Memory Bank (part 8)

The drive home was long, boring and unexciting. With vacation over, I sat in the back seat daydreaming of First. He was literally first and foremost in my mind. Part of me was unbelievably happy, while the rest of me sat in miserable silence. His life was one of an adult, while I was still very much a child, going to high school, being in marching band wearing that hideous hat with a feather plume. As if being in band wasn’t nearly dorky enough, they dressed up in wool uniforms that never were the right size and hats with chin straps. I tried to picture First in my hometown with me. I sat thinking of what it would be like if he were to move to Ohio. How would it work out for us while I was still in high school? Not having enough mature brain cells to paint the picture of romance meeting reality, I let it all go and just thought about the time I had just spent with him. The biggest thing for me was all the talking we did. My insignificant experience with boys was that they didn’t talk much, which having me around, was horrifying for them, because all I did was talk. Being shy at that point in my life was not my issue. First kept up with me verbally, bantering back and forth, and saying highly intelligent things that were so funny. I never felt like the conversation was lopsided like I did so many other times. There was this flow to things, an order of sorts, where we just were exactly as we should be. I wasn’t self conscious around him either, which I felt during our time together. Instinctively, I knew I was different around him than I had been with other males. I was neither intimidated nor disinterested. It was evident to both of us that he was smarter, more experienced in life, but I never felt as though he talked down to me. If I didn’t know something, I asked. If he knew the answer, he told me. It was such a simple way to be. I watched the landscape slide by my window in a blur thinking I wished all of my life were as easy as it was with him.
Once we were home, I unpacked and settled into the life I knew. I had to learn how to drive, get ready for my nerdy band camp, and survive summer in a new house. We had just moved to the opposite side of town earlier that year. Even though I had grown up in my hometown all my life, being separated from the only home I knew was disconcerting. The house was bigger, so my grandmother could move in. She had Parkinson’s disease and could no longer live on her own. My room sort of looked like my room, but newer, a little bigger and it smelled of fresh paint. The carpet was plush between my toes, a lovely champagne color, as I walked around in bare feet. I paced in my room, feeling very anxious about First and if I would hear from him. I tried to busy up, occupying my mind with high school stuff, but the truth was I felt changed, I felt different as if somewhere between when I left my sophomore year and got home from vacation I had become something other than just a high school girl. The feelings I had were bigger than boyfriends from my past. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew I would not be the same person who had gotten into my parents station wagon a few weeks earlier.
True to his word, First wrote, and called. He was the exact person I had thought he was. I knew I loved him, but wondered if he felt the same lightning strike I had. We talked about everything. We couldn’t seem to get the words out fast enough. He did love me. He felt the same as I did. I had not imagined things, or blown things out of proportion because he felt it too. First soothed my anxious heart many times over the summer. As weeks slipped away I began to doubt whether our relationship was feasible. First drove up to see me later in the summer. I clung to him as the child I was. Reality played no part in how I was feeling. I didn’t give a damn about anyone or anything but being with him. In our family home, it felt weird having him there, but I felt normal when it was just him and me. When we could spend time just the two of us, it all felt as if the pieces fit, as if we were precisely in the right spot, in the right time. Once again, First had to leave, taking all of my love with him. Again I mourned. And then I did something I still regret to this day. I took all of my childish insecurity and actively chose wrong over and over and over. My actions changed both of us irrevocably, but this time it was no divine intervention, it was no lightning strike. This time I allowed fear, anxiety, and selfishness to run the show. What I did would hurt both of us right to our cores.
I talked obsessively about First. Remember the first time you fell in love? Remember how you felt as though you had won the lottery? It was my mind set everyday all day. But there was a caveat; I whined incessantly about not having him around. I went from happy to hand wringing in under thirty seconds. I can’t remember if I asked for advice or just got it anyway, but the next thing I knew everyone in my inner circle began telling me how ridiculous I was for thinking I could have a boyfriend his age, with that much distance between us. “Do you seriously think he is going to want to take you to prom? Good God Kellie, he is in college.” “There is no way he isn’t having sex with other people. Look at how old he is.” “If you make him move up here you will ruin his life.” “Ruin his life…” became the constant voice I heard time and time again. In my head I wondered, “If he moves will I ruin his life? Will he think I am worth it? What if we break up and he hates me forever for ruining his life? What if he discovers I am nothing and he moved away from his friends and family for nothing?” At sixteen one can become a tortured soul and I certainly did. I spent countless hours telling myself I was not worthy of First, or his love. I chose to listen to bad advice from ill informed people. Where I was confident, happy and able to follow my gut instincts with First, on my own I became a human wrecking ball, destroying everything in my path. I did not want that for my beloved First. I knew he deserved everything, I felt he certainly deserved better than me. He deserved someone who could stand in their truth and feel confident about their decisions, not some snot nosed, wimpy sixteen year old who couldn’t drive. I told First we were breaking up because I wanted to see other people. I told him the distance was too far. I lied.
We did indeed break up. First, always being a gentleman told me he understood. I was crushed. My heart was truly broken and I felt little consolation with having saved First from a fate of being with me. We left things alone after that and I went back to being a miserable teenager. I ended up dating a guy who had dumped me the previous year, arbitrarily. I was a good girlfriend doing what I was told, going on dates, going through the motions of what “normal” was supposed to look like for a high school junior. I let it slide the first time my resident boyfriend told me to shut up. I was shocked initially because First would have never done anything like that, but this was different so I said nothing. I muffled my cries the first time I got hit by the boy who was close to home. I was indeed having lots of firsts, but none were happy. I accepted that this boyfriend wasn’t so smart, he was dangerous. I forgave him each time he raised his hand to me, screamed at me or called me names. I felt I deserved it. I punished myself for hurting First, for thinking I should have the happiness I felt around him and for what I’d done. I knew I gotten it wrong, but felt as if it were too late. I thought I had ruined everything, so it was best to let it go and accept that what I had was all I could ever hope for. I stayed in that abusive, hurtful relationship for years. I let my own insecurities, feelings of worthlessness, steer my course. It was a terrible relationship, if you can even call it that. He was a drug addict and I was his whipping post. There were many nights when I would lay in my bed thinking of First and the love I gave up. I thought of him falling in love with another girl, living happy, all of his dreams coming true. I would lay there closing my eyes so tight the tears would squeeze from my lids in forced hot streams, running down my cheeks, soaking my pillow, staining it black with mascara. The following summer I looked into the stars and wondered if First were looking too. I sat out on our deck just star gazing wondering if I would ever get out of this self imposed prison and find happiness one day. I looked out over the horizon and felt a shiver up my spine. It was a physical whisper of sorts; a reminder that once, a long time ago a boy loved me for exactly who I was. In that moment, I began to remember who I had been before my most recent “reality” had set in.