Things I Thought I Knew

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.