(This story is based on true events. Names were changed to protect the actual people. This is still the first draft and needs edited i know. but let me know what you think of it so far)
Love. It seems to be what everyone wants. In one way or another we are all searching for it. In our friendship, our families and in a soul mate. Sometimes we find it and lose it. Sometimes we think we found it but realize it wasn’t. Other times we come so close to it, to love, only to have it taken away, which makes me question why we continue to search for it. Why do we continue to search for something that is so uncertain? Why do we continue to search for something that seems to be so easily lost, so easily thrown aside, or so easily forgotten? Maybe it because we think it is what makes us happy. Maybe we need the love from someone else to feel happy, to feel like we are important, needed even. And if that is the case what about loving ourselves? Why is no one searching for that love? If love from another person can make someone feel happy, important, and needed what can a love for oneself do? Shouldn’t loving yourself be more important than the love from someone else? Or are they both equally important? Can a person go through live loving themselves but never receive love from another person? Or can a person go through life never loving themselves and get love from others? I’ve heard it said that you can’t truly love someone else until you love yourself but is that the truth? Because if it is then have I ever truly loved anyone or I have I just been searching for a way to feel happy, important, needed. Have I ever truly loved myself? But then comes the question everyone wonders – what does loving someone actually mean? Someone said that loving someone means putting that person before yourself. However, if you always put someone else first do you still love yourself? And if you don’t, then can you still love that other person?
I’ve had my share of relationships but only one thing seems to be the common thread. They all end. Friends and boyfriends they seem to come and go. Boyfriends faster than friend but they all end at some point. But then again most of the guys I’ve dated I’ve been friend with first and how many of them am I still friends with? If you ask them, I think two of my exs would say we are still friends. But me? I would say zero. We’ll never be friends like we were before. I tried for a while to stay friends with them, fought for it, actually, but at some point you get too tired to fight especially when you are the only one fight for it. We fight for love – for this feeling no one knows how to describe, for this thing that is so uncertain we fight for it. All of us. In one way or another we fight for love, for uncertainties. But what happens when we can’t fight anymore? What happens when we are barely making it through life? Someone told me once when I was going through a tough time that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that I’ll make it through. And when things got worse that tunnel caved in. That person told me when that happened he was there to help me through it, to move the rocks aside to make a path for me, to help me see that light again at the end of the tunnel. Is that what everyone is searching for? Someone to help us through a cave in that is our life? Someone to fight for us when we can’t fight anymore?
Love. we are all searching for it we are all fighting for it and we are all just trying to figure it out. Many of us want the love we see in the movies, the happy after ever and maybe at some point we will find that love. Until then we are stuck with the pain that searching, fighting and figuring it out causes. This is my story of love. My story of finding love and losing it, of coming so close and having it taken away, of thinking I found it but realizing it wasn’t and who knows maybe by the time I finish writing this I will have found that one love we are all searching for. The love that last.
Love Found then Lost
The story actually starts with the guy who told me he would be there to help me during my cave-ins. I guess he didn’t realize at that time that he wouldn’t be around to help me with one of my biggest cave-ins. The one he would cause.
James and my romantic relationship officially began February fourth 2009, our senior year of high school. However, that wasn’t the beginning. I believe that all throughout our friendship there was always something there but we never admitted it. Well, I never admitted it. He actually asked me out a couple times in high school. Even though I said no to him a couple times it didn’t seem like his feelings ever went away. However that didn’t mean he didn’t try to hide them. For a while I think he may have even buried them so deep that they were even hidden from himself. Maybe because his feelings were there for at least two years is what made me believe that they would always be there, that we could really make it. Maybe it was because when I turned him down in the past he didn’t let anything change between us. I don’t think that would be something easy to do. To have feelings for someone and watch them be happy with someone else and not let it affect your friendship. No I don’t believe that was easy for him at all and maybe because his feelings stay through all of that is why I thought we could make it through anything. Maybe it was his strong belief in us that caused me to sway away from what I had originally planned.
