. In a world that gives up far too easily and a society where "starter" marriages are a growing trend, I am thankful to say that I have an accomplice who won't give up on me when things get difficult. We work together, and enjoy doing so. Sure, there are days when we may not feel very romantic, but at least when the romance is stripped away, we are still each others' favorite person to be around. I've seen Jon grow from a young man who is fiercely loyal and respectful to his mom, to a man who takes pride in taking care of his family, to a man who is just fearless enough to pursue a career that may have at one time seemed impossible. I respect him as a man, a friend, a believer in Christ, a fellow traveler, my husband, a provider, and as the father of our daughter. I can't imagine having the same life I enjoy now with anyone else.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Jonny Blue Jeans - Part 2
I had to feebly explain to Jon on the phone that night (all the while feeling utterly deflated because I was now breaking my best friend's heart) that I considered him a great friend (that's right, shove the knife in a little deeper, Heather, I don't think you severed the aorta yet), that I still had feelings for the Boyfriend, and I wanted to make sure that it was truly over before I could move on. Sitting on the classroom-like carpet of the dorm hallway, all I could hear was Jon breathing for what seemed like minutes. Finally, he must have said something to wrap up the conversation, because I felt like the next second I was sitting there gaping at my phone in my hand, disconnected.
I wasn't sure what this meant. Could I talk to Jon anymore? Would it be leading him on to call him or spend time with him? (Hindsight answer: YES.) Would he even want to?
I didn't have to wait long to find out Jon had decided to act like nothing happened. We continued to text and hang out when I was home, and he even came to visit me at school once that semester. I still talked to (not-so) Boyfriend, too. On one of my weekends home, we were out to dinner with a huge group, as usual, and Boyfriend mentioned that he and one of our other friends were looking into spending six months in Tanzania.
Tanzania??? How are we going to work on our roller coaster relationship if you are on the East Coast of Africa??? I felt like throwing up.
Four months later, Boyfriend was gone. And not for six months, but for a year. He left with us on good terms (in that heinous "friend zone") and I told him I'd be praying for him. He promised he'd keep in touch. Jon and I continued to become closer friends that summer. We knew everything about each other, laughed about everything together, and had a tight knit group of mutual friends who we spent every evening with. Then the time came for me to return for my last semester of college. It was the Fall of 2003. I was looking forward to getting out of town, mostly because everything I did, heard, saw, tasted, or smelled reminded me of Boyfriend, no matter how much fun I was having with my friends.
I was only a couple weeks into the semester when I got an e-mail from the Boyfriend. I hadn't heard from him yet, and considering he was in a different country, I had somewhat resigned myself to the fact that I would have to get over it. I was ready to focus, finish school, and hang out with my girlfriends. Then Boyfriend had to jump back in, sending me into a downward spiral of regret mixed with hope. We kept in close touch that semester. At the same time, Jon and I remained friends and visited each other. Then, over Christmas break that year (I was officially done with school), I received an e-mail from Boyfriend telling me that the last time we had hung out before he left, he'd realized that what he had with me was "how it's supposed to be". He then asked if I'd be willing to wait for him to return from Tanzania that summer to see where our relationship might go from there. I was giddy. This is what I had subconsciously (at times, consciously) been waiting for. I could not wait to write him back to tell him exactly how I felt and that I would absolutely wait for him.
Now... I was still spending ludicrous amounts of time with Jon. He was my favorite person to be around, and now that I was home from school, we could actually hang out all week long. And we did. When this development came about between Boyfriend and me, I didn't tell Jon. I didn't think he needed to know... despite his knowing the entire history and knowing me better than anyone. I just failed to mention it.
One night, during one of these months of waiting, Jon and I were on the phone again. This time Jon decided that it would be a good idea to say this: "blah blah blah blah blah I love you blah blah blah blah...." I have no idea what we'd been talking about before he dropped yet another over-the-phone Fat Man on me, but it didn't matter. This time I cried. I was so frustrated with Jon. How many times did I have to explain my feelings before he realized it was never going to happen!? At this point I needed to tell him my plans for when the Boyfriend returned. If I hadn't already crushed his spirit, this surely did. I think it crushed a piece of mine, too.
