.. How Life Used to Be ..

This is taken from a LO I am doing for my All About Me Album [Pieces of Me]. I figured I might as well post it here. It tells a lot about me...

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From age thirteen to about age eighteen I felt was a living roller coaster. Big changes occurred in my life. I was no longer a child, but not quite an adult. I changed schools. I met new people…I loved and I lost. I hurt people and they hurt me. I was happy and I was sad. I was afraid and I was angry. I’m coming to terms with these pieces from my past, with the heavy emotions that I have dwelled on for far too long…

I know approximately when the feelings started – when I moved from Vincent Massey Public School (junior kindergarten to grade six) to Bowmanville Senior Public School (grades seven and eight). Suddenly there were less students, but many more people that I didn’t know. I rebuilt friendships that had dwindled over the past few years, and made new ones at the same time. My circle of friends was incredible – we were practically inseparable, and we called ourselves SAVE (Shawna, Allie, Vicky, Ellie). But something wasn’t quite – I felt unsettled, like a piece of me was itching to get out.

I was happy most of the time, but as the year went on things began changing inside. Little things would get me upset. I felt jealous more often. I felt torn between being who I was, and being who I thought other people wanted me to be. I was a good student, and tried be a good friend and the best daughter I could be, but something still felt wrong. A part of me thought that a boyfriend would solve my problems…I was so wrong. I wanted to feel as beautiful as I thought my friends looked. I got my first boyfriend in seventh grade…I was too embarrassed to tell my mum, so I wrote her a little note instead. Scott Patterson and I were together for just over a month. I broke it off when I began to feel like he wanted things I wasn’t ready to give, and didn’t want taken away. For the next two years we saw each other but didn’t really speak. I think we both felt something between us, but were both uncomfortable with these feelings, so we avoided them by avoiding each other.

The pattern of ups and downs continued through eighth grade. I wasn’t sure how to deal with myself so, inspired by my English teacher, I began to write poetry. It was therapeutic, but at the same time brought me down further. I wanted the poems to be good, and I found it so hard to write a “happy” poem that didn’t sound forced and insincere…It was a cyclical process, where I could write when I felt sad which made me feel better, and then felt sad again when I wanted to write…I had two boyfriends in grade eight. The first was Tom Gleason. I asked him out and I broke up with him two weeks later. We were friends first, and I think I ruined that for myself by asking him to be with me. Our friendship didn’t really survive that breakup. The second was Chris M. He transferred part-way through the year from Pines High School. We got together in April, and stayed together until July. I broke up with him because I felt like we weren’t even in a relationship. We hung out a lot, but he never kissed me. I felt restless, like I deserved something more. We stayed friendly after the breakup, and he even called me to say congrats when Aaron and I got together August of that same summer. Later, I found out that he was queer...that cleared a few things up.

Grade nine was when things truly became unsettled. I changed schools again, to Bowmanville High School, where I remained for the next four years. Feeling down once or twice a week turned into being sad practically every day. SAVE had fallen apart, Allie and Vicky got into drugs and drinking, and I felt like I wasn’t fitting in with the people I used to consider my best friends. I was still dating Aaron at the beginning of the year.

He made me happy because he loved me, but he scared me at the same time. He was too gentle to hurt me, but aggressive enough to hurt himself. I wasn’t healthy in the last month we were together. I missed class on and off for a month, and was exempt from gym for at least two weeks.

After about three months of being together I had to end what we had, because of the hurt we were causing each other. Even after we broke up I felt unwell. It was as though I had betrayed us both. Getting over him was hard, but I knew then, as I still know now that leaving him was better than loving and breaking each other simultaneously.

I hung out with different people after that - Shawna, Laurie, Geri, Julie…They fit together so perfectly, and I could have too, if I let myself. But I felt angry and insecure, and I was so afraid of being alone that I closed in on myself.

For a whole three days in ninth grade I dated “Fatty Matty”. We got together on New Years Eve, and he informed our friends three days later that we had broken up. He forgot to tell one person though – Me. It’s interesting to have people ask if you’re all right when you don’t know what they’re talking about. I barely knew him, and in the three days we were “together” I got annoyed with him anyways. Needless to say, it was a short lived relationship that I only remember half of the time.

After Matt was Scott again. I had been seeing more of an old boyfriend, and once or twice Scott joined us. I remember when I realized I still had feelings for Scott – and that I didn’t have feelings for the other guy. The three of us hung out one night and when Scott offered to walk me home, and the other guy insisted on coming as well. I felt caught between the two of them and the past I had with them both, but I made a choice that made me feel good. That choice was Scott.

Another record breaking relationship occurred there. Thirteen days. I went to a Backstreet Boys Concert during that time. I cried that night for a boy I had lost once and would lose again that very week. I cried because I wasn’t happy and I felt empty and lonely, even though I was surrounded by people who considered themselves my friends.