While our story really begins when we met (which neither of us actually remember how we met) for time sake I’m going to skip to when I actually started to realize what my feelings for him were. It was around our senior Homecoming. At the time I was actually dating another guy, Shawn. Well I was more sneaking around with him. He was older and out of school and my parents wouldn’t allow me to see him. So when homecoming came along I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to go but I didn’t want to go alone. That is probably about the time I remembered my good friend James.
I got online soon after I got my idea, hoping he would be on for me to talk to him. I didn’t know how at the time but I knew somehow I was going to get this guy to go to homecoming with me.
Me: Hey!
James: Hey, Whats up?
Me: nothing much, just thinking about homecoming. You?
James: not much. What about homecoming?
Me: about how I have to go because of my sister but I don’t really want to because I have no one to go with
James: I’ll go with you
Me: really?
James: id absolutely love to go to homecoming with you, even just as friends
Me: Thanks =D
James: How could I not go with someone as beautiful as you
Me: That’s sweet
James: What about Shawn
Me: I’m technically not suppose to be dating him
James: oh well I guess I get the pretty girl for the night =)
I don’t know if he knew it or not but I had the whole conservation planned out in my head. I had figured that if he wasn’t going with anyone already that he would offer to go with me. And whether I knew it at the time or not I was super excited about us going to homecoming together. I wasn’t exciting about telling my boyfriend that since he couldn’t take me to my homecoming that I got another guy to. Another guy who I knew had feelings for me. Let’s just say when I told Shawn, I left that out. So I was happy and actually excited and nervous about homecoming. That was until I got online the next day.
James: I don’t think we should go to homecoming together... and it’s absolutely nothing against you, but I don’t want to set myself up for disappointment
Me: oh
James: what do you think, cause I haven’t made up my mind yet so I wanna know what you think
Me: I think it would have been fun to go together but I understand if you cant
James: I have to think about it…
Me: ok just let me know what you decide
I don’t think he knew how disappointed I was that he had said this. At the time I believed it was because I just didn’t want to go to homecoming alone. However now I believe it was because I didn’t want to go to homecoming without him, but I never would have admitted it at the time. So my disappointment turned to anger and I focused that anger on something else.
Later that night, after I got home from work, I decided that I would see if my parents would let Shawn go with me to the dance. I figured I was almost 18 and he was only three years older than me, so my parents had to say yes.
“Mom, can I talk to you?” I asked her after I had stalled for at least an hour.
“Sure,” she replied.
“I wanted to ask you if Shawn could go to homecoming with me,”
“No,” she answered, she didn’t even take the time to think about it.
“Why?” I asked unwilling to give up so easily. This is when a huge fight broke out between my mom and me. I didn’t understand how she could say no without even thinking about it. Of course I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t let me date him in the first place. To be perfectly honest I still don’t understand that.
After a little bit of fighting I yelled, “I’m going to date him when I’m 18 whether you like it or not!” Then I got in my car and drove back to work, back to where Shawn was. Now I have never been very rebellious so leaving my house like I did wasn’t an easy thing to do. In fact sneaking around with Shawn was probably the worst thing I had ever done at that point in my life.
When I got back home from crying to Shawn about what happened (which by the way isn’t something I do a lot, crying in front of other people, that is) my mom seemed to have a change of heart. She came in my room and found me sitting on my bed. She said, “He can go to homecoming with you, and we are going to allow you to see him but only here at the house until you graduate,”
I nodded. I wasn’t going to fight what she said. I just got permission to take my boyfriend to homecoming and permission to date him all in one night. Granted we couldn’t go anywhere but my place but it was so much better then sneaking around. I figure I was graduating that year so I could live with the rules my parents had set down.
Of course after all this happened James told me the next day that he would still go to homecoming with me, the irony of it all is that instead of having no one to go with I now had two guys that would go with me. I felt bad about it but I told James all that had happened the night before with my parent, and how they were going to let me go with Shawn. I felt bad about telling James this because I thought that maybe he had been just as excited as I was about going together. However I was with Shawn, since he was allowed to take me he would be my date. However I did try to make it up to James, by promising to save him one slow dance. This may have been the danced that changed everything.
