Character drop

OK, I've changed my mind. When it comes down to it, the Isaac stuff isn't nearly as fun to write about as the other boys. His significance in my life revolving mostly on the fact that he left.

Its all probably something I should be telling my therapist about, if I ever finally start seeing a therapist rather than simply spill my issues on the world wide web. Basically, the change Isaac made on me is something that I understand now, looking back, reading my thoughts from that time. Then I merely thought I had my heart broken for the first time.

But the thing was, I never actually loved Isaac. And as many times as he told me he loved me, I don't really believe he ever did. Not that he was insincere. He was just such a lost and lonely boy that he was desperate to be in love. And I filled some kind of safe void for him. Because I would never hurt him, I didn't exist in the same world as him. While his home life was crumbling, his parents practically drinking themselves to death, having affairs, attempting suicide, leaving him and his brother to fend for themselves, his fantasy life created around me was a safe haven. When his high school girlfriend broke his heart because he was too depressed to be around, when he dropped out of college cause he couldn't will himself to care about a future, I was always there on the other end of the email or the phone. Comforting him.

He would send me these words:

"I have never felt more alone and sad in my entire life. I know that I'm not alone but I have pushed everyone out. I don't have any direction and I don't know what to do... I'm not looking for pity but these are the thoughts that run through my head all the time. That's why I thought of you the other day. I was trying to remember a time when I was really happy. When I felt worth something. Like I meant something to someone... I never thought, until I met you, that I could open up to a someone and let them know me. I felt an overwhelming attraction to you, both physically and on a person to person basis. You and I seemed to be on the same wavelength, I could go on forever... I meant what I said when I told you I love you. And I know if we were together I know I would fall completely in love with you."

And it was this devotion he had towards me that let me trust him. Let me pretend in the way he did that whatever else was going on in our lives, we had this one magical, amazing connection that transcended all else.

Before Isaac's departure from my life in the winter of my freshman year of college, I was a hopeful, naive, and trusting young girl. My journal was filled with endless crushes that came and went, declarations of love for boys I don't even remember, ego bruises, rejection, a gambit of emotions. The enthusiasm I had before Isaac has never appeared in my journals again. The word love was never uttered again til Ryan, and never since. When I look back on the beginning of my relationship with Peter, who entered my life only a couple months following the Isaac fall, its strange to see how little life I put into my feelings. How guarded my words became. I never trusted him nor did I confuse my interest in him as love. I assumed he would hurt me before things even began. And I was always one foot out the door. Ready to run.

And its the same way now, this insecurity, a fear of being hurt that causes me to sabotage potential before its off the ground. Perhaps we all go through this one catastrophic change in our formative years. I suppose my experience is no different then most. We've all had our hearts broken, there wouldn't be pop music or chick flicks without that common human bond. But what I find interesting is the evidence of the change. Its amazing to me that I wrote it down. That I can recognize the change in tone, in diction (or maybe that's from too many lit courses for my English major). That I am able to look back and see where my life took a sudden turn.

To this day, I don't think I've ever felt as completely torn apart as the night things changed between he and I. And I doubt I'll ever fully heal. Perhaps one day I'll actually write about the night it happened. For now I'd rather not relive the whole experience too in depth.

A year or two ago I found Isaac on myspace. I dropped him a brief note, sending my best. He wrote back:

"I was wondering how long it would be before we met on myspace. I appreciate you reaching out to me and making contact. Considering our mishaps, I'm glad that you are willing to contact me.
That night at western... well actually, I was too far gone up to remember it. I can wager that I was probably a jerk, and sought things of you that you were not willing to give. And I deeply apologise. It is because of nights like that, and there were many that I was out of my mind and body, that I gave up drinking. Its a poison for me that has so negatively affected my life."

We never wrote again. It was all that needed to be said and I'm relieved that his life has gone in a better direction.

To begin...

In order to represent the impact of Isaac's departure from my life, I have to first build him up to the extend I had done so many years ago. he must become a symbol of perfection. An unrealistic fantasy of a man. Beautiful. Open. Loving. Naive to the pain of the world and optimistic of all possibilities.

It was the summer when I was 15 years old that we met. A summer I look upon now as the time my teenage life really began. It was over this three month period of adolescence that I first became aware that boys actually noticed me. And I relished over this new found power.

When my freshman year of high school came to an end, a popular senior boy asked me on a date. A real one. My first. We went to dinner, caught a movie, and later over coffee he asked, "Do you even have any idea just how unbelievably beautiful you are?" I blushed. I had never been told I was beautiful by a boy before.

