Suit Up! It's Prom Night

Let's skip ahead a bit. It is now April of 2013 and it's prom night. I'm skipping a lot of important stuff here, but I will go back and talk about them. I'm skipping to this now as to avoid taking a detour later when I'm in the middle of another part of the story. Anyway, it was prom night and it was time to "suit up!"

     Being a HUGE How I Met Your Mother fan, I was very eager to put on a suit. Why? 'Cause "Nothing suits me like a suit!" I finished tying my tie and looked in the mirror. With one eyebrow raised and a hint of douche-bag in my voice I said, "Daddy's home. . ." I walked out into the living room where my parents were sitting. I turned slightly to the side, lifted one hand as if to adjust my tie (which, by the way, was not a ducky tie) and turned my head in their direction while looking off into the distance past them and said, "Suit up! Because tonight is going to be legen - wait for it, and I hope you aren't lactose intolerant because the last part is - DARY! Legendary!" I then lifted my hand up for a high five and said, "What in the world is up?!" My parents clearly didn't get this reference because they just sat there and gave me a blank stare. So then I rolled my eyes and turned back around whilst saying, "*phht* Whatever. I'm awesome."

     Enough sidetracking. This night was significant night for me because I would move one step closer to letting go, and I would do something I had never done before. Something I thought I would never do. With a girl I thought I would never do it with. Just to be perfectly clear, when I speak of doing "something I had never done before" and "with a girl I thought I would never do it with" I am in no way whatsoever referring to sex. I've had sex way too many times for it to be "something I had never done before." KIDDING! I'm completely kidding! What I am really referring to is dancing (and dancing is NOT another word for sex, you deviants)

    For those of you who don't know, I was homeschooled. So pickins were a bit slim when it came to finding a date to the prom. As a result I went in a group to the 2013 FHE Homeschool prom (and no it was not in my kitchen. It was a real prom with real people, thank you very much!) In the group, there were two girls and myself. I liked to make jokes saying that, "I took two girls to the prom and I didn't even get slapped once!" The two other members of my party were Katherine (she was a Sophomore and too young to go the the prom, so she was listed as my +1.) and Erin. Yes, that Erin. You remember, right? The girl I liked even before I liked girls. The girl I screwed it up with by being a coward.

     All night she tried to get Katherine and me to get up and dance. Every time we declined, being much more content not making fools of ourselves. We sat there most of the night watching and secretly laughing at the people on the dance floor who were doing some of the dumbest dances we'd ever seen in our lives to some of the dumbest music we had ever heard in our lives. Then, all of a sudden, the kind of music the DJ was playing switched. Before now, it had all been puky-bubblegum-katie-perry-ball-shriveling Pop crap and want-to-blow-my-brains-out Country, but then it changed to kind of a Swing sound. So when Erin came back and asked yet again if I would dance with her, I said okay.

     So there I was, my first dance with my first crush. And we danced. We danced for the whole song. And as I looked into her eyes and she in mine, I felt. . . nothing. When I was 10, I was so sure I loved this girl, but now it was gone. . . without a trace. It was strange how time could do that, but at the same time it was encouraging. I thought to myself, if time changed my feelings for Erin, surely it will change my feelings for Kayla.

     Time has a funny way of changing things. Nine years ago, I was crazy about Erin. Today if I see her, I feel naught. Six years ago, I was in love with Kayla. Today when I see her picture, no emotions swell up inside. But, that's not entirely true. It's not just time, it's something more than time that changes these feelings. I got over Erin when I met the Girl in the Blue Hoodie. I got over Kayla when I met. . . well, that's another story. Time alone can't heal wounds and change feelings. You've got to meet the right girl.

I Kissed Dating Goodbye

At the beginning of the second semester of my Sophomore year, I was still hung up on Kayla. Despite the clear sign from God that it wasn't to be and the fact that she lived 150 miles away from  me, I still found it very hard to let my feelings for her go. I had a crush on her for almost four years, so naturally it would be hard to let go, but I wanted nothing more than to let go. I was so sick of being stuck, unable to move forward. I didn't want to waste my life and energy one one girl when the right girl is still out there somewhere else. But then I was assigned a book to read. It was called I Kissed Dating Goodbye written by Joshua Harris.

      This book was all about how single life is a blessing and that we should take advantage of it and not wish it away too soon. Our youth is a gift. There are certain things that we need to do in our single youth to grow into the people we are going to be the rest of our lives.

     After reading this book, I found that its contents helped me. All this time I had been living in the future, dreaming of what my life would be like. I kept dreaming of what it would actually be like to start dating Kayla and that's probably why it was so hard to let go. I realized that what I was actually holding on to was an imaginary future that I had cooked up in my head. I was so preoccupied with one day getting to date her that I had been wasting my life away. I had been living in the future when I needed to live in the present. So, that day I kissed dating goodbye (though I technically never kissed it hello.) Before I could start dating anyone, I needed to grow. I needed to become the person I needed to be. I wasn't ready to date yet and until I was, I wasn't even going to let it cross my mind.

