30 days meme: Day 2, "First love"
Emily.
We met at GLASS (Gay/Lesbian Adolescent Social Services - which is awesome and every city should have one) when I was 16 and she was 17. We connected over clothes, of all things. I liked her different colored sneakers, she liked my crazy skirt. Although, I am of the opinion that what she really liked was that I was willing to wear said crazy skirt.
Plus, you know, I thought she was pretty.
It was a teenage relationship, so it surprised everyone, including us, when we ended up dating for 3 years. For the most part, it was a good relationship. There were a couple of terrible things that happened, though, and I really regret the way I handled those situations.
I pretty much only saw her on the weekends, because she lived far away from me - I've always lived in Boston, and she was in a small town in Central MA. (I don't know if it was small or small-ish, but the town center actually had a Bob's General Store, so I think it counts as small.) It was an hour's drive from my house to hers, but I didn't drive. Even if I'd had my license, there wouldn't have been a car for me. Instead, I spent an hour on the T, followed by an hour on the commuter rail, followed by 30 minutes in the car of whomever picked me up. Two and a half hours was a lot, and it just didn't make sense for me to visit for less than an overnight. This did not please my mother. She insisted that Emily and I not be allowed in the same room alone with the door closed, and I definitely wasn't allowed to sleep anywhere but the guest bed.
In contrast to my parents, hers were awesome. Eventually they relaxed the door rule, and ended up following the letter of the guest bed law by moving the bed up to Emily's room. I loved them like my own parents. More, sometimes, because my teenage years were quite rough and, well... I was a teenager. Teenagers aren't allowed to always love their parents properly.
We'd always been long-distance (for teenagers, at least), so when she went to college up in the Northampton/Amherst area it didn't change our dynamic much. Phone calls had always been integral to our relationship, and they stayed that way. We saw each other a little less - every two weeks instead of every week - but it still worked.
But after a while, it stopped working. As in most relationships, there were a bunch of little things that added up to a big mess. I think the catalyst came when she accused me of cheating on her with my best friend. We were in Boston, away from my apartment, when she said that. I didn't reply, just shook my head, walked out