Jul 24, 2004 12:49
I thought I'd have my yearly Governor's School rememberance here, since all my GSers read this one rather than the other.
I miss you guys. More than I could ever let on. I wish it was 4 years ago. I wish I could have spent the rest of my life in that beauitful place.
I'm moving on, though. I only cried about GS once this year. And that was a couple weeks ago, actually. I started missing Matt Clayton and how things used to be, and then I started thinking back to when life was easy...
Maybe I make it sound surreal. Although it mostly was, the first week was hard. I didn't know anyone, I freaked out the first dance and built my wall higher than I'd ever had it before.
I guess that's why it was so amazing when it came tumbling down. In less than 6 weeks.
God, there are memories there that I'll never forget. The night Bryan and I walked around under the stars, sat under the gazebo with vines and white lights surrounding us, and just talked and held hands. I remember when that felt like I was cheating. Holding hands was cheating to me back then. Oh God, how things change.
I don't know why I tried to date Jeff during GS. No one really knew about him, except for Becky, who helped me try to cover my tracks. I remember the day Jeff mailed me a picture of flowers and the longest letter of my life, telling me how wonderful I was, and how much he missed me.
::Sigh:: Jeff. What a great guy. I just wish things had worked out for us, but his lifestyle is quite different than mine. And although his daughter is adorable and I love her, I couldn't handle that as a senior in high schoool.
I remember when I dressed up as "The Goddess of Orange" with Becky as the cowgirl. And Stuart came as a tree. And some random guy bought that huge teddy bear and pulled out all the stuffing and wore the "skin". God, that might have been the funniest mascarade ball of my life.
It wasn't easy. Marcus and I got into our first fight while I was away. I didn't call enough, I didn't try hard enough to keep in touch (God, sound familar? I've been getting this line for years. From all types of boys.) But, it was because I was spending time with Ben.
Ben. Swoon. I wonder where he is these days. I found him online either last year or the one previous. And his profile had something about being madly in love with this girl. So I let him be, didn't call him. I don't know what we would have done if we had talked. He and I were always a day late and a dollar short. I think I may have missed out on one of the best guys ever by letting Ben slide past me. And I wish I had had the balls to tell him how I felt BEFORE the last day of GS. You could hear my heart breaking when he told me he felt the same way, but he didn't want to interfere with my life. And didn't I have a boyfriend? He asked. Well, yes. But nothing could compare to the way he looked at me. Or the way he hugged me when we left the bridge everynight from talking. Or the way he just laughed at me when I knocked everything over at open mike night because I was so nervous. And the way he just picked up all the pieces, and quietly said, "Go on, sing your heart out. Show them how good you are." God, whoever that girl is, she's lucky. He's the best catch I've ever seen.
Ironically, I see a lot of Ben in Matt Crawford. And it scares me.
I miss being with Becky. I miss our naps together, running up and down the hall together, staying up to ungodly hours of the morning, and singing some of the best (and worst) songs I've ever heard. I miss writing "Sexy Bitches" EVERYWHERE. I miss the talks about David, even though she was cheating on whats-his-face. Somehow, it didn't matter at GS. You were in a different world. What happened there, stayed there. Cheating didn't really exist. 6 weeks is too short to bother with breaking up, and dealing with the consequences.
GS is where I learned to do what I wanted. Do what makes Betsy happy. I only wish I had remembered that, oh, in January.
The pool. Mayank and David's math jokes that SUCKED. The hush puppy fight. The greenhouse/pool. The ampitheatre where I really learned what it meant to say goodbye. Grey Umbrella. Fish sticks in the fountain. The laundry room where Becky and my laundry LIVED for days, being thrown everywhere.
I remember the last night. Like it was yesterday. The "group" was walking around, just talking, trying to cram the last precious moments in. We walked past the laundry room, and I looked up at it. Something about the light coming from the room, casting upon the walls of Salem college, it just brought tears to my eyes. I hadn't cried in months. I couldn't cry then. I looked at Becky, Mandy, Amanda, Anthony, Clint, Mayank, all of them. And I realized right then what I would be losing in less than 24 hours. And I cried. Like a baby. We just held each other, everyone cried. We walked to the ampitheatre and sang, "Leaving on a jet plane." Out of key, no one's voices matched pitch, no one blended. And it was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.
I went to GS for voice, and sang with some of the best singers in the state. And nothing we sang came close to how that song sounded in the ampitheatre underneath the stars, as we huddled together and just held each other.
