So...with what would have been mine and Jen's eighth wedding anniversary looming, what better time could there be to take a trip through my romantic past, in the hope that it might help me figure out my romantic future. If such a thing exists.
I think that the various objects of my affection can be grouped into...well, let's see...
And I think I'm going to use initials to protect the innocent...
JD, PW, RB, JS, HP
That seems a lot to take us through to 15, but you know how things are with kids...
JD - You were a funny kid, I don't remember much about you, but I do know that you were the first girl I kissed. I liked you a lot, and then you decided that you liked Martin French more. You told me in the dining room at school. You were heartbreak #1.
PW - You made me laugh...a lot. You had a lovely smile and beautiful hair. Working on class projects with you was the highlight of second year of middle school. You once told me that I give the best hugs. You were uncomplicated and honest, and I don't even remember why I broke up with you. I suspect it's because I had my head turned by...
RB - When you moved from the bottom end of town to a new house near me I was so happy to be able to see you in the evenings. Your dad had a green Cavalier, and after you moved your folks would sometimes give me a ride home. Your mother made wonderfully spicy Indian food, and your dad always treated me much more like a grown up than I really was. I remember playing Hungry Hippoes with your little sister in your room at the new house, which I still remember the address of, which is either weird or creepy. Sitting in a cold back yard in the snow, you wanted me to kiss you with (shock) open mouth (no tongue.) I wasn't comfortable with that, so you dumped me for Christian Bevan. Then I moved to Ireland. I wrote to you when I was 16, I don't know if you even got the letter.
JS - So you're out of chronological order, but there's a reason. Being 14 is awkward for everyone, and I don't think you were ever really comfortable with the fact that I was intelligent and funny and lived in the worst neighborhood in town. It didn't seem to sit right with you, especially when appearances are so important. I can't say for sure, but that uncertainty might be the reason I went back and forth for months between you and...
HP - The only blond I have ever fallen for. On a school trip to the Lakes you caught me by the boys dorm, pinned me to the wall and kissed me. A real kiss. At the end of trip disco, which was fancy dress optional, you came as Sandy from Grease, and you were a vision. I was awful to you, though. I would buy you candy and then failed to defend you when the boys teased you about your weight (which there was nothing wrong with.) The last strong memory I have of you is me sitting on the stage at teh end of year disco, you were standing in front of me. I bent to kiss you and you tasted like salt and vinegar crisps. The DJ was spinning "Desire" by U2. That moment is perfectly preseved for me, like the first real kiss, and the fact that everyone got food poisoning from that trip to Threlkeld. The next year you went to France on a school trip, and met a boy named Christophe. We were over by then, but I was still jealous of him. If I recall right, you broke my heart (and you really did) to be with an older boy. I can't blame you really, a kid whose voice is changing or a man who has a car and spending money? It's not a difficult choice.
High school was a trying time for me. Not least because my family moved to a new town when I was 15. Which meant I had to figure out how to make a bunch of new friends. Something happens when you're the new guy - the boys at school want to make sure you know who's alpha dog - or at the very least that you're not it. And the girls - well, you're new and untried. A break from what they're used to. So I was interesting to the girls for a while. Here's a lesson for any teenage boys reading this: there is a window, and if you don't dive into dating in a new school, you'll very quickly be assumed to be uninteresting. I missed the window, but it didn't stop me from looking through it at the girls I was missing out on.
So my high school career is mostly a series of angsty crushes.
FD - In art class, Miss Johnston (who I also had a little crush on) seated me next to a pale skinned girl with hair the color of burnt gold. You painted the most beautiful tulips in pink and orange. You spoke quietly. While we didn't talk much, when you did, you always had something interesting to say. I would sometimes see you standing by the wall at lunchtime, with some of the other girls, and maybe my memory is tricking me that sometimes you'd smile in my direction. You were the first redhead that took my breath away - you weren't the last. I'm glad to know you as an adult - we're much more talkative, and I think that not having baggage from high school is good.
JN - You played football with the boys. You were funny, but a really dry funny. You were smart, clever in a way that no other girl in the school was. Some of my best memories are of you and me sitting next to each other, writing stupid notes to each other in Mrs. Rogerson's english lit class. The other great memories are that Mrs. Rogerson cast you as Cleopatra and me as Marc Anthony for our readthrough of the play, and so we had these very sappy scenes to read. I read some of them very badly. By the end, though, I was really feeling everything on the page, and speaking it like I meant it. Because, of course, I did. Once, late in our school career, we were playing football in the gym at lunchtime and I nearly broke your finger. I felt awful about that. But I never treated you differently to anyone else when you joined the game - I think I just respected you too much for that, which sounds like a stupid thing to say, but I never wanted to patronize you by not playing my normal game.
WF - Wow, how young and stupid were we? I think that the answers are "very" and "really." You changed a lot of things for me, and when things ended with us it took me a long time to get over you. We shared a lot, I gave up a lot (and did a lot of favors) to be able to spend time with you. But for all the ways I felt betrayed and foolish, when I was in the moment, I was happy, and things always look different with the benefits of age and experience.
Simon Dawson's 18th birthday party. The Blue Bell. Druridge Bay. Eddie flooding the bathroom. Afternoons at my house after school, days spent at your place before you went to Spain. I have great memories of a lot of happy times. You showed me boiled eggs and toast scrambled in the pan. I made you unusual gifts. We made clay faces and painted them. You always smiled, laughed a lot, and we joked about everything.
