The Life and Loves of me as a teen ager, or Crushes. Part 3

So my third major crush in my formative years was, I think, the one that molded my personality and character more than any single event in my younger life.

My crush was during my Senior year of high school.  I had noticed the object of my crush at nearly the beginning of the year, however it was not in a crush fashion, just noticing the new girl who was different from the others... Now she had very good reason to be different, having lived her entire life up until then on the other side of the world tends to produce some significant differences then a teen age man-child living in Northern Indiana!  You see my crush was a foreign exchange student, which, as I'm sure you can figure out will, 99% of the time, not end well, what with the inevitable departure back to her home!

My crush was a friend before a crush.  You see there was a group of us in our Intro to Psychology class that got along famously!  The group was very diverse, multiple classes, backgrounds, and beliefs made up our group.  Now many people would not think that a screwed up kid from the poorer section of town would do very well in psychology, but, for whatever reason, I excelled in the class.  I was rather well known in my class for being able to divert the attention of our teacher, Mr. Shockney, from those pesky, mundane activities that are the bane of high school students; tests.  This is how a typical test day would go in Psych class at PHS... Me, or one of the other two "OK, who actually studied for this one?" Various responses varying from "I'm ready" to "Oh dear god I forgot all about it!"  This typically invoked a very quick and quiet round of debate, until our group, and most of the rest of the class would decide if a delay was needed, and how long of a delay.  This would then invoke a quick discussion of which one of the 2 or 3 of us that were skilled at sidetracking our good teacher as too which one of us was going to take up the cause that day.  What would follow would be various questions regarding current news items, on-the-spot generated questions concerning hypothetical situations, etc... typically we would buy anywhere from ten to thirty minutes of time for the joyous activity known as the "mad cram".  Our best record was delaying a midterm for nearly 3 weeks!

Now I went into this as some background of my relationship with the object of my affection.  At times during our class, our teacher would attempt to catch us not paying attention, because to be honest, most of the time we didn't pay close attention to what was going on in the class.  99% of the time, we kept just enough of our attention focused on Mr. Shockney that we would know the generalities of what was going on in the class to be able to correctly answer these questions.  I can think of a couple of occasions that we failed, and failed miserably!  It was one of those failures when we were separated from each other (there were 3 of us that were as thick as thieves, and we were the ones that got busted... go figure!) that I came to the realization that I really, really missed being close to her.  I think that this is when my interest was piqued. I began pursuing, and to be honest, I don't remember a whole lot of the second half of my senior year... this is due, in part, to my activities the summer after my senior year...  That was the summer I learned what "Wake-n-bake" was, let's just leave it at that.

Now I have several memories, including hanging out with a group us at a friends house watching the Animaniacs, and another member of the group was shamelessly flirting with my sweetheart.  Now, to be fair, he had no idea that I was interested in her at the time, I had not directly declared my feelings to her, and I have apologized to him for what I did, which I will detail now.  He was lounging on the floor, I was on a couch to the right of him, and my desire was, IIRC sitting to my left in a recliner. She excused her self to go to the restroom... as soon as left the room, I raised my rather large and heavy leg, and sent it crushing down on my friends upper thigh.  Now I know good and well that had to hurt like hell!  He of course yelled bloody murder and asked what the hell that was for... again, IIRC, a couple of my friends quickly explained the situation... now of course he wasn't happy, and didn't talk to me for a while, but we got over it.

This went on for awhile and I finally worked up the courage, with some cajoling from friends, to ask her to the prom, now again, I was (and really still am) a screw-up... I was odd, and ungainly, and had no money...  So, the prom was a big freakin' deal to me... lots of $ to scramble to beg, borrow or steal.  I did it, I don't even remember how I did, but I did.  Much of that evening was a blur, I know we went out to eat somewhere... went to the prom, and then hung out at various friends houses, afterwards.  For once in my delinquent youth, there was no drinking, or shenanigans to be had, as well as none of the "traditional" after prom activities!  I remember being sooo nervous, and thinking that I must have looked like a complete idiot!  Of course now looking back I can realize that she was almost as nervous!  There were more than a couple of uncomfortable moments when others in our group were sharing more intimate times, nothing like having a hellacious crush on someone, and having your friends all kissing their girlfriends!   I remember after everything was done, and we were all back at our homes (By this time in my life, I was no longer living at home, but that's a different post for a different day!) thinking that it would be nice to do that again, only without so many nerves and expectations involved! 