     While doing this didn't completely get me over Kayla, it did help. By living in the present, I was no longer clinging to the imaginary future; though it took a long time, I would eventually get completely over it. With a little help, that is. . .

The End is Near. . . The End is Here

This is going to be short, but a necessary installment in this narrative:

     As I talked via email with Kayla, the fact that she was single gave me a strange since of comfort. But as time progressed, I began wondering about what the future held. Even if I were able to get over my anxiety and profess my feelings to her, what then? She lived over 150 miles away; it's not like I could ask her out or anything. The more I thought about it, the more doubts I had about weather or not Kayla was the girl I was meant to be with as I previously had thought.

     With this in mind, I turned to God for advice. I prayed:

     "Dear God,

     "You know how I feel about Kayla, but she lives so far away. I just don't see how any future with her would be feasible. If she isn't the girl for me, I don't want to waste all my time and energy on her if the girl I am truly supposed to be with is out there somewhere. Please give me a sign.

     "In your name,
     "Amen"

     Not long after this, Kayla's emails began to come less often and more sporadically. We used to email back and forth at least three times a week, but it then dwindled to once a week. Then to once every other week. Then down to once a month. Then one day, the emails stopped all together. This was the sign I had asked for. God had spoken. As hard as it was to believe, there was someone else out there better for me. Even still, it was hard to let go. It would take someone very special to get me over Kayla. And very special she was.

End of Pt. II

To be Continued in Pt. III 

Do You Want to Know a Secret

Kayla and I kept corresponding via email on into the Fall semester. I still hadn't told her the secret I longed so hard to make known to her. She was ignorant and I was surprisingly okay with that. In fact, today a part of me thinks that maybe I never wanted her to know in the first place. Looking back at how I messed up with Erin and taking into account what happens next in the story, I am thoroughly convinced that I subconsciously don't want to be happy.

     We were talking one day and and somehow we started talking about our old friend, Tommy. You remember Tommy? The guy from camp I met on the same day I met Kayla? Well we started talking about him. She brought up how she missed him and wished we could all hang out together. I started Joking around saying that she "liked" him and such. When she denied it, I proceeded in telling her that Tommy had, at one time, had a crush on her. She replied by saying, "I did have a crush on someone that weekend, but it wasn't Tommy."

     My heart jumped into my throat for a second. Could she mean me? I proceeded in making a series of absolutely ridiculous guesses like "Morgan Freeman?" and "John McCain?" Eventually she just said, "No, you dork. I'm talking about you!"

     Now, this is where I screw it up. My response to what she said was, "That's funny, there was a time a long time ago when I had a crush on you, too." stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID! She basically set me up to tell her how I felt and I blew it. I made it sound like I didn't like her anymore when nothing could be further from the truth. This isn't the last time something like this has happened either. So thusly I am led to believe that subconsciously I never want to be happy. I always seem to find a way to ruin any chance I might have. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a hot date tonight. . . with Skyrim -_-

The Summer of Darkness Part V: Celebration Day

Kayla and I corresponded via email a lot over that summer. We logged about 250 to 300 messages in that short time and as much as I loved being in touch with her, it was just awful not being able to tell her how I felt. Especially when when she would keep talking about her boyfriend. Here's something you may not know, ladies: your guy friends don't want to hear about your boyfriends. The vast majority of the time, we just don't care and it feels very emasculating especially when you ask for our advice in those situations. We aren't one of your girlfriends, so don't drag us into your relationship drama. "Why?" you ask. "If you are a real friend you will want to help your friends in their relationship problems." Not true, and I'll tell you why. Because if you have a guy friend, he most likely has a crush on you, or at the very least feels protective of you because you are like sister to him. So when you talk about your boyfriends and whatnot it makes us feel hurt or makes us feel aggressive towards said boyfriend. And in every case, we learn to hate him.

     Now that that is out of the way, I will proceed to contradict myself and tell you why exactly I learned to be thankful for Kayla's boyfriend updates.

     It was very close to the end of summer and school was starting back up. It was the beginning of my Sophomore year and Kayla's Freshman year. I emailed her to see how her first day went. This is the message I got back:

     "All in all it was a good first day of school, but between all my extra curricular stuff and my nasty break-up yesterday, it was rather stressful."

      I think I read that message 10 or 15 times just to make sure I wasn't seeing things. By the time I was sure that what I read was real, I could barely hold in my elation. Just like that The Summer of Darkness was over. The months of sadness were all of a sudden replaced by something else: hope (not my sister, but the feeling.)

     When I emailed back, I tried not to let my joy show. I simply said, "I'm sorry, that's too bad. You seemed really great together." It seemed like the best thing to say. What I really wanted to say was, "Kayla, I've been crazy about you since the day I met you. I've been dying to tell you that for almost three years now." But now, it just didn't seem like the right thing to say. If I truly did like her, then I needed to give it some time.

     And with that, The Summer of Darkness ended, and thus began Celebration Day.