The Comedy of Errors in College Relationships

My grandma asked me to tell her about a time in my life when I have been the happiest. I couldn’t think of one particular instance immediately but I told her that so far in my life, even on the worst days, I have been happy every day of my life. I have woken up smiling even when the night before I went to bed exhausted and drained. Sure school work, friendships, relationships are all hard but no matter how much they have stressed me out or made me question myself there has not been one day that I haven’t been excited by my own passions, dreams, and future goals and I think that’s a beautiful thing.

Here is the story that has sparked the idea of the title of the comedy of Errors of relationships, about a high school romance, a huge fall-out, the loss of my innocence and then a re-visitation of my past. All names have been changed but everything I have written has happened just like a dream…

 Part I

 Jay.

I fell in love with him the moment we met, originally at Katie Kupstis’s sweet 16, his blue eyes held me like an electric shock. Hands running through his thick light brown hair, the side had a silly blonde streak, natural, which everyone thought he dyed, and a pouty mouth. I was very attracted to him. As the school year began, junior year, I was excited with the endless possibilities the school year would bring. Looking down at my class schedule the first day I was memorizing the number of the next class I had to go to, 3^rd period chemistry (blegh). As I rounded the corner to E-18 I looked up and there he was doing the same thing. He looked at me and my heart was beating out of my chest and I felt a little shaky, and then he held the door open for me (swoon), this was the start of something.

Everyday I woke up excited to go to class and see his face and watch him yawn and bless him when he sneezed. I would pick out outfits envisioning how he would admire me and fall in love with my amazing style. I was smitten and I just wanted one opportunity to talk to him, and that day finally came on Halloween. I had dressed up as strawberry shortcake and wore a silly pink hat and he had not dressed up for the holiday. Luckily the seat next to him was empty that day and I was able to move up and sit beside him. After our linebacker of a teacher had groaned on about compounds and elements I asked him about why he hadn’t dressed up and he looked at me and smiled and my heart stopped for a moment. He laughed and said he didn’t have anything to wear and I told him that I could fix that and placed my silly pink hat on his head. I think he kept it there because he liked me too, but then he removed it a little later to keep his cool. After that we spoke everyday and stayed up late at night talking. We talked about everything, what we wanted, how we despised the snobby kids at our school, our parents, siblings, dreams and from there, built a friendship. After a month of this he asked me on a date to the movies. That night my heart was beating out of my chest, I couldn’t wait until we sat next to one another but I was so nervous every part of me was shaking as I waited for his mother Eileen to pick me up, I thought my heart would literally jump out of my throat. Later I would learn that Jay was just as nervous and as his friend Sam stated, “he was about to piss his pants he was so nervous”.  We both walked into the movie theatre not sure whether to hold hands, walk side by side, not really sure of anything but he opened the door for me and that was a good start (+5). Then he stepped in front of me and bought us two tickets to see the movie (+10) “The Pursuit of Happiness”, a much more appropriate movie than “Bruno” which was the movie I wanted to see, but who wants to have their first kiss while watching two hairy men tackle each other naked? The Pursuit of Happiness was a much better suited choice anyway and it allowed for me to lean my head against his shoulder when the movie got emotional, easier for him to tilt my chin up and kiss me.

The rest was history and led to a year and a half relationship. We became inseparable and after 3 months one February night in a foggy red 1984 Volvo, Jay stated that he was in love with me, he was genuine and the feelings were so mutual. We became best friends and I loved him with every fiber of my being. Our love, some call it puppy love, was so genuine and pure. We were just kids and there were no mind games to be played, no other options to lure us away from one another, no past heartbreak to build a wall between us. We were on the same page, every thought connected and nothing was hidden. We talked about everything and my time with him always felt cut short, everything stopped when we were together, nothing mattered more to me than his lips on mine, my head buried in his chest and his arms tightly wrapped around me, protecting and sheltering me. Every secret was safe when I told it to him, every kiss we shared, every intimate moment was sacred and between only us. But as the months progressed and reality broke the barriers of the fort we put up around our puppy love, we soon realized that there was more to love than just the emotions that came with it. Our opinions about life differed and we started to fight about everything. Money, cars, jobs, politics, parents, time, chivalry, which movie to see, when he would stop watching the Mets game and start paying attention to me, anything. But those fights seemed worth it compared to how much we cared about each other despite our differences. No matter how much our love for each other amounted to, it was evident that we weren’t right for each other and that thought crippled me. I was so young, I wanted to marry him, I didn’t want to ever love another, I was comfortable with him and I trusted him and worried about him and there was nothing worse than when we fought, I only wanted to fix it and crawl back into his arms. But as August approached and our senior year was a month away we had to talk about the inevitable, College. As realistic people we had ideas of college in our minds and we both agreed that it was important to be on our own when we left for most likely separate Universities. The most important thing to me was that whatever happened we would always stay best friends, I don’t know what I would do if jay weren’t in my life, I loved him so much it hurt my heart. He whole-heartedly agreed and the pain in my chest subsided for the time being as he held me while I cried. But having an expiration date on a relationship took its toll on us and Jay stopped trying and I felt suffocated. 