As the summer neared, I became more excited, but things with Jon became strained. When we were with our friends we hardly said a word to each other, and I found myself making fun of him more than usual, whether he was listening or not. We didn't hit the town alone like we had so often before. We both knew what was coming, and we both knew what we had would not be appropriate anymore.
Jon and I both had joined teams going on missions trips to separate places that June. I would be leaving for Tonga (for a month and a half) a few weeks before he left for the Czech Republic. When I returned, two weeks before he would, the Boyfriend would be back from Tanzania and life would be changed. We said our goodbyes the night before I left, and Jon told me he didn't think we should contact each other while we were gone. It broke my heart. I wasn't going to be able to tell him anything about what I was experiencing, and he didn't want to hear about it. It was his way of distancing himself from me before the three of us would all be in the same place again. I didn't like it. The one and only time I've seen Jon cry is that night, before he left my house.
At one point that summer, the three of us were on three different continents. There were words that couldn't be said, confusion, reunions, heartaches, and forms of love shooting in too many directions. When the time finally came, Boyfriend and I were excited to see each other, but hesitant. He'd been gone for a year, and seen things he could never fully explain to me. I'd been growing closer to one of his former friends for a year, and still wished I could talk to Jon, just once. It didn't take us long to realize we had very much idealized our relationship. How romantic to pine for each other across the world! How amazing our story would be, so many ups and downs, and finally a blessed reunion! But we just weren't clicking. It became achingly clear what had happened when one day I gave Boyfriend a letter I had written explaining my frustrations (we had grown so accustomed to writing that I felt I would do better expressing myself that way). The incriminating lines said this: "I just want to see it on your face. I want you to light up when I walk into the room. Jon smiles like that when he sees me, and he's just my friend."
He studied my face after reading the letter, settled on my eyes and said, "You love him."
I argued with him. I became defensive and supported my logic by reminding him that I waited for him. I had waited for months before he left the country, then I waited a year for his return. If there was any loving going on here, it was my love for him. But something broke free that day. It took this person who I loved with every piece of me, who I would do anything for, to say the words. To allow me to recognize something I'd stubbornly brushed off for years. He wasn't angry. He watched me closely as I explained my feelings, but I could tell that he knew those feelings better than I did myself.
Boyfriend and I weakly kept things going for a couple weeks until he decided to attend a college recommended by the family he'd stayed with in Tanzania. The school was in New York. After he'd been gone three weeks and I hadn't heard much from him, I called him at school and told him I didn't want to do this again. I couldn't keep waiting for him to do his thing, and that it didn't seem like we were supposed to be together. That was a heartbreaking night. I'd carried a love for this guy for five years... these years were made all the more powerful because they were the ages from 17 - 22. We'd dated for most of that time, and we'd made some huge leaps of faith to try to be together. He was my first love. I still felt very much in love with him when I had to tell him it was truly over and say good-bye for the last time.
As much as my heart throbbed, I knew it was the right decision. I knew who I was supposed to be with. The first time I saw Jon after he returned from Europe, he took me aside, away from our other friends and said, "I just want you to know that nothing changed while we were gone. I still feel the same way about you." At the time all I could do was force a lopsided smile.
Several weeks later we found ourselves in Jon's driveway. I'd driven him home from a group outing. That night I was able to look him in the eyes and say, "Jon, I love you."
After nine years of introspection, I now realize that I was the goon in all the chick flicks who is entirely infatuated with the guy who's all wrong for her. I was Andie, in Pretty in Pink, pining over someone else, while the kooky best friend was waiting in the wings: Duckie.
