Clayton
08-17-2012, 09:12 AM
No one ever really gives up on love, but instead they give up on themselves. This wasn't always so, and like most sad stories or love stories (these are sometimes one in the same) mine began and ended the first and last time I met the girl. Of course I had the typical crushes and classroom infatuations, and like most teenagers I met my first "love" in high school. However, all of these experiences are simply par for the course and I treat them as such. It was only after high school that love took a different meaning and shape altogether.
Her name was Jessica and sufficed to say the first time I noticed her, mere words lost their gravity and no longer seemed suitable for the description which she merited. It is strange that simple words in the mouth of a hero (or villain) can bolster the foundations of an entire nation (or burn them to the ground). Yet in the mouth of an akward, silly kid words become feeble noises, desperate whimpers of a tongue that has failed where a heart so desires to succeed.
I had just moved into a claustrophobic town where all of the neighbors' windows are too close and everyone knows everyone else. Though I hadn't yet been acquainted with all of these next-door nobodies, I had little reason to believe that I would ever care to make any of their acquaintences. But she was different. Perhaps the first person I had met in my meager 18 years that was truly dissimilar to all the others in my life. Beautiful she was, but she was the last to seem to notice. However, this isn't what drew me towards her. It was her solitude that haunted me. She was always alone. But now that I think back, it was actually her comfort with that solitude which seemed so unique. Her complete disinterest with everything outside of her mind, this is why I fell in love.
We became friends (a result of ceaseless desperation on my part). We hung out (again, due in no small part to my own personal tenacity). But then we talked about nothing and everything and we played chess and we stayed up too late,too often. I found out she had a sister and a cat and lived to paint. She wasn't embarrassed that she loved Harry Potter and classic films and music which no one else seemed to love but her. At first she didn't seem to notice things about me, but she must have known what she needed to because before I knew it, she always seemed to be around. But more importantly, she didn't mind sharing her solitude so long as it was with me.
Time does funny things when you forget that it is still there. What should be long, warm June nights become so many fleeting heartbeats, each one lost sooner than they began. And it is also remarkable how memories constructed in the adrenaline of July which at one time were so intense, are also dulled and dimmed by that same head-spinning rush of chemicals. All I can say with complete certainty about those times is that the younger me never wanted them to end and for a while I believed they wouldn't. But the older me knows that time won't be forgotten...and that summer is 93 days.
Eliot said "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper". The same is true of love. I use that word because for me, for an 18 year old boy, it was love, both true and virgin. We were friends for many months and for the time nothing more. "Almost kisses" and "accidental fingertips" proved we were both too afraid to do what ought to have been done or say what ought to have been said. Friends we were, but love dwelled so close to the surface that we could see it when we lay too close to one another. Had we let the world melt away or even let it consume us whole, we would be content for we needed no one else. We were alone for almost a year. But I came to find that our solitary world was not free from those around us.
There was another, a third character, whose entrance was so subtle that to this day I cannot recall. Jessica had a sister. I was friendly enough and she went altogether unnoticed, but later I would come to find that I had not gone unnoticed by her. Hate can make people do awesome and horrible things, but love can make people do things they never thought they would do. It is more probable that she did not love me exactly, but the fact remains; jealousy does not recognize sisterhood.
There was no great argument and tempers did not flair. It was more subdued than that, this sound of my heart breaking. Jessica told me that we couldn't be friends after what I did. If you are confused you can imagine how I felt at the time. "What are you talking about?", were the only appropriate words which came to mind. "How could you sleep with my sister when I thought you liked me?", Jessica asked but the question did not seem to be asked in any language I could speak. Again words failed me. "What are you talking about?", was the only response I could muster since all the air from my lungs seemed to be missing. "She told me everything", she replied. Her statements were as abrupt as my own; I could tell she seemed to be suffering from the same sudden shortage of air.
This is the part where I lie and say that Jessica's sister fabricated a tale in desperation, a last ditch effort to keep me for herself. This is also the part where I lie and say that we agreed not to be friends because as selfish as her sister was to tell such a lie, they were still family and family comes first. This is the part where I lie and tell everyone that I didn't join the military to run away but instead to find the future that I should have had before Jessica. This is the part where I tell you that if it was meant to be it would have been and at least I can pat myself on the back for doing the noble thing and stepping aside to prevent sisters from battling eachother.
This is the part where I tell the truth .For years I carried Jessica with me when I should have moved on. I met others here and there, but they were all just people and more and more people seem to be alike. I have not given up on love, no, I have the deepest faith in what love can do. Instead, I gave up on myself. I gave up on a boy that was courageous with schnapps and foolish with lust, and I gave up on a boy that justified the loss of a true friend by telling himself that if he couldn't have the girl he wanted at least he could have second best. I was 19 when I chose to grow up. I am not a boy anymore, but now and again when the nights are at their warmest, I wish I could remember how to forget that time was still there.