I had a great time that night with Shawn, but honestly all throughout the night the dance I had promised James was in the back of my mind. I was extremely nervous about this one simple slow dance with him that I almost broke my promise. I almost didn’t dance with him that night and maybe if I hadn’t then maybe whatever was triggered from that dance wouldn’t have been.
I remember that moment perfectly, and if I close my eyes I can still picture it in my head like it was yesterday. I remember walking up behind him and seeing he was dancing with someone else. For a second I almost turned around, but I didn’t. Instead I took a deep breath walked right up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. I couldn’t tell you what was said from that point on I couldn’t remember because that wasn’t important at the time. He stopped dancing with her probably said sorry or something like that, like I said I don’t remember what was said, I can’t even remember what song was playing. What I do remember is looking into his eyes and him looking back. I remember being unable to hold the gaze and glancing away, probably because of how nervous he was making me. I remember the way his hands felt on my waist and I remember how I didn’t want whatever song was playing to end. But it did and so did the dance and I went back to my date, my boyfriend. However from that point on there would be another guy that would be on my mind. A guy I would try my hardest for the nest couple months not to think about.
After that day things started to get confusing. There was now this guy on my mind almost more than my actually boyfriend was. I didn’t know what to do about this. I didn’t want to keep thinking about him, not while I was dating Shawn. However I dint want to end things with him for at the time I believed we were in love. So when James came to me and told me that he chose me over another girl I didn’t know how to react. He told me that he was going to go out with another girl but realized he didn’t love her. He loved me. Part of me was ecstatic about hearing him say this, but I was with Shawn, and we were in love right. So I told him he was an idiot for choosing me, but he said he was willing to wait for me
However we continued to talk and continued to stay friends. That was until he decided he needed to move on. Then he started dating Brittany.
“Do you think that it could be because he is dating Brittany?” May asked. May was one of my closest friends, and I talked to her about everything. During our senior year we didn’t get to see each other very much. So every Tuesday we would meet at school early and talk. So when my friendship with James started to change of course I talked to her about it.
“What do you mean?” I asked
“He’s had feelings for you for a long time, Lyra. Maybe them dating sort of created a wall between you two because he is afraid of those feelings coming back,” she explained.
“That makes sense,” I replied. However not for the reason she had said. I realized in that moment that I was jealous. I didn’t like that he was dating someone, but this was something I thought I’d never admit. I thought what if Shawn was a part of that wall too, but what if I am the one that is putting the wall up, not James. It was at this point that I started to pull away from James even more. I wanted him to be happy so I didn’t want to somehow get in the way of him finding that happiness with Brittany. I started building the wall up higher.
James and Brittany dated for a while until around the beginning of December. We still talked every now and then but I felt the distance between us. I don’t know if he ever did. So around the beginning of December I get an IM from him
James: No secrets right?
Me: Yeah
James: I think I made a mistake…
Me: what are you talking about?
James: I think I’m dating the wrong girl, She isn’t the one I should be with.
Now I have to say when he said that my first thought was he still thinks he is supposed to be with me. He isn’t over me. And I was happy about this much happier about this then I should be since I was still with Shawn.
Me: oh?
James: I should be with Melissa
Me: oh
Me: you’re an idiot
James: ?
Me: I told you that when you pick me over her, told you then you were and idiot and I’m telling you now =P
Only that wasn’t what was going through my head. Yes. I was glad he was going to finally be with Melissa. They were a lot alike and I figured they would be really happy together. I got mad at myself for thinking that he wasn’t over me and I got mad that I was happy about that. It was at this point in time that I decided for the first I would try to pull out of his life completely. I wanted him to be happy and thought this was the best way. When he heard he didn’t like it, not one bit. In fact he tried he’s best to fight it. One day I got a letter on myspace pretty much explaining why it was a dumb idea
It worked for a few days I didn’t talk to him and I went out of my way to make sure I wouldn’t see him at school. It wasn’t easy for me, which probably explains why it didn’t last long. One day I was leaving school late for my internship. This was of course done on purpose because James was suppose to be in class at that time so this was no chance I would run into him. But that wasn’t the case. Just as I open the door to leave he comes walking through the other one. I knew after I saw him I wasn’t going to be able to stay away. I tried for a little long but it didn’t last long.