I remember Tucker went 3 years previous to me. And I remember commenting on why would ANYONE want to go to school during the summer? That would suck!
3 years later, I remember sitting in car with Chris Backus, holding the packet from Governor's School, and just shaking because I was afraid it would say I couldn't come. That I wasn't smart enough, that my GPA wasn't high enough. After GS, I went crazy over grades. Never again would I feel that scared because I hadn't tried hard enough.
I have an IQ of 150 or higher. But I still feel like an idiot. I still wonder why I don't have a 4.0. I still wonder why I had a calling to come to WCU when it's academics are so, well, mediocre. I got a lot of shit talked about me when I made my choice to come here. People don't understand why I came when they hear my SAT score. But that's why I don't pay to come here.
But, Chris opened it for me, and just smiled at me. And then hugged me. I screamed with delight. I couldn't believe they had accepted me on my poor academics in high school.
I fucked up hardcore my freshman year of highschool. Too much pot, drinking, and self-detachment to "care" about grades. When my dad left, I lost it. Grades didn't matter to me. What was a bright, happy child turned into a "goth" chick, all black and never smiling.
Thank God for turning around half way through 10th grade.
I don't smoke weed much anymore. I spark a bowl up every now and then, but it just makes me eat and sleep. Over spring break, I gained like...5 or 6 lbs just from smoking around 4 times a day.
I put myself on a hardcore diet when I came home and lost it all, thank God. But that was the end of my weed smoking era. At least as a regular.
Speaking of drugs, I've definitely seen so much coke this summer. I had never seen it before this summer, and now I've been offered too many times to count. Ryan told me if I ever tried it, he would never forgive me. Obviously, I'd never do it. But it's creepy to see some of your best friends just snorting up a couple of lines.
Anyways, GS.
It brought Matt Clayton and I so much closer. He went the year before me, and then suddenly, when I came home, I wasn't such an outcast. God, when I came back to reality, I was so lost. All I saw were GS people. I looked for them, I ran up to people I didn't know. The day I came home, I didn't do anything but cry and sleep. The next day, Matt came over and I just laid on the floor. It was like a part of me died.
I know now that it didn't. That it was a mourning process because I had just left a place that will probably never be replaced.
These days, I think about it every now and then. I still have pictures up around my room. Becky is dating Matt Clayton, so I'm still close to her that way.
I'll never forget the Everclear song that was "ours." And all our inside jokes. When I go home to WS, I see all the notes and pictures of GS on my wall. I never changed them. Sometimes it's like a stab in the stomach. And sometimes it's a pleasant memory.
All I know is I'm a better person for those 6 weeks. I'm a better person for having to lose those people, even though they'll always be with me in my memories and my heart. I miss you guys more than you know.
As for the drama of late, I don't really know what's going on. Ryan went home this weekend, and I was actually kind of excited. Time to myself, time to think things out. I've been reviewing the past couple months of my life (well, a year and 3 months to be exact) and it's been so much drama. Between his friends, my friends, parents and exes, we're always fighting something. Or about something.
Up until April, when I found out all that shit that went on, we were so happy. I mean, I was ready to get a ring from this boy. But when I found out all that, it tainted everything. All the lies. All the cheating.
I mean, I knew most of it because of February 7th, when Beth Anne came up to see him. I was coming home early from ECU and wanted to stay with him. When I called him Friday night and asked him, there was this hesitancy in his voice. I knew. I just quietly said, "She's coming up tomorrow, isn't she?" And he said, "I don't know."
I lost it. Utterly, completely, my entire being: LOST IT. I screamed. In some girl's house that I didn't even know, I looked like some drama queen. And it was then that I realized that's what he had made me: a jealous, drama filled, psycho girlfriend. Or whatever I was back then.
So I stopped mid-scream, and said, "If she spends the night tomorrow, I'll never speak to you again." And he didn't believe me. I hung up, and didn't sleep at all that night. Bink and Anne woke up at 7 that morning and looked at me and knew. They hated him from then on.
That's the difference. My friends hate him just as much as his hate me. Well, most of them. But they have the class not to say things about him. They've stated their opinion and that was that.
Regardless, he calls me at 4 pm or something the next day, and says, "Please don't leave me. I've decided. I want you." But it was actually too late. I said the same thing. "If she spends the night, I'll never speak to you again." And hung up.