Jon could have given up on me several times. He could have saved himself from my mixed signals and hacksaw-like emotions. He could have moved on and found someone else, someone easier. But I guess when he told me over the phone as I sat hugging my knees against the cinder-block wall in Emerson Hall, "We're supposed to be together," he knew what he was talking about.
We've now been best friends for eight years, together for six, and married for four and a half.
I wasn't sure what this meant. Could I talk to Jon anymore? Would it be leading him on to call him or spend time with him? (Hindsight answer: YES.) Would he even want to?
I didn't have to wait long to find out Jon had decided to act like nothing happened. We continued to text and hang out when I was home, and he even came to visit me at school once that semester. I still talked to (not-so) Boyfriend, too. On one of my weekends home, we were out to dinner with a huge group, as usual, and Boyfriend mentioned that he and one of our other friends were looking into spending six months in Tanzania.
Tanzania??? How are we going to work on our roller coaster relationship if you are on the East Coast of Africa??? I felt like throwing up.
Four months later, Boyfriend was gone. And not for six months, but for a year. He left with us on good terms (in that heinous "friend zone") and I told him I'd be praying for him. He promised he'd keep in touch. Jon and I continued to become closer friends that summer. We knew everything about each other, laughed about everything together, and had a tight knit group of mutual friends who we spent every evening with. Then the time came for me to return for my last semester of college. It was the Fall of 2003. I was looking forward to getting out of town, mostly because everything I did, heard, saw, tasted, or smelled reminded me of Boyfriend, no matter how much fun I was having with my friends.
I was only a couple weeks into the semester when I got an e-mail from the Boyfriend. I hadn't heard from him yet, and considering he was in a different country, I had somewhat resigned myself to the fact that I would have to get over it. I was ready to focus, finish school, and hang out with my girlfriends. Then Boyfriend had to jump back in, sending me into a downward spiral of regret mixed with hope. We kept in close touch that semester. At the same time, Jon and I remained friends and visited each other. Then, over Christmas break that year (I was officially done with school), I received an e-mail from Boyfriend telling me that the last time we had hung out before he left, he'd realized that what he had with me was "how it's supposed to be". He then asked if I'd be willing to wait for him to return from Tanzania that summer to see where our relationship might go from there. I was giddy. This is what I had subconsciously (at times, consciously) been waiting for. I could not wait to write him back to tell him exactly how I felt and that I would absolutely wait for him.
Now... I was still spending ludicrous amounts of time with Jon. He was my favorite person to be around, and now that I was home from school, we could actually hang out all week long. And we did. When this development came about between Boyfriend and me, I didn't tell Jon. I didn't think he needed to know... despite his knowing the entire history and knowing me better than anyone. I just failed to mention it.
One night, during one of these months of waiting, Jon and I were on the phone again. This time Jon decided that it would be a good idea to say this: "blah blah blah blah blah I love you blah blah blah blah...." I have no idea what we'd been talking about before he dropped yet another over-the-phone Fat Man on me, but it didn't matter. This time I cried. I was so frustrated with Jon. How many times did I have to explain my feelings before he realized it was never going to happen!? At this point I needed to tell him my plans for when the Boyfriend returned. If I hadn't already crushed his spirit, this surely did. I think it crushed a piece of mine, too.
As the summer neared, I became more excited, but things with Jon became strained. When we were with our friends we hardly said a word to each other, and I found myself making fun of him more than usual, whether he was listening or not. We didn't hit the town alone like we had so often before. We both knew what was coming, and we both knew what we had would not be appropriate anymore.
Jon and I both had joined teams going on missions trips to separate places that June. I would be leaving for Tonga (for a month and a half) a few weeks before he left for the Czech Republic. When I returned, two weeks before he would, the Boyfriend would be back from Tanzania and life would be changed. We said our goodbyes the night before I left, and Jon told me he didn't think we should contact each other while we were gone. It broke my heart. I wasn't going to be able to tell him anything about what I was experiencing, and he didn't want to hear about it. It was his way of distancing himself from me before the three of us would all be in the same place again. I didn't like it. The one and only time I've seen Jon cry is that night, before he left my house.