When you ended things I was devastated. It didn't help that it was the same day I got my A-level results and found out that it was going to be really hard to get into a college anywhere.
But I did get into college. I went to Northampton to study computer communications. The basis of the course was that people were either tech engineers or non-tech managers. Graduates of my degree would be equipped to bridge the gap between those groups.
There was a new thing called "The Internet" - for us in academia it was JANet (the Joint Academic Network.) At Nene College, only one computer logged more online hours than me, and it was the school's file server. What, I love technology. But in truth, I was emailing Stephen "Pre" Pringle who was at Northumbria University, and he introduced me to my friend, Ben, or Liz as he was affectionately known. His course was Library and Information Management (LI) and his graduating year gave him the suffix Z for his email - LIZ507. It was with Ben that I hung out in a chat room administerd by CMU in Pittsburgh. And it was in that room that I struck up a friendship with a girl named "jello" who was studying English and Philosophy in Macon, Georgia. While my friendship with jello was the highlight of my day, I knew that nothing could happen because she was 4000 miles away. So I turned to chatting with people in the University of Northumbria student bulletin board system, nicknamed ShandyBoard.
It was here that I ran into LIU441, a cute, funny, pop-culture aware girl with a penchant for quoting song lyrics. And what college student doesn't love that?
CS - From late April 1994, for six weeks, LIU441 and XCU6 (I was External Computer User 6 after making arrangements to use the UNN computer lab during breaks from college so I could keep up to date with coursework. Honest, that's what I did.) chatted and flirted on ShandyBoard. And then it was finals time, and I knew I would not be invited back to Northampton for a sophmore year. The first time I met LIU441 was near the end of the year, just before finals. I traveled up to Newcastle because LIZ had arranged a library and information management conference, and we had been wanting to hang out. That evening LIU441 was going clubbing, I didn't really want to go, but I stood in line with her outside Julies at the Quayside, standing in the cold, just holding her to keep her warm. School (and flirting) resumed, finals happened, exams were failed. I traveled back to Newcastle, and went out with LIU441 for her birthday. That's when we kissed for the first time. We spent most of the summer together, and by Christmas we were living together pretty much full time.
There were a lot, and that maybe needs to be bold and in caps, A LOT, of happy times. New Years Eve 1998-99 she went to a party, and I didn't because I'm, yo know, bah humbug about new year celebrations. She met someone there from her past, and after trying to make a much more complicated relationship work for several months, and a simpler relationship for several more, she moved out of our home in March 2000. Even though it had been over for a while, coming home from work to a house without her clothes in the closet, without her stuff in the bathroom...I felt empty and alone. And when I feel empty and alone, I tend to fill that space with many and shallow.
Which I did for that summer, until I reconnected with...
Jello. But again, that is the story for the end of the story.
CD, LS, and AJ. You found me at times when I was in the middle of one crisis or another. I promised things that, deep down, I think I knew I could never give you: time, commitment, a real relationship. The kinder thing for me to do would have been to not start anything with you, but I wasn't strong enough for that, and my weakness ended up hurting you. For that, I will always be sorry.
AS - Meeting you worked like a catalyst for a lot of the changes in my life in 2010. Wow, we laughed a lot. Like all the time. Things developed very quickly with us and that was because, hey, surprise, I couldn't maintain my own identity when I wanted to spend time with you.
After we ended, I decided to take some time for myself. Taking advice from several people, though, I dived back into the dating pool and met...
LW - Which brings us up to date. You are sweet and generous and you demand honesty from others while you give it gently and with kindness. And then you were so awesome that I wanted to spend time together, and then there was the usual story...
In fact, there really aren't very many relationships that I didn't just lose myself in. The biggest of these, by most definitions, was Jello. Jennifer Aiello. The woman I fell in love with and married, and then I betrayed and left.
We met on the CMU English server, you'd roll your eyes, I'd pick them up and roll them back. We were so funny. You came to visit me in England in December, I took my decorations down when you left a few days before Christmas.
I sounds like I have a huge ego, but I'm smart, and I'm funny, and...finding an equal, in so many things that are important to me - was amazing. And I found that in you.
They say that it's important to have a happy image you can call up, when your last moment is imminent, so that you can go to a warm, safe, happy place and not be afraid. Mine is you standing in front of me, on a warm fall day eight years ago. Looking at me, your face the definition of happiness and love, promising me that it would be you and me forever.
I betrayed that promise. I didn't understand what it meant. I knew the words but didn't live it in my heart. Moving to the US was difficult for me, obstacles that I never expected that I don't think I ever really got over and put behind me. I just pushed them in front of me, bulled my way forward. Until the blocks got too heavy.
I've told you a hundred times how sorry I am, and that I wish I had been different. You told me to forgive myself - that's hard, but I know I have to try. Even if I don't feel like I deserve it, I should try anyway, because forgiveness isn't about being deserving, it's about being renewed.
Putting down some of my memories from the last ten years would take too long, take too much effort to write without falling apart every few minutes.
You have been my best friend for a decade. Those memories are the places I can go to when I feel sad, or when I want to feel sad. Sometimes when I just want to feel something. I couldn't lose myself in you, because I was never separate from you.
Until this year.
And even though we've both changed, something has become clear...
I was not meant to be separate from you. I just don't know what that means yet.
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