I went out to an awesome party that night. I IMed him and saw that she wasn't leaving. He blamed it on the weather, said that he tried to get her to leave, but she wouldn't go. Whatever. I meet a sweet boy named Derek that night. Arms the size of my head, cutest smile ever. He came home with me, but I couldn't sleep with him. I couldn't do the same thing that Ryan did to me.
Obviously, I talked to him again. Obviously, I didn't hold true. But he made it sound like he had broken up with her that day. That things were over. I saw by her profile it was not. So, I told him that unless she got the message, then I would never date him again. The next day, everything had changed.
I felt like shit reading her away messages. I knew how much it hurt. I had gone through it in December, when they had tried to get back together. God, 2 nights previous, I had been making out with him on his pool table.
I made a list (an idea of Ler's) of everything that made me mad about him. That made me not want to be with him anymore. I threw it away in February.
Sigh. He's serious about this relationship now. Very serious. He's the one chasing me now. It always ends up like this in my relationships. I'm the one staying out all night, not coming home, hanging out with other guys. I now have the threatening "favorite" in my life.
& there's Matt. What a great guy. So great, in fact, I don't want him to get involved in all of this. We had a very serious talk the other night. About him and me. About how I felt about him, and how he felt about me. He's talking to this girl Megan, who is SUPER cool. I know he had feelings for me, and I know we'd be perfect together. But the way he looks when I talk about Ryan, it just breaks my heart sometimes. I got so angry with Ryan on Tuesday, Matt thought I was going to break up with him. When I went over there last night and Matt asked about Ryan, and I said we were ok, he just stared at me. "I thought you guys were breaking up." That's when I knew we had to sit down and talk.
Yeah, I want to be with him. But I'm obviously not ready. And I do love Ryan. Just not the way I did before. There are boundaries. There are restraints. But Ryan is my best friend. I don't know how to live without that aspect of him.
We're on break. No one believes us because we still sleep together. He introduced himself as my boyfriend at the bar the other night, and I nearly choked on my beer. And I told Matt, as long as I'm in the same town as him, I can't have a serious relationship with you. Or anything really more as friends.
He told me last night that I was just afraid of being alone, and that I just needed to take the leap.
But...Matt's moving to Nashville :) For real. I couldn't believe it when he told me. He told me before I ever mentioned leaving and doing my internship there. Hotness :)
So, maybe I'm not the best person either. But at least I'm being honest with him. Unlike he did to me.
As for the friend thing, it's going alright. We saw Ian the other day to get this key from him. He invited me to go to the beach with them over spring break. I told him I'd like to go, but the idea of trotting around in a bikini with them makes me laugh. I should just bring my moo-moo (I'd have to buy one first) and scream out "BEACHED WHALE" while I'm lying on the beach.
It's slowly getting funnier and funnier to me. I guess I'm finally realizing how great my friends are. And that's why they're MINE.
This kind of entry is what happens when you don't have time to update for weeks on end.
Class is good. Parents are good. Still tan. Not losing much weight anymore, but I'm also not doing anything. I'm not gaining (which is amazing, actually, since I believe I drink my weight in beer every night), just staying steady. When rugby starts back up, I'll continue to lose. Yay.
Drinking. Dear Lord. Parker looked at me last night after my 5 beer bong and says, "Betsy, do you just wake up in the morning with a beer in your hand?" And I was thinking, huh, that's a good idea. This is my last summer as a kid. And I'm gonna drink it up.
Well, I think I may go to the pool. Or take a nap. Or something. I'll leave you with some lyrics depicting my life. Huh.
"maybe im not ready for this
and you know it
maybe im too scared to tell you
what i really think and
its not fair to stay together
cause of regrets we might have
dont want to fall asleep alone
but do i want to wake up with you?
im only trying to be completely honest.
so i guess this is the ending
or a beautiful mistake
and if we both agree that
we shouldnt be together
why does it hurt so much?
and i feel like i lost my closest friend
dont want to fall asleep alone
but do i want to wake up with you?
i hope youre happy
and completely lonely.
there i am standing all alone
on sydney harbor bridge
and you know i would jump into the fucking ocean
if it meant i was truly capable
of being satisfied
will i ever be? did i just give up the best thing i ever had?
dont want to fall asleep alone.
but do i want to wake up with you?
i hope youre happy
and completely lonely
im only trying
to be completely honest."