At one point that summer, the three of us were on three different continents. There were words that couldn't be said, confusion, reunions, heartaches, and forms of love shooting in too many directions. When the time finally came, Boyfriend and I were excited to see each other, but hesitant. He'd been gone for a year, and seen things he could never fully explain to me. I'd been growing closer to one of his former friends for a year, and still wished I could talk to Jon, just once. It didn't take us long to realize we had very much idealized our relationship. How romantic to pine for each other across the world! How amazing our story would be, so many ups and downs, and finally a blessed reunion! But we just weren't clicking. It became achingly clear what had happened when one day I gave Boyfriend a letter I had written explaining my frustrations (we had grown so accustomed to writing that I felt I would do better expressing myself that way). The incriminating lines said this: "I just want to see it on your face. I want you to light up when I walk into the room. Jon smiles like that when he sees me, and he's just my friend."
He studied my face after reading the letter, settled on my eyes and said, "You love him."
I argued with him. I became defensive and supported my logic by reminding him that I waited for him. I had waited for months before he left the country, then I waited a year for his return. If there was any loving going on here, it was my love for him. But something broke free that day. It took this person who I loved with every piece of me, who I would do anything for, to say the words. To allow me to recognize something I'd stubbornly brushed off for years. He wasn't angry. He watched me closely as I explained my feelings, but I could tell that he knew those feelings better than I did myself.
Boyfriend and I weakly kept things going for a couple weeks until he decided to attend a college recommended by the family he'd stayed with in Tanzania. The school was in New York. After he'd been gone three weeks and I hadn't heard much from him, I called him at school and told him I didn't want to do this again. I couldn't keep waiting for him to do his thing, and that it didn't seem like we were supposed to be together. That was a heartbreaking night. I'd carried a love for this guy for five years... these years were made all the more powerful because they were the ages from 17 - 22. We'd dated for most of that time, and we'd made some huge leaps of faith to try to be together. He was my first love. I still felt very much in love with him when I had to tell him it was truly over and say good-bye for the last time.
As much as my heart throbbed, I knew it was the right decision. I knew who I was supposed to be with. The first time I saw Jon after he returned from Europe, he took me aside, away from our other friends and said, "I just want you to know that nothing changed while we were gone. I still feel the same way about you." At the time all I could do was force a lopsided smile.
Several weeks later we found ourselves in Jon's driveway. I'd driven him home from a group outing. That night I was able to look him in the eyes and say, "Jon, I love you."
After nine years of introspection, I now realize that I was the goon in all the chick flicks who is entirely infatuated with the guy who's all wrong for her. I was Andie, in Pretty in Pink, pining over someone else, while the kooky best friend was waiting in the wings: Duckie.
Jon could have given up on me several times. He could have saved himself from my mixed signals and hacksaw-like emotions. He could have moved on and found someone else, someone easier. But I guess when he told me over the phone as I sat hugging my knees against the cinder-block wall in Emerson Hall, "We're supposed to be together," he knew what he was talking about.
We've now been best friends for eight years, together for six, and married for four and a half.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Jonny Blue Jeans - Part 1
The very first time I met Jon, we were at our high school youth group, and he had come with a long time friend of mine. Another friend, Katie, introduced him to me because she knew him from school (they both went to AHS, and I went to THS). I was a senior, he was a junior and had only lived in the area since the year before. He was tall, had a crooked smile, which made him look like he was thinking about a joke he'd heard earlier, and was painfully shy. I was surprised he would spend time with Trevor, who was the complete opposite. As the boys walked away that night, Katie whispered to me, "I'm going to marry that boy someday." I just thought to myself, "That's cute..." and went to talk to some other friends.