Her name was Jessica and sufficed to say the first time I noticed her, mere words lost their gravity and no longer seemed suitable for the description which she merited. It is strange that simple words in the mouth of a hero (or villain) can bolster the foundations of an entire nation (or burn them to the ground). Yet in the mouth of an akward, silly kid words become feeble noises, desperate whimpers of a tongue that has failed where a heart so desires to succeed.
I had just moved into a claustrophobic town where all of the neighbors' windows are too close and everyone knows everyone else. Though I hadn't yet been acquainted with all of these next-door nobodies, I had little reason to believe that I would ever care to make any of their acquaintences. But she was different. Perhaps the first person I had met in my meager 18 years that was truly dissimilar to all the others in my life. Beautiful she was, but she was the last to seem to notice. However, this isn't what drew me towards her. It was her solitude that haunted me. She was always alone. But now that I think back, it was actually her comfort with that solitude which seemed so unique. Her complete disinterest with everything outside of her mind, this is why I fell in love.
We became friends (a result of ceaseless desperation on my part). We hung out (again, due in no small part to my own personal tenacity). But then we talked about nothing and everything and we played chess and we stayed up too late,too often. I found out she had a sister and a cat and lived to paint. She wasn't embarrassed that she loved Harry Potter and classic films and music which no one else seemed to love but her. At first she didn't seem to notice things about me, but she must have known what she needed to because before I knew it, she always seemed to be around. But more importantly, she didn't mind sharing her solitude so long as it was with me.
Time does funny things when you forget that it is still there. What should be long, warm June nights become so many fleeting heartbeats, each one lost sooner than they began. And it is also remarkable how memories constructed in the adrenaline of July which at one time were so intense, are also dulled and dimmed by that same head-spinning rush of chemicals. All I can say with complete certainty about those times is that the younger me never wanted them to end and for a while I believed they wouldn't. But the older me knows that time won't be forgotten...and that summer is 93 days.
Eliot said "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper". The same is true of love. I use that word because for me, for an 18 year old boy, it was love, both true and virgin. We were friends for many months and for the time nothing more. "Almost kisses" and "accidental fingertips" proved we were both too afraid to do what ought to have been done or say what ought to have been said. Friends we were, but love dwelled so close to the surface that we could see it when we lay too close to one another. Had we let the world melt away or even let it consume us whole, we would be content for we needed no one else. We were alone for almost a year. But I came to find that our solitary world was not free from those around us.
There was another, a third character, whose entrance was so subtle that to this day I cannot recall. Jessica had a sister. I was friendly enough and she went altogether unnoticed, but later I would come to find that I had not gone unnoticed by her. Hate can make people do awesome and horrible things, but love can make people do things they never thought they would do. It is more probable that she did not love me exactly, but the fact remains; jealousy does not recognize sisterhood.
There was no great argument and tempers did not flair. It was more subdued than that, this sound of my heart breaking. Jessica told me that we couldn't be friends after what I did. If you are confused you can imagine how I felt at the time. "What are you talking about?", were the only appropriate words which came to mind. "How could you sleep with my sister when I thought you liked me?", Jessica asked but the question did not seem to be asked in any language I could speak. Again words failed me. "What are you talking about?", was the only response I could muster since all the air from my lungs seemed to be missing. "She told me everything", she replied. Her statements were as abrupt as my own; I could tell she seemed to be suffering from the same sudden shortage of air.
This is the part where I lie and say that Jessica's sister fabricated a tale in desperation, a last ditch effort to keep me for herself. This is also the part where I lie and say that we agreed not to be friends because as selfish as her sister was to tell such a lie, they were still family and family comes first. This is the part where I lie and tell everyone that I didn't join the military to run away but instead to find the future that I should have had before Jessica. This is the part where I tell you that if it was meant to be it would have been and at least I can pat myself on the back for doing the noble thing and stepping aside to prevent sisters from battling eachother.
This is the part where I tell the truth .For years I carried Jessica with me when I should have moved on. I met others here and there, but they were all just people and more and more people seem to be alike. I have not given up on love, no, I have the deepest faith in what love can do. Instead, I gave up on myself. I gave up on a boy that was courageous with schnapps and foolish with lust, and I gave up on a boy that justified the loss of a true friend by telling himself that if he couldn't have the girl he wanted at least he could have second best. I was 19 when I chose to grow up. I am not a boy anymore, but now and again when the nights are at their warmest, I wish I could remember how to forget that time was still there.