The next couple of weeks were a flurry of activity, preparing for graduation, trying to keep myself from getting expelled due to a dumb-ass teacher pushing the wrong button at the wrong time (another post for a different day), rushing down the halls of the school to my Econ class to see if I actually passed or not; planning and executing an unauthorized prayer during the graduation ceremony, etc...  The day that my crush had to leave was miserable... it was as if the heavens themselves knew our grief, and made the weather act accordingly.  It was gray, pouring down rain, and much chillier than a normal Northern Indiana June day.  As we drove (actually my friend Rick drove, I rode in the back with her) there were numerous times when there was no visibility, and speed was reduced to 10 miles an hour on the highway.  It was a torturous drive, and as we arrived at the destination, I was a mess, too many thoughts running through my head to be able to focus on any one thing, the overwhelming feeling of utter loss, knowing that I would never see her again (luckily this turned out to be untrue) and generally turning into a 6'7" blubbering mass.  You see this is one of the other fairly rare times in my early years when I openly cried, and didn't care who saw.  I guess it was a "lucky" thing that everyone else there was crying as well!  I remember seeing her board the bus and feeling completely devastated, utterly alone for the second time in the space of a year. 

I learned a lot in this time, including her leaving, although it took years to realize how much I learned.  I have memories that will last my entire life, I have learned that trying to compress events, feelings, and emotions into a small amount of time does not work well; I have definitely learned how to cope with loss, and that no matter how much you want to hang on, it will never be the same as that original moment. I also learned that phone calls half way across the world are pricey, and that time zones are your enemy!


Remember all, that life is short, live it like you mean it!

My First marriage, a mistake

 Or, How I learned that controlling your temper does not mean shutting down all emotions!

 Now any of you that know me, will know that I am on my second (and last!) marriage.  When I was much younger than I am now, around 21 or so, I moved from Northern Indiana to South Central Indiana, Bloomington to be precise.  Now, like most young men, I followed the wrong part of my anatomy for this move.  I had been working a couple different jobs in my home town, discovering the seedier parts of the fledgling Internet, and hanging out on various web chats.  While on one of these chats, I met a couple of young women who were fairly easy to talk to... in all honest I met a few different women, at least two of them were, what I considered to be promising.  While chatting with one of them, I found out that she had been less than honest with me, and was older than I, now she wasn't 50 or anything, but she was mid thirties, and I was early twenties, so, of course that disqualified her from any further consideration or discussion; hey I was young and stupid... at least I'm honest about it! 

A few months later I decided to go and visit the other young woman that I had talked to.  At this point we had talked on the phone a few times, etc...  I drove down to Bloomington, now I had various friends that were "attending" IU so I figured I had a backup plan if everything went sideways... In some ways I should have skipped meeting the young woman and just hung out and gotten shit-faced with my friends.  Of course if I would have done that, I also would never have met my (now) current wife, had my beautiful daughters, etc.

I met the young woman, and quickly chatted and exchanged pleasantries... after a brief time we went out ate, came back to her dorm, yes, I said dorm, and well, you can figure out what happened after that.  I stayed with her at her dorm for a week... it was a liberating time, as I had no one to tell me what to do, or how to do it for, really, one of the first times in my life.  I reluctantly left and went home.  Another month or two later, it was decided that I would move down there and make a go of it.  Now this should have tipped me off to how my life for the next 8 or 9 years would go, but again, I was young and stupid.  The decision of me moving down was figured out in a 10 minute phone call, with very little planning, and even less thought put into this.  It was more of a childish experiment, then a plan.  My, now girlfriend, decided I would move down there and get an apartment; now being I was working crap jobs, I had no real money of any kind, and couldn't begin to afford first, last, and deposit.  My girlfriend said, no worries, she would pay for it.  Again, alarm bells should have been sounding!  Now in the time between deciding to move, and the time to move, my vehicle died... so I was without transportation, on top of the fact that I had little money, no clue what I was going to do, and no real understanding of what it meant to have to provide for myself.  Well, it was a marvelous experiment in how long you can live somewhere without paying anything beyond first, last, and security before you are evicted.  For reference it is 3 months.  During the time I spent there, I finally found a job, got a new (to me) car, and began making my way in the world... what follows is another crappy apartment that I was evicted from, and then finally stabilized in slightly less crappier apartments, and finally working my way up to fairly stable employment.  During this time my girlfriend and I continued on... I noticed that it seemed like there was never any money available, but hey, I've got expensive tastes, so I figured that was all it was.  Well fast forward a few more years, we are living together, both working, and decided to get married.  Now during the time between decision and marriage, I had moments of doubt and second thoughts, but what the hell did I know, I chalked it up to cold feet.  We were married civilly, no big ceremonies, oh, and no letting her parents know... Yeah, I know another huge freaking red flag, but it's amazing what years of apathy and conditioning to a situation will do.  Now I had a moment of panic the morning after getting married when I woke up, sat up in bed, and thought to myself, "What the fuck did I just do?"  Now that right there should have let me know that this was not going to end well.  I was somewhat a zombie in my life at this time, I had cut off most of my feelings, and just existed.