A couple years later, Jon and I ended up in the same circle of friends, despite the fact that I was attending college in Santa Barbara and he was still in Atascadero. We were reintroduced by my boyfriend at the time, who I was totally and completely convinced I was going to marry. I traveled home every few weeks to visit him, and Friday night rock climbing at the Crux, followed by dinner at Firestone, was a ritual that would not be altered by "the girlfriend" coming home. Always up for becoming friends with my boyfriend's buddies, I found myself in conversation with Jon at the gym on several occasions.
At first, it was a chore to talk to him. He was sweet, but shy, and being shy myself, I have never had that talent it takes to keep a conversation going unless the other person helps out. Jon didn't help out. Our conversations were brief, and even though awkwardness often had me finding an excuse to walk away, I always found myself drawn back to him by the end of the night. I didn't know why, but I liked being around this guy.
The Boys called him Jonny Blue Jeans, which made sense because whether he was rock climbing, or riding his BMX bike around town and on the local dirt jumps, Jon always wore jeans. He also always wore collared shirts, which I found appealing. Who dresses up when they're participating in physical activities?
As time went on, things with my boyfriend became strained. I realize two hours is hardly "long distance", but any distance can put strain on a relationship, especially when the people involved are only 19 and 20 years old. The first break the Boyfriend and I took was a test. We knew things weren't right, but weren't ready to give each other up quite yet, so visits home were still spent with our group of friends. I yearned for his attention and spent every moment possible with him. These moments usually included Jon and several other friends, because people on "breaks" don't spend time alone.
One night I realized that Jon and I were basically the same person. We'd gotten to be quite comfortable around each other, and despite his to-the-point-of-being-awkward quietness, we got along. The instant I recognized Jon's sense of humor was when we were attending a small concert with our "gang" in San Luis. Jon and I were sitting next to each other, and he'd taken notice of an individual with a ridiculous white man's afro. He really wanted me to see it. He tried to point the guy out to me several times, but being a good nine inches shorter than Jon made it impossible for me to see this work of art. Finally, Jon sighed in utter frustration and said, "Heather, you're breakin' my balls!" At this point we had still mostly engaged in small talk, and I certainly had never heard him utter the word "balls" before. I stared at him for a couple seconds and then cracked. I proceeded to have the kind of laughing fit that makes you feel like you attended an ab sculpting workout at the gym. It seemed as though Jon was one of those "quietly funny" guys, who saved his best lines for the people sitting closest to him, never wanting to draw too much attention to himself. Just like me.
This incident, along with becoming close friends, didn't seal the deal. I was still very much in love with the Boyfriend, and still had it in my head (and heart) that we were supposed to get married. There was a "getting back together" period, in which Jon remained close friends to both of us. Months down the road, another break up ensued, and this time it seemed real. I was devastated. Playing both sides of the fence, Jon heard both sides, and seemed to be most sympathetic toward me. He was there to talk, he invited me to hang out, he apologized for his fellow male and how poorly Former Boyfriend was behaving. He tried to convince me that I deserved to be treated better than this, and that I should move on.
Here's when Jon started to annoy me. No one who has just broken up with the Love of Their Life wants to hear that they should move on. For months after that I was convinced that something would still happen between Boyfriend and me, and that we'd have a fairytale ending that all girls want. We'd just have a "more interesting" story because of all the turmoil. (HA! Twenty-somethings.) During this whole time, Jon, my Best Friend, was there. We spent most of my time on weekend visits together with other friends (now it was far too painful to be around Boyfriend...) The week I returned to school after Christmas break, out of the blue, Jon started texting me. Now, this was 2003. Texting was a somewhat new thing, and I barely knew how to get my phone to make messages, let alone send them. Heck, I had just gotten my first cell phone the previous year, as a sophomore in college! It was a new and exciting way to communicate, and certainly a fun way to receive attention from the opposite sex. I started to look forward to these texts every night, and sometimes Jon would even be sitting in his night classes at Cuesta, texting me instead of paying attention to the lectures.