I had a dream last night that I was running. I ran so fast that my feet felt light on the pavement and I almost floated above the ground. Everything felt clear, I could breathe without losing my breath and gravity was pulling me towards an exciting destination. But once I was finished running and the spring breeze settled on my bare arms I realized where I was. I ran all the way to your house and walked inside. You greeted me with a warm embrace and a passionate kiss and the next thing I knew we were in your bedroom and you were taking off my shoes. I draped my ars over your shoulders and we pressed against each other without question and then you carried me to your bed and you held me so close to your chest and I felt so safe. There was nothing else that needed to be said, you were genuine and you wanted me the way I wanted you and everything was ok. But I woke up and I realized I was clutching my pillow in my own bed, wrapped in my fluffy white duvet instead of your arms, securing myself with this fantasy of being with you. But as my dream faded away from me as they always do when I wake up, I realized that it wasn’t you that I was longing for. I was longing for the idea of you, the fantasy that I made up in my mind that you were, or at least had the potential to be. Although I dream of you and the way I wished you would be with me, this dream I made up on my own. Again I am on my own without a soul to care about me the way I want and I am free to float and chase dreams the way I used to chase you.

I lay awake at night clutching my pillow. I’m thinking over the words I want to say to you, the words repeating through my mind when I see you, think of you, when I’m desperate to talk about you. I want you to grow up. I want you to say how you feel, to me, not vaguely through some form of communication that could lead me to believe you are thinking of another. Or maybe you are. Maybe I’m crazy for believing in you, for believing there could be an us. But if there could and if you could give yourself to me, put aside all the bull shit, all the mind games, the attention you seek and the girls you keep hanging on your long string of words, then give yourself to me. Don’t tease me with your words, don’t pull me with your coy smile. I don’t want any of it if I can’t have you. If I can’t have you, if love isn’t what you are looking for I just want to know. Please let me go because I’m in misery chasing after the dream that is you. I lay awake at night grasping the idea that it could be me. My inner frustrations, my wants and desires, my hope that you could have been the next great love for me has me holding onto something that possibly was never there. Maybe what I felt was a part of my imagination. Why do I care? Why do I care about you? Every time I promise myself I can go days without speaking to you, without seeing you, and I do, you pop back in and make a special appearance. You make it seem like you could care less and then you care again. I know you aren’t ready for someone like me, I know I’m too good for your immaturity and your own weaknesses so why can’t I let it go. Let it go! I’m screaming this in my head almost every day now. I know once summer hits me I’ll be seeing new people, new faces, learning new stories and experiencing new thoughts from new boys. But I want to know yours. You keep me on the outside looking in and your front is so deep I need heavy tools to dig you out, cut you away, and a translator to learn you. I want to learn you, all about you, I want to get down to the bottom of it. I’m never positive that I am reading you correctly, I’m usually a fast reader, a great analyzer and with these ideas I can learn how to take care of such a soul but I know you not one bit. I have dreams of big things and I want all of them, I’m open about them and while I have been humiliated, burned, loved and laughed at, I get up from each fall and bounce back higher. Nothing ever slows me down, yet it speeds me up and people say I’m strong for that. Its not strength that I have its desire to use my time to get what I want. I want love. I want success. I want health and laughter and happiness and adventure and experience. It seems as though you have pressed pause for yourself and I can’t fault you for that, but I can! I see your potential and it frustrates me! You always seem to frustrate my very core I can’t stand you! But I want you all the more. I lay awake tonight with a hope that you will catch me before I’m lost to you forever. I’m dreaming up the possibilities that could be us and I’m hating myself for being vulnerable and weak in my like for you when I know you lay awake tonight dreaming of other things, but mostly not of me. I can’t sleep and you are on my mind, let me go.

I am currently taking out my frustrations on the male population at my school and the lack of options it brings to me on a recent situation with a boy I like. Before you read any further know that I probably wouldn’t care about this boy at all if I had more options around me, but I don’t, so being impatient I am over analyzing every encounter, desperately seeking for signs whether he likes me or not, questioning my intuition and pretty much freaking out about an immature little boy.

You know that feeling you have when you have a crush in high school? You look across the cafeteria to search for that person and once they make eye contact you look down and blush? Well taking a few steps back from our mature dinner dates and in depth text message conversations, a certain boy and I are in this stage. We are in limbo, neither dating nor liking anyone else, at least for myself, that’s how I feel. We obviously show signs of liking each other but we aren’t hooking up, we aren’t really talking, but every time we do and he looks into my eyes and he smiles at me there’s a rush that I feel that keeps me holding onto the thought that maybe once the summer passes we can give into these feelings and maybe he would give me a shot. But the thoughts in my head keep reminding me that if a guy likes you it shouldn’t be this hard, if someone likes you and wants you they will make it their business to get you, no matter what it took. My logic rushes in again quickly yelling at me, “Run away! He is up to no good! He’s messed up! He already told you! What more do you want? If he really wanted you he would let it be known so move on, get over it, it’s not meant to be!”, I find myself truly hating my inner thoughts since my heart just wants to love.

That’s all I really want; to find someone amazing and love him and him love me back, but I guess that’s too much to ask in college, I guess wanting love is unreasonable, crazy, psycho, irresponsible, and apparently I am too old for my 20 years of age. I just want love and have no options because the boys in college are able to do what they please since they have all of the options in the world and because the girls don’t they lower their standards making it easier for boys to get away with this. But I will just repeat to myself over and over that I must be patient and wait it out because when the dust clears and the garbage is collected a piece of buried treasure waits for me.