Two and a half years pass in this manner, I'm working full time plus in IT, my wife is working full time in customer service, and combined we are making well over 80k a year... not bad for a couple of mid to late twenty-somethings with no kids.  It was then when everything started to unravel... I liked to play computer games a bit back then... OK, I still like to, but I have next to no time to game now-a-days.  I mentioned to my wife that I wanted to buy a new game coming out; she states that we'll have to wait and see, but it may take a couple of months??!!???  I start to get pissed... then a few days later we are at the big-box store getting stuff for the house.. we have a  cat and a dog... I went to go get cat litter... the good scoop-able kind; as I'm the one who has to do the cat litter, I want the easiest to deal with.  My wife says that there is no reason to "waste" money on that... well, I kind of lost it, blew up in the middle of the store and told her in no uncertain terms that, I made 50k+ (at that time) and if I fucking want scoop-able cat litter, I'm goddamned well going to buy scoop-able litter, and she can get the fuck over it!  Like I said, I kinda lost it.  This was the uncorking of my temper (those of you that have known me for years, know that this is not a good thing!)  I had thought I had learned to "control" my temper, by simply denying it any sort of release; this, as I'm sure you will realize, is not control, it is simply an over-pressurized, pressure cooker waiting to blow!  Well, it blew, multiple times over the next 4 or 5 months... culminating when I was working 27 days straight 18 to 20 hours a day on an emergency system crash.  I was tired, cranky, and annoyed pretty much 24/7... that's when my wife started accusing me of cheating from there it went down-hill very  fast.  It ended with her trying to block me from leaving the house after a heated argument... that led to my wife discovering why everyone told her to never try and force my temper... I never laid a hand on her, but she was terrified and quickly got out of my way.  Then it was an attorney visit and a 90 day waiting to be legally divorced.

Now there are many, many more stories and parts to this story that I have not gone into here at this time.  I may at a latter date further elaborate this story, but for now, I think I'll just leave it at this.


Remember, live you life to the fullest, 'cause no one gets out alive!

The Friends of a Lifetime

     I have had the best friends in the world!  I will proudly stand behind that statement to the end.  The friends I have had since my formative years are some of the best human beings I could hope to have met.  Now I'm not saying that they are all perfect, I'm not deluded!  We all have our faults, flaws and little "quirks" that make us less than perfect; but my true friends are some of the best a person could ask for.  "The saying a friend will help you move, but a true friend will help you move the body" I think is a very apt description of my friendships.  Just to be clear, we've never moved, buried, or desecrated a body... hell we've never "made" a body for that matter, but I have faith that if push came to shove I have people I could call on to help out.  I hope they know that I am there for them in the same way at all times... I mentioned in a past post that I have a collection of people that I would drop everything and assist them in whatever they need at any time; this is not idle Internet banter, all anyone of my friends need to do is pick up the phone and let me know that they are in dire need of help.  and I will do everything in my power to help...

     As I've mentioned my young adult home life was not exactly rainbows and puppy dogs.  Because of this at times I relied on my friends far more than would normally be expected of teenage friends.  I'm delighted to say that they all stood by me, offering kind words, distraction, in some cases alcohol, and at times a place to lay low and crash.

     There were many good times, and there were a few times when I was able to offer some measure of reciprocation of friendship duties; however I am still indebted to my friends.  I am hesitant to go into specific events without first verifying with those involved to make sure they don't mind these tales re-told... I may have to change the names of the innocent, and not so innocent to protect us all!