There was a night that Jon decided to call me. I only really talked to girlfriends and Boyfriend on the phone. When I saw Jon's number pop up I panicked a little. Texting is so easy and passive. But talking!? I answered hesitantly, and Jon and I engaged in some awkward chit chat until he decided to drop a bomb on me. He decided to tell me that he had never felt this way about a girl before in his whole life, and that he was sure that he and I were supposed to be together. In a matter of 10 seconds Jon had ruined everything.
A couple years later, Jon and I ended up in the same circle of friends, despite the fact that I was attending college in Santa Barbara and he was still in Atascadero. We were reintroduced by my boyfriend at the time, who I was totally and completely convinced I was going to marry. I traveled home every few weeks to visit him, and Friday night rock climbing at the Crux, followed by dinner at Firestone, was a ritual that would not be altered by "the girlfriend" coming home. Always up for becoming friends with my boyfriend's buddies, I found myself in conversation with Jon at the gym on several occasions.
At first, it was a chore to talk to him. He was sweet, but shy, and being shy myself, I have never had that talent it takes to keep a conversation going unless the other person helps out. Jon didn't help out. Our conversations were brief, and even though awkwardness often had me finding an excuse to walk away, I always found myself drawn back to him by the end of the night. I didn't know why, but I liked being around this guy.
The Boys called him Jonny Blue Jeans, which made sense because whether he was rock climbing, or riding his BMX bike around town and on the local dirt jumps, Jon always wore jeans. He also always wore collared shirts, which I found appealing. Who dresses up when they're participating in physical activities?
As time went on, things with my boyfriend became strained. I realize two hours is hardly "long distance", but any distance can put strain on a relationship, especially when the people involved are only 19 and 20 years old. The first break the Boyfriend and I took was a test. We knew things weren't right, but weren't ready to give each other up quite yet, so visits home were still spent with our group of friends. I yearned for his attention and spent every moment possible with him. These moments usually included Jon and several other friends, because people on "breaks" don't spend time alone.
One night I realized that Jon and I were basically the same person. We'd gotten to be quite comfortable around each other, and despite his to-the-point-of-being-awkward quietness, we got along. The instant I recognized Jon's sense of humor was when we were attending a small concert with our "gang" in San Luis. Jon and I were sitting next to each other, and he'd taken notice of an individual with a ridiculous white man's afro. He really wanted me to see it. He tried to point the guy out to me several times, but being a good nine inches shorter than Jon made it impossible for me to see this work of art. Finally, Jon sighed in utter frustration and said, "Heather, you're breakin' my balls!" At this point we had still mostly engaged in small talk, and I certainly had never heard him utter the word "balls" before. I stared at him for a couple seconds and then cracked. I proceeded to have the kind of laughing fit that makes you feel like you attended an ab sculpting workout at the gym. It seemed as though Jon was one of those "quietly funny" guys, who saved his best lines for the people sitting closest to him, never wanting to draw too much attention to himself. Just like me.
This incident, along with becoming close friends, didn't seal the deal. I was still very much in love with the Boyfriend, and still had it in my head (and heart) that we were supposed to get married. There was a "getting back together" period, in which Jon remained close friends to both of us. Months down the road, another break up ensued, and this time it seemed real. I was devastated. Playing both sides of the fence, Jon heard both sides, and seemed to be most sympathetic toward me. He was there to talk, he invited me to hang out, he apologized for his fellow male and how poorly Former Boyfriend was behaving. He tried to convince me that I deserved to be treated better than this, and that I should move on.
Here's when Jon started to annoy me. No one who has just broken up with the Love of Their Life wants to hear that they should move on. For months after that I was convinced that something would still happen between Boyfriend and me, and that we'd have a fairytale ending that all girls want. We'd just have a "more interesting" story because of all the turmoil. (HA! Twenty-somethings.) During this whole time, Jon, my Best Friend, was there. We spent most of my time on weekend visits together with other friends (now it was far too painful to be around Boyfriend...) The week I returned to school after Christmas break, out of the blue, Jon started texting me. Now, this was 2003. Texting was a somewhat new thing, and I barely knew how to get my phone to make messages, let alone send them. Heck, I had just gotten my first cell phone the previous year, as a sophomore in college! It was a new and exciting way to communicate, and certainly a fun way to receive attention from the opposite sex. I started to look forward to these texts every night, and sometimes Jon would even be sitting in his night classes at Cuesta, texting me instead of paying attention to the lectures.
