On my drive to work the other day, running five minutes late as usual, I heard a line in a new country song that struck me in way that made me lose my breath for a second. Funny how a melody sounds like a memory. The beautiful truth in that one simple lyric made me want to cry and laugh simultaneously. I'm a lady that associates every single stage, milestone, and era of my life with a song. "Mmm Bop" - childhood. "Glamorous" - junior year prom. "Come a Little Closer" - first love. Anything by Bob Dylan - senior summer. "Whatever You Like" - freshman year at MSUM. "Wild World" - crying on my mother's shoulder after every single breakup.
One could assume that the song "Clothes Off" would be associated with a risque, promiscuous time in my life but, hate to break it to you, the reality is much more PG. Oddly enough, a song with the lyrics, "We have to take our clothes off to have a good time" has become synonymous with hope in my mind. Let me explain...
It was spring semester of my junior year in high school. I was experiencing the fresh, open wound of a bad breakup and feeling the kind of low that made me eat cookie dough blizzards and cheese nuggets on the daily. I remember sitting in my room for hours listening to "Don't Speak" over... and over.. and over. I managed to shut off the angry music long enough to attend my cousin's wedding was in Watford City, where I was expected to sing sappy love songs that made me want to puke. Love didn't exist since it didn't work out for me. That was my story and I was sticking to it.
It was at the wedding dance that I saw a childhood family friend that I had seen countless times before. But suddenly he wasn't the same chubby, obnoxious kid that I remembered. Was that a jawline I was seeing? Were those biceps? My face flushed and I remember staring for what had to have been a good minute without looking away once. But I could have sworn he was looking at me too. You know that feeling when you think someone good looking is staring at you with sexy eyes but then you turn around to see that your way hotter friend is standing right behind you? They later leave together and you go home and repeat your blizzard and cheese nugget eating cry-fest. I've experienced that one too many times so I checked.. nope.. it was me he was looking at.
That night started something that changed the game as I knew it. We were never an epic love story. We were hardly a lust story. We were so young and still so unbelievably naive in regards to what we wanted but, for a moment in time, we had something real. He changed me for the better just by being a major part of my life for a short time. We had the kind of flirtation and fun that every teenager should experience at least once. It's that kind of passion that makes you drive two hours just to be together for a half hour, the kind of excitement that makes you want to sneak out to see each other in the middle of the night, the kind of joy that comes from hour long phone conversations about nothing and yet they mean everything in that moment.
I remember driving around the backroads of McKenzie County in my little blue Neon, the windows down and the April sun reflecting off the hood of my car. I remember looking over as he took the aviator glasses dangling from my rearview mirror and put them on his head. He was singing along to every lyric of Gym Class Heroes, "Clothes Off." I laughed at how quickly he could say the words. When he didn't know the next one, he would make something up. And he was smiling. He had the kind of smile that you could see once and remember for a lifetime.
For a couple short months he gave me the kind of hope that I needed. He reminded me what I loved about good men - the laughs, the spontaneity, the hugs. I attached quickly. Looking back, I have to applaud him on how gracefully he bowed out of what we had, though it was the last thing I wanted at the time. I was clinging on to him to a point of sheer annoyance, making drama where it didn't exist, rushing feelings that neither of us had quite developed. But I had found hope again and I was NOT letting it go. He was just too wonderful, I wanted him to want me back. He was so obviously ready to move on, so clearly wanting me to give it a rest but I refused. Feeling rejected made me say crazy things. It turned me into someone that I would never be friends with. I still don't know how he did it. No matter how annoyed or frustrated he may have been, he still found a way to smile and joke with me. He wanted to make sure I was okay.
I wish that I could remember his voice or his laugh or the funny faces he would make but some days it seems the only thing I can still remember, all these years later, is his smile. It doesn't seem like enough. In the early summer of 2009, just after his high school graduation, he died in a horrible accident. I was so angry. I had so much left to say. I never said sorry for wasting so much of your little time here on earth with my pointless fights. I never said that you give the greatest hugs out of anyone I know. I never said thank you for changing my life.
So, just as I always do when I don't know what else to do, I wrote. This is what I came up with:
(Written June 10, 2009)
My knees gave out and my eyes filled with tears.
It had to be a mistake. It was impossible.
I always thought you were invincible.
The last time I saw you, you was standing there,
So full of life. So proud. Too young to go.
I yelled at God when I found out you were gone.
It was unfair. You were too young. You weren't done yet.
I never hugged you goodbye.
My mind flashed back to memories.
Car rides, dirt roads, trampolines, phone calls.
Kisses, hugs, tears.
Then I remembered the fights,
The words I can't take back and the apologies I never made.
I hope you knew I didn't mean it. I was just angry.
I hope you can forgive me.
I found the flower you drew for me,
The one with my initials in the vines.
I will cherish it forever.
It hurts to have no closure,
To always wonder what the last thing I said to you was,
To wish I would have stopped by to hug you that day.
The peace I find now is in the hope I will see you again.
I find myself wondering if Heaven has a football team.
Please don't be mad at me.
I should have said it then, but I'll say it now..
I am so sorry for the words I said.