Soon after I started talking to him again I realized a huge part of the reason I pulled away in the first place
Me: I have issues trusting people…
James: I don’t understand. Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?
Me: No its just… I’ve been hurt so many times by people I am close to. So it seems like the closer I get the more I push away from people. It scares me being around you because for some how you see through my walls… you know when somethings wrong… I cant hide from you and that scares me.
James: oh
Me: … its like I’m a puzzle with missing pieces. Pieces I don’t want to give up to other people…
Me: I know now I need to work on my issue…
James agreed to help me with my issue of trusting people. So soon after that conversation I went out and bought a Curious George puzzle. He would start out with a few of the pieces and then the more I trusted him the more pieces he would get. This was there to sort of help me stick with working through my problems. Every time I gave him another pieces I felt good about myself.
After a while a started thinking about James even more then I did before. In fact in my journal I started writing more about James then I did my own boyfriend. I guess I just didn’t have anything to say about Shawn. It actually got to the point where I started going into the past and write about things that happened already between me and Shawn because I was starting to feel guilty about how much James was on my mind. However the less I tried not to think about James the more I did
December 3rd 2008
“Is it normal for me to always have one guy on my mind but love another… is it possible that the guy I cant stop thinking about is the guy I love or could I love them both? I can’t see myself with James but can I see myself with Shawn…?”
For a while things between me and James were good. We were just friends and that was what I wanted. I knew deep down there were other feelings there for him but there was no way I would admit it. The thought of being anything more with him scared me. It wasn’t until January 6th 2009 did I realize just how important he was to me
That was the day I got into my first accident. The first person I texted after things calmed down on the site was James. He was the one I wanted to be there with me. My dad was going to let me stay home from school that day but I wanted to go. Partly because if I went home I would just keep thinking about it but mainly because I wanted, no I needed to see James.
I made it through that day at school but when it came time to go to sleep I couldn’t keep my eyes closed. I kept seeing the accident over and over again in my mind. So I remembered that James had told me I could always come to him if something was wrong no matter what time it was. So I decided to text him.
“I can’t sleep,” I texted him
“What’s up?” he replied
“It’s the accident. I just keep replaying it in my head. I keep thinking what I could have done differently so that none of this would happen.”
“You can’t change the past Lyra.”
“Doesn’t stop me from wishing I could… I feel like I can’t breathe.”
“Just talk to me Lyra, let it all out,”
It was at this point that I started crying, I let everything out. Everything that I had been holding in during the day I let out. I felt terrible for what I did and I wished I could fix it, “I feel like everything is falling apart.”
“It’s going to be ok, Lyra. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. You’re going to make it through this. All tunnels have an end.”
“Not if the tunnel caves in…”
“That why I am here. I’m holding it up and finding new paths and short cuts for you. So you can see the light again and make it out,”
“That’s really sweet,” I replied, “But it isn’t helping me sleep.”
“Well then just pretend that I am there with you comforting you.”
“Reminds me of the song ‘Arms of an Angel.”
“I would gladly being your angel, Lyra.”
“You're in the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here”
- Sarah Mclachlan - Arms Of An Angel
Two day later, Shawn and I broke up. Not a huge surprise, but I still refused to admit it had anything to do with James. However, James and I continued to get closer and closer. He had always told me that he was like an open book and would tell me anything. So to prove this we started something else. I bought him a journal and he was just supposed to write about himself. I gave him a few questions to starts and he was to write whatever came to mind.
By the middle of January I finally admitted to myself that I had feelings for James, but I still refused to let anything happen between us. This time my reasons were, our different beliefs, and also I was afraid if we started something at that point that it would mess up the chance of us being together in the future. However there was just so much between is that I seemed like we were really meant to be together. Looking back sometimes I wish I had listened to my head instead of my heart.
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