The universe is funny. I have been writing this book about me and going over those teenage years. Trying to remember the order of things, who did I meet when? What school was I in? What friends did I have? Where did I live? The timeline is important to, much of the story. Though as I am sure you know, the further you get from a situation the more blurry it becomes. People and situations just melt together. So to try and get more clarity, I have aimed more for the feeling of that period, which helps the memories come rushing back.
Specifically I am working on fourteen to seventeen, making it the early eighties. Even though there were two guys that predominately come to mind and took up much of my time, whether I was with them or thinking about them. There is one that has more draw and more potent feelings than the other. This would be M.S.
It is truly awe inspiring to see from a distance what you could not see while in the midst. I think I have said before that I tend to be a runner, or at least I used to be. If you got too close I ran, if you did not have the look of what I believed love was supposed to look like, I focused somewhere else. This usually meant I settled for what it should look like instead of trusting my feelings.
Don’t get me wrong I loved them both, or at least I thought I did. It is far clearer now that I was protecting myself from being left, by choosing those I knew could never be with me fully, and or would never choose me; therefore making my inner victim right. The hard piece of this is that I would end up hurting those that might just be the ones that would show up for me, those that would and could truly love me.
M.S. was my first real love, and though it probably didn’t seemed like it, though I truly did love him deeply and differently than any other man in my life. I know this to be true, I know because today I still love him, the type of love that lasts a lifetime, whether the relationship does or not. I will not tell you I was in love with him; this was the first in a line of many relationships where our feelings never seemed to be the same as the others in the same moment. If I loved him, he was aloof; and vice versa. This was the first in a long line of relationships with a failure to communicate; creating misunderstanding, after misunderstanding.
I can see now looking at the two relationships that one tried to have me with him and the other chose me simply because there was no other options. E.E. made passes at girls in front of me, in fact there was one time he purposefully made a pass at one of my friends from school that I had, had with me. She was happy to oblige him as well. This of course did not end well. I would find out later that E.E. had a habit of saying horrible things about me behind my back, and of course eventually they would make their way back to me.
Maybe I am being naïve, or maybe I have forgotten those moments; but I do not remember M.S. doing that. I do remember he was dating another girl, and it made me completely jealous, angry, and hurtful. I only saw her once; she was very pretty, and my understanding was that he was really stuck on her. I realize that neither of these guys sounds like the boyfriend of your dreams. But as we all know feelings are far more complicated than: he is no good for you.
There are moments I can remember that prove there was something much deeper than meets the eye between M.S. and me. There is the fact that he made me shake, I mean literally when he would be nearby I would get so nervous I would shake even stronger than caffeinated jitters. That people couldn’t physically see it still surprises me. I remember only one other man that I had a similar reaction to, and with him it was heat, as in temperature. When he would get close to me either his temperature was really hot or his body being near made mine very hot. M.S. married my then BF’s cousin. Together they had two daughters, the first of which has my first name. Something I am still shocked by thirty years later.
So with all of this being said; I was out driving last night going over the notes and such that I have been immersed in the last couple weeks, pulling energy through those memories. Minutes later I was called to Canby, Oregon City, and West Linn, on different calls passing by all the neighborhoods of my teenage years. One of these rides was a teenager who goes to Oregon City High School, lives just off the road where I did, and had recently lived in Molalla. It made me laugh, I have been driving for four months now and I have not had rides in these areas. In fact I have intentionally avoided being close enough to Oregon City to be called. The start of these calls was while I was near my home which is not that close to Canby. It was the wish of the Universe that I should be physically close to these places last night. It did bring back memories for sure. I am grateful for the memories.