There was a night that Jon decided to call me. I only really talked to girlfriends and Boyfriend on the phone. When I saw Jon's number pop up I panicked a little. Texting is so easy and passive. But talking!? I answered hesitantly, and Jon and I engaged in some awkward chit chat until he decided to drop a bomb on me. He decided to tell me that he had never felt this way about a girl before in his whole life, and that he was sure that he and I were supposed to be together. In a matter of 10 seconds Jon had ruined everything.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Scandal in the Backyard
Since my college composition class is what originally prodded my love for writing awake, I decided to start off by sharing some of the stories I wrote as assignments for the class. Some tweaking will be done here and there, because, let's face it: I was 21 years old when I wrote this stuff, and weren't we all a tad idiotic when we were 21? This story is a combination of three narratives called "Moving On", "My New Soulmate", and "Scandal in the Backyard".
I remember being told one day that we were going to move away from our Laguna Hills dwelling. I was devastated. The place of which I was old enough to have conscious memories, the place my brother came home to after his birth, the place I met my best friend, Johnny... we were leaving it behind. Johnny was the hardest to part with. He had been my companion for more than half my five years of life... how could I survive without him? He couldn't come with me. I knew moving far away would be difficult, but for some reason my parents didn't want to raise their children in Orange County. So we packed up like nomads and made the journey to a little town on the Central Coast of California called Atascadero... which means "mud hole". Even so, my parents felt sure something good was waiting for us there. Apparently anything was better than Orange County.
We moved to Atascadero from Laguna Hills, and only spent a year there before relocating to Templeton, the next town north, about seven minutes away. Templeton was home to two things: cows and hillbillies. We moved onto Whippoorwill Lane, and to my sheer delight there was a family two doors down with a girl and a boy. Kim was a year older than me, but Eric was my age... exactly. It took us only one day to realize we had the same birthday and that he happened to be fifty minutes older than I (this, by the way, was something he would use against me in the future any time we had a disagreement... the oldest is always right). Eric had soft white-blond hair, blue eyes, and big white teeth. His lips were always chapped and his skin was always tanned, with a small assortment of freckles scattered across his nose. He was the best looking boy I had ever seen before. I thought he was perfect. All the disappointment in moving had long since disappeared: I had found my new accomplice. In August we went to school together to find out who our new first grade teachers would be. Imagine our bliss when we scanned the lists and found both our names under Mrs. Bailey! We walked away from the school that day a little taller with our arms around each others' shoulders.
Eric and I did everything together for years. Kim became a close companion as well, but for some reason I always migrated toward boys. I would have rather played in mud or tossed a ball around than dress up Barbie dolls or play with Mom's makeup. We rode bikes, scooters, and skateboards, watched movies, played Duck Hunt on Eric's Nintendo, ate mac 'n' cheese, and frolicked in my backyard. One day Eric and I sat in the itchy grass, underneath the fortress we had constructed all by ourselves. Consisting of only chairs and blankets, it was a primitive set up, but it felt like home to us. We were playing house, as we often did; of course Eric was the husband and I was the wife. Somewhere in the midst of me cooking dinner with mud and a shovel, and Eric "coming home from work", one of us decided we should kiss (most likely Eric, the alpha male). Since we were only in the second grade, all we knew was what we saw on TV, which was too complicated, and what our parents did, which was disgusting. So we had no idea where to begin.