     Without going into details, I have relied on my friends to shelter me from various storms, consul me when I was devastated, talk me down when I was ready to snap, smack the shit outta me when I was being stupid, and to tell me when I was being an ass for no reason.  Add to this at least two occasions of friends keeping me from committing the ultimate in cowardly stupidity and not allowing me to end my own life.

     A lot of people like to say they wouldn't have survived high school without their friends, I for one can say it and literally mean it.

     I will be having some conversations with some of my friends, and finding out their feelings on me regaling our shared tales to the entirety of the Internet.  I have a feeling some of these tales will never see the light of day!  On a similar note, part 3 of my "The Life and Loves of me as a teenager, or Crushes" will be delayed until I can contact the parties involved... I do not want to screw up anyone's life by spewing my cathartic crap out there and causing issues. As such part 3 will at the least be delayed, and at most will be completely redacted to only what that incident taught me, and how it has shaped me.

     Well until next time, or tomorrow afternoon while I am bored out of my mind at work, 

Live your life to the fullest, 'cause nobody's getting out alive!

The Life and Loves of me as a teen ager, or Crushes. Part 2

Part 2 is hard for me to write, and in some ways is hard for me to even think about/remember.  There are some of my friends that know of this part of my life, but not that many.

The second major crush of my youth was older than I by a couple of years.  We worked together,  and had numerous friends and acquaintances in common, which is odd considering who I was at the time.  She always seemed larger than life, vivacious, and unique.   She was a beautiful person in all respects.  I never made my feelings known to her, although I am fairly sure she had an idea about my crush.  She was always kind to me, friendly, and even nice.  We would occasionally joke around at work.  Life was OK, I admired from afar and that was OK as I was too awkward, scared, and shy with her too do any more than that.  Hey, remember I was young, awkward, and terrified around women I was attracted to... in short I was a "normal" teen boy.

I discovered that she was dating a young man from another school/area.  I was crushed, and felt betrayed.  Now I know now, and even knew then that I had no reason too feel this way, but the hormone-fueled emotions of a teen boy are anything but logical.  I grew somewhat crappy to her for a few days until I pulled my head out of my self-pitying ass; I then went back to "normal".  My feelings had changed somewhat, I was still attracted to her, still liked her, but now it was different, it's like I knew that she was out of my league, and not available either way.  I was OK with that; then the unthinkable happened.  It was late evening, I was crashing for the night.  The phone rang, which was odd for around 11pm, it was even more odd when my father came in and told me in a gruff, less-than-happy voice that it was for me.  It was my, at that time friend, calling me to let me know that my crush had been in a horrible car accident, and that his family was at the hospital, and he'd let me know what was happening as he found out.  Needless to say I was a little more screwed up than normal at that point.  I laid in bed, listening to Gun's and Roses Use Your Illusion, November Rain.  I think it was around 2 am or so, I really don't remember, as much of that night is now a blur; the phone rang again, I grabbed it before it finished the first ring.  It was my friend at the time again; My father opened my door and began to give me shit... apparently something in the way I looked at him and waved him away made him realize that it was not the time to trifle with his son.  The call was the worst news I could have imagined... she had been badly injured and could not be saved. 

My world collapsed in upon itself with those words.  I got up, got dressed, and wandered my home town for the next 4 hours or so before I had to go to work.  Now the horrendous thing about having to go to work, was that I was one of the first people at work, couldn't even get in until the manager got there.  IIRC (If I recall Correctly) She, my crush, was supposed to be working that day, which made it even more difficult.  I was in a daze... the manager that was on duty that day, whom I had never really gotten along with that well, even asked if I was OK.  After the first 10 minutes of clocking in, I went to talk to the manager to let her know what was going on; as I approached the managers office, she got a phone call.  I could tell that the phone call was similar to the one I had received hours earlier.  She had the same shocked, and dazed look on her face that I imagine was on mine.  In that second we both knew that the other knew what was happening...  She pulled me in the office closed the door, and I'm not ashamed to say that I cried my eyes out with her for about 5 minutes.  After that, the owners of the business came in, and talked to me... they told me that they understood what I was feeling, but to please, please not mention anything about it until later on in the day when they announced the news.  They said that if I couldn't handle it I could leave.  I couldn't really imagine doing anything at home, or anywhere else, so I said I would stay, and I zombied through the next 4 hours.  I said zombied through, as that is the best way I can describe how I was functioning... no real emotions (more on this in another post), no real reactions to what was going on, just existing in the moment.  Near lunch time the owners gathered everyone together... I instantly left and took my break/lunch, once the announcement was made, and the shock settled in most of the staff was an emotional wreck... some of the others that had noticed that I was not my normal smart-assed self came and found me... they all knew that I had to have known already.  That was one of the hardest days of my life, and one that I would never want to repeat.  The next few weeks were a blur of emotionally exhausting times with friends, memorial services, funerals, and grief.  This was the first time I had lost someone close to me, my normal emotional and empathetic walls came crashing down, I was poorly equipped to deal with this, and the following months were not very enjoyable for me, and I imagine I wasn't the most enjoyable person to be around.