He was of course too old for me and I soon began seeing his more age appropriate friend, a boy my parents dubbed the Nice Boy from Farmington. He however was a bit too nice and after cheating on him a couple times with my delinquent neighbor, I ended things to begin a fling with a long-haired, pothead. Luckily it was on this self esteem high that I was floating when Isaac and I first met because had I not been the aggressor, things may never have started at all.

A memory of Isaac

(circa fall 2001)

No more than fifteen years behind me
And I've never known what its like
to have a love life
I have never even had a like life
But here we sit alone for the first time
A drop of liquid falls on my toe
Or is it a drip?
Drop
Drip
I ignore the rain
And hold your hand in mine
as we sit it silence
There's an unspoken connection
From your eyes locked in my gaze
And I feel
the exhilarating rush of our instant attraction
Turning itself into a mutual lust
Between us
And I know you understand
That feeling
It's new to me
Stronger than anything
I had previously experienced in relation
to a boy
But here I am with you now
Comforted by your presence
And the realization that I am capable
of being loved
By someone
I begin to cry
Was it ever raining at all
or always just my tears?

Cast of characters

As previously mentioned, I'm pulling from my old journals for stories and while the two whole people who actually read my blog already know these folks i will soon be referring to, I thought I'd give a little insite anyway. Just for the hell of it.

Three boys played extremely significant roles during the time of my life that I'm focusing on. Two of them have been written about on this blog already, their impact still maintaining a firm grasp on my life and self. The other is someone who has in many ways been forgotten. A person who flitted in and out of my life quickly, yet dramatically, and it was really only by reading the words I wrote at 19 that I realized how my experience with him had changed things in a way I can no longer deny.

So here they are: Isaac, Peter, and Ryan (Peter's name had previously been omitted and instead been referred to only as Boy in the past but since I'm fairly certain he's not going to be reading this anytime soon, we'll give him his name back).

Isaac I met when I was 15 in Holland, MI, a small town where my best friend at the time had family. We had taken a Greyhound bus across the state to stay for a week, spending our days with her cousin Matthew and all his friends, who were our age. One of these friends was a cute, shy boy named Isaac. I was his first kiss late one night out in the rain and we stayed in touch for years after, sending long emails and pseudo professions of love. Isaac was my first faraway fantasy, a role Ryan later took on. He became this perfect being in my mind and the fallout on a winter night in 2001 has left me scarred in ways I did not realize.

Peter was for all intensive purposes my college boyfriend, even though at no point in the three years that we were on and off did we ever give ourselves a label of exclusivity. Regardless, we both always referred to the other as our exes and when he graduated the year before me, he professed my role as the person he felt closest to during all those years. Peter was also the first boy I ever slept with and therefore he played a role far more complicated in my life.

Ryan is most easily described as my actual first real love. And to this day he has remained the only person I ever have loved. He is the only one of the three who is still in my life as we do write, text, and call occasionally. And there is always still the inkling that our relationship is not something which will always exist in the past tense. He is also the only one who will probably ever read the words I've written about him over the years. Once I sent him the beginning of the short story I began on our relationship, his only comments were to correct a couple errors in grammar. He lets me tell the story the way I remember it and I appreciate that.

So there they are. I will be alternating between their stories as I write, I have no interest in being totally chronological, but use the labels below to section out each individual as necessary.

Let the stories begin!

"And you wake up to realize your standard of living somehow got stuck on survive" -Jewel

Time to cheat...

Alright, I admit it, I'm about to start cheating with this blog. When I was home over Christmas I found some of my old journals (I have like 100 of them randomly boxed all over my parent's house so every time I'm home I tend to discover another one). Anyway, one of them was from the college years, most specifically when I was taking creative writing courses, getting into poetry, and hopelessly in love with a boy across the ocean. Needless to say, I think I did some of my best writing during those days. Their journal pieces, so they're totally raw, but I want to start borrowing from them, editing on them, and posting some stuff here.

My top New Years resolution is to focus on my writing. To promise myself at least one solid half hour each day of quality time between my computer and my ideas. I also want to post at least one thing a day here. These two things however are not necessarily the same. My writing is sometimes just for me and I don't want it on here yet. SO that's where the old work comes in.

Who knows, maybe people might take interest in my 19-22 year old thoughts...

"You begin with the things you love, you end up with the things you'll do." -Adam Duritz