As we discussed our plan of action, my heart started to beat faster, not out of nervousness, but from excitement. Eric was my best friend, my soulmate. Who else should my first kiss belong to? Eric suggested that this should be a French kiss, but all we knew was that those required tongues. He, as all good husbands do, continued to take the initiative and instructed me to stick out my tongue. Taking his own advice, he mimicked my action and we both hesitated, with our tongues hanging out. Finally he leaned forward and grazed the tip of my tongue with his own and we both instantly jerked backward, falling over with laughter. We were so rebellious! Quite satisfied with our first kiss, we went about our business, but not before swearing on our lives that no one would ever find out about our fornication.
I suppose in writing this post, I have made a huge breach in that agreement. Oh well, what are the odds that Eric finds my blog and hunts me down? Hmmm... my guess is that we'd just laugh again and throw a joint birthday party.
I remember being told one day that we were going to move away from our Laguna Hills dwelling. I was devastated. The place of which I was old enough to have conscious memories, the place my brother came home to after his birth, the place I met my best friend, Johnny... we were leaving it behind. Johnny was the hardest to part with. He had been my companion for more than half my five years of life... how could I survive without him? He couldn't come with me. I knew moving far away would be difficult, but for some reason my parents didn't want to raise their children in Orange County. So we packed up like nomads and made the journey to a little town on the Central Coast of California called Atascadero... which means "mud hole". Even so, my parents felt sure something good was waiting for us there. Apparently anything was better than Orange County.
We moved to Atascadero from Laguna Hills, and only spent a year there before relocating to Templeton, the next town north, about seven minutes away. Templeton was home to two things: cows and hillbillies. We moved onto Whippoorwill Lane, and to my sheer delight there was a family two doors down with a girl and a boy. Kim was a year older than me, but Eric was my age... exactly. It took us only one day to realize we had the same birthday and that he happened to be fifty minutes older than I (this, by the way, was something he would use against me in the future any time we had a disagreement... the oldest is always right). Eric had soft white-blond hair, blue eyes, and big white teeth. His lips were always chapped and his skin was always tanned, with a small assortment of freckles scattered across his nose. He was the best looking boy I had ever seen before. I thought he was perfect. All the disappointment in moving had long since disappeared: I had found my new accomplice. In August we went to school together to find out who our new first grade teachers would be. Imagine our bliss when we scanned the lists and found both our names under Mrs. Bailey! We walked away from the school that day a little taller with our arms around each others' shoulders.
Eric and I did everything together for years. Kim became a close companion as well, but for some reason I always migrated toward boys. I would have rather played in mud or tossed a ball around than dress up Barbie dolls or play with Mom's makeup. We rode bikes, scooters, and skateboards, watched movies, played Duck Hunt on Eric's Nintendo, ate mac 'n' cheese, and frolicked in my backyard. One day Eric and I sat in the itchy grass, underneath the fortress we had constructed all by ourselves. Consisting of only chairs and blankets, it was a primitive set up, but it felt like home to us. We were playing house, as we often did; of course Eric was the husband and I was the wife. Somewhere in the midst of me cooking dinner with mud and a shovel, and Eric "coming home from work", one of us decided we should kiss (most likely Eric, the alpha male). Since we were only in the second grade, all we knew was what we saw on TV, which was too complicated, and what our parents did, which was disgusting. So we had no idea where to begin.
As we discussed our plan of action, my heart started to beat faster, not out of nervousness, but from excitement. Eric was my best friend, my soulmate. Who else should my first kiss belong to? Eric suggested that this should be a French kiss, but all we knew was that those required tongues. He, as all good husbands do, continued to take the initiative and instructed me to stick out my tongue. Taking his own advice, he mimicked my action and we both hesitated, with our tongues hanging out. Finally he leaned forward and grazed the tip of my tongue with his own and we both instantly jerked backward, falling over with laughter. We were so rebellious! Quite satisfied with our first kiss, we went about our business, but not before swearing on our lives that no one would ever find out about our fornication.
I suppose in writing this post, I have made a huge breach in that agreement. Oh well, what are the odds that Eric finds my blog and hunts me down? Hmmm... my guess is that we'd just laugh again and throw a joint birthday party.
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