I learned many hard lessons with this event.  I truly learned the meaning of loss, I learned that not everything that is asked of you is right, but has to be done.  I was also introduced to the solidarity of any group of people that spends any amount of time together; regardless how much you may not get along, when a tragedy occurs, people tend to pull together and consul each other.  This event was a life-defining moment for me, and continues to influence how I react to things to this day, over two decades later.

*Note* I am sure there are some out there that know me, know of the person I speak, and will be shocked, no, maybe outraged, hell I don't know what they will be if they read this post.  I mean no disrespect, and am not trying to do anything other than relay my experiences.  I know some of you out there will think that I did not know her well enough to speak of her, and in some ways you are probably correct, but I did know her, and she made an impact on me that lasts to this day.

The Life and Loves of me as a teen ager, or Crushes. Part 1

On the subject of crushes, I was a terminal case back in the day.  I can think of 3 major crushes I had during high school.  I'm sure there were tens of minor, fleeting crushes during those years.  What can I say, I was a teenage boy, with enough hormones coursing through my body to kill the adult me.  I was also lonely, and didn't have the best home-life... My father and I were, on a good day, only ready to scream at each other; on a bad day, well lets just say that we both came close to doing things that would have landed us in prison, and/or the morgue.  Looking back, with the wisdom of age and the understanding of maturity, the problem was that my father and I were very similar in makeup, and temperance; which of course made for some fireworks, as most of my close friends know.  I really think I was, at least partially, looking for some of the unconditional love that I thought was missing from my relationship with my father.  It turns out it was always there, just hidden by frustration, pride, and a lack of understanding.  Unfortunately I didn't discover this until just before my father passed away.
Anyway, back on topic, my daddy issues are for another day!  I will not post names, those people involved already know who they are, and I don't want to directly embarrass anyone, as I stated in a previous post, I have never been the object of a crush; and for good reason, I'm kind of a freak!

My first major crush was on a younger woman.  I know the scandal of it all!  We had gone to the same elementary school, had a couple of friends in the same circles, and well, I was smitten!  Much to my dismay she was, of course, involved with someone in her own class.  Not one to give up easily I pursued, and pursued, and continued to pursue.  I purchased flowers, gifts, CD's, etc...  She was, and still is a very special friend/person to me; She is one of the 10 people in my life, outside of my family, that if one of them called for help, I would drop everything to answer the call, and assist in any way that I could.  I am not even sure if she realizes that she is still that meaningful to me, but she is.  During my time of smitten-ness, I got to know some of her family, they were wonderful to me, which had to be difficult, as I was an awkward, unguided teen that had no money, dressed accordingly, and had some rather "shady" friends and dealings.  I will forever appreciate their kindness and tolerance of the ratty looking kid that kept showing up!  Later on in my 4 years of hell, otherwise known as high school, she was a wise and respected friend, that consoled me at a time when I needed it most!  She was, and for that matter, is still a true friend, she would tell me the brutal truth about me, even when others would shy away from doing that, as I am a big guy that tends to unintentionally intimidate people; she has never been scared of me, as she knows that I would never, ever hurt her intentionally.  In the end, I think we would both agree that it was for the best that we ultimately ended as friends. 

My first crush changed me in ways that most will never know.  She ultimately taught me to look at myself critically, and gave me my first introspective look at myself; granted I ran away screaming from that look until now, but, I'm looking now.  She also gave me the best gift ever... the understanding that sometimes it's better to not get what you want.