He cheated on me while we were together and I got sick again. It was a few days before Valentine’s Day, and he wasn’t even brave enough to break up with me himself. Our friend Jay called to tell me it was over. I didn’t believe him – I didn’t want to believe him. I’d spent the past two weeks convincing myself that this time would be different and better than the first. After all, if you love something – let it go. If it comes back it was meant to be…Right? Apparently not…After fifteen minutes of arguing with Jay it sank in that he was telling the truth. I hated Scott for that. I didn’t understand how what we had could have been wrong. I cried for hours that night, for us, for me, for stupidity and for loneliness.

No date for Valentine’s Day. No date for Semi-Formal. And I was sick on top of everything else. I sat with my mum at the kitchen table for a long time that night, and I cried for the boy I had allowed to get away, not just once, but twice. I was sick for the rest of that week. I didn’t go to semi-formal, but to the movies with my mum to see Sweet November. A Bitter-sweet movie to end a bitter week. I didn’t cry until we were home. I heard a song on the radio, and I couldn’t remember where I knew it from, only that it had meaning…Enough meaning for me to break down in the kitchen. It was the one song that Scott and I had danced to, and hearing it put me over the edge. Now I can’t even remember what song it was. I might remember if I heard it again, but I’m not so sure.

Afterwards I spent more time with new and old friends: Chris and Nikki Luxton, Brandon Albin, and some others. I was plateaued somewhere between content and depressed. About a month after Scott finished with me, a new person came into my life. I was eating Ben and Jerry’s ice cream with Shawna and Nikki. We were laughing, and I felt SO happy - I loved that feeling. Later in the night I had company. Chris showed up at my door, unexpected, but not uninvited. He brought with him Matt Battams (whom I had known since sixth grade, but never really talked to) and Nathan. When I first saw Nathan I got that queasy kind of feeling in my stomach. At first I assumed it was that carton of ice cream we had just inhaled, but I soon figured out that it wasn’t. It was the butterflies in your stomach, having trouble breathing, having trouble thinking kind of feeling. We’d only just met, but I knew that one day we were going to be together. We danced around each other for two weeks before he asked me out on April Fools in Ninth Grade. That was almost four years ago.

A lot has happened since that time. I have hit my lowest low, and experience many highs as well. Grade ten was the low point. I was a walking contradiction. I wanted people to love me and to like me, but I wouldn’t let them try. I wanted to be happy, but I was afraid of losing me as I knew myself if I pulled out of my shell. Most people never knew this part of me. I pretended to be something that I wasn’t – happy-go-lucky, content and generally satisfied with myself. My close friends saw the difference. They wanted to help me, I know now that they did. I didn’t want to let them into my world though. Even though I was lonely and scared, I felt safe inside myself. They never gave up on me, and now I’m ashamed to think of how I poorly valued their friendship. If I could tell them I am sorry I would, but I think after this much time an apology would seem hollow.

I saw a therapist in hopes she might help draw me out of myself. Part of me wanted her to, and part of me was afraid of what I might find. I continued seeing her into eleventh grade. I felt bad for pushing her away, and I felt guilty for my parents paying for the sessions, since I wasn’t letting her help. After a few months, I stopped going. This was around the time that the pieces of my life began to fall into place.

With the blessing of my old friends, I moved into a new circle. They welcomed me in, and I felt renewed. All the things I had kept inside could be exposed. I could talk about being sad and alone, and being happy, and sex, and all sorts of things, and they didn’t mind; they didn’t get embarrassed. Darra, Paula, Amy, Justin and Jeff were like a breath of fresh air to me. They made me feel appreciated, and I wasn’t afraid of their friendships. For the first time I could relate to someone – Paula and I were so alike…I think that might be why our friendship didn’t last but that’s another story. I felt like a new person around them, and I loved that feeling.

Nathan taught me that it is okay to love these feelings. He is the reason that less people walk all over me, and take advantage of who I am. He showed me that I can be a strong person, and that I CAN do whatever I want to do. No one else ever made me feel that way. It was like all the little pieces that I was drawn to in my past boyfriends were assembled in him. He makes me laugh. He hugs just tight enough. He makes me feel special. And he still gives me that tingly sensation inside, every time I see him, and every time he touches me.
He wasn’t my first boyfriend, or my first kiss, or my first love.

He was other firsts for me, important ones that I don’t feel the need to talk about. But he IS my best boyfriend, and my best kiss, and above all, he is my strongest and truest love.

Nathan is different from the other boys. I was with them because it made me feel good about myself. I broke up with them because things changed in a bad way. Things have obviously changed since Nathan came into my life as well. But things changed for the better. He makes me feel comfortable in with who I am. Even if I don’t like myself sometimes, I know that he does. There is very little ambivalence between us both. I still get sad sometimes, I can’t deny that. But the sadness isn’t omnipresent, it isn’t lasting. It comes and it goes. He loves me through it, and I come out stronger at the end. He is the reason I am happy now. He is the reason I have come to accept that it IS okay to be sad, but it is NOT okay to stay that way, and let sadness hold you back in life.

People say that we are going to get married one day. They say that they can tell, even though we aren’t engaged. Maybe it’s because of how we are when we are together, or maybe because of how we are when we’re apart. People said that if we could survive this year with me away at school then we were meant to be.

Well, there are less than three weeks left in this year, and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I can’t say for sure that we will get married…but when I think about the future, I see us together every time…