Give Amy and Shaundra big bear hugs for me.
You'll never be forgotten.
Love you.
Never let important words go unsaid. Never walk away angry. Never assume that you'll be able to apologize tomorrow. Sometimes you're not granted that luxury. Hug the people you love with every ounce of strength and love that you have in you because it may be the last time. Make it count.
I recently found something I wrote on Myspace approximately 5 years ago. For anyone who did not go through high school during the years of 2000-2010, you’re just going to have to take my word for it when I say that Myspace used to be cool. The post was written somewhere in the middle of an incredibly unstable relationship, while I was desperately trying to find answers to the kind of questions that few adults can answer: who I was, what I wanted, and why. Leave it to me, classic overachiever, to want that all figured out by the time I went to college. The post was entitled, “Things I Know for Sure.” In a time when I didn't really know a lot of things for absolute certain, I believe the post was written in order to make some sense of my life, organizing some "facts" (which seem now like subjective musings more than anything). Nevertheless, it entertained me to see how the things that my 17-year-old self knew back then are still things that I’m certain of half a decade later. The list included the following tid-bits of reflexive insight and information:
*I will always feel like the "fat sister"
*My feet are freakishly square
*I have my dad's hair and my mom's smile
*I definitely have "curves"
*I have a tendency to answer rhetorical questions
*My head and my heart hardly ever agree on what is best for me
*I have been in love
*I have always felt older than my age
*When I’m nervous, I run my thumb in between the rest of my fingers
*I often question what I believe
*I love deeply and I hurt deeply
*I believe in a higher power
*My loyalty is hardly ever lost
*I believe true love never ends
*I try not to have regrets
*I worry, even though I am fully aware that it serves no purpose
*My humor has not changed since I was about 7
*I can probably write faster than I read
*I fear the idea of never finding that once-in-a-lifetime, unforgettable love
*I will never find a better friend than Carissa
*I miss being young and innocent
*I have a feeling that I will eventually become a brunette
*I am almost always thought to be the older sister
*I have been told that I wear my heart on my sleeve
*I’m a harmonizer, not a soloist
*I’m not a very good dancer... at all
*I fear losing control
*When my cell phone is losing battery, I feel like I am losing my battery
*I can sleep far longer than the average person
*I have an undeniable love for applesauce
*I’m impulsive and stubborn
*I fall for boys who make me laugh
*I hate awkward silences
*I have a thing for cowboys, country boys, or any true gentleman
*My faith in the male species has taken a serious decline lately
*In a few years, I want to move to Boston and live on my own
*A few wild nights have earned me quite the reputation (mostly rumors)... and I hate it
*Nothing comes close to the feeling of your first love
So maybe I don't still have a thing for cowboys. My reputation is mostly restored. I have yet to move to Boston. Thankfully, I have managed to regain faith in the male species. But it's funny how much some things have stayed the same since 2007. I still can't sing melody worth a hoot. I still hate awkward silences. I can still sleep way longer than what any doctor would consider normal. My humor is still similar to that of a young child... just with an added dash of raunchy and inappropriate. And Carissa Suter remains one of the best friends I've ever known.
The entire post was pretty amusing but one particular point stuck out at me more than the others, "I fear the idea of never finding that once-in-a-lifetime, unforgettable love." The difference between the Lauren now and the Lauren then is this: I believe now that I had already found it when I wrote the post.
Now don't get me wrong. My high school boyfriend was in no way the "love of my life," as the expression goes. We were not even healthy for each other. I was the fire. He was the gasoline. We were out of control. But, even so, who's to say that love wasn't a once-in-a-lifetime, unforgettable love? I obviously felt at the time, with my "lost faith in the male species" and all, that my on and off relationship of the day was something unworthy of recognition or classification as real love. But I argue now that it was more real than I thought it was.
Despite the way my bitter heart has painted him over the past five years, I must remember that he wasn't all bad. I did love him after all. I don't have to dig too deep to remember the reasons why. The sense of electricity that I felt the first time he held my hand, our first kiss on Zap's Main Street on New Year's Eve, the way he would say my name like nobody but your first love can - it is all very real. To say that he wasn't a once-in-a-lifetime, unforgettable love would be a lie.
Call me unromantic but I don't believe that we get just one shot at a once-in-a-lifetime, unforgettable love. Each love only happens once in your lifetime. Some people, like my parents, sister, and grandparents, are lucky enough for that first love to last their ENTIRE lifetime. But I've never been one to keep tradition. I'm not a big believer in soul mates, destiny, and everything happening for a reason. Perhaps it does. Perhaps it doesn't.
I feel that what's more important than finding a reason why things happen is to understand how to make peace with what has happened and move on from there. My high school boyfriend may not have been a highly compatible friend for me, let alone my "soul mate," but I know now that what we had back then was absolutely real. It may have been full of screaming matches and make up kisses and curse words and dashboard punches but man was it ever real. And, even though I didn't know it at the time, it ended up serving as a stepping stone to the healthy, unconditional, unfaltering kind of love that I wake up to every morning now. Despite the hundred or so heartbreaks it took to get here, I'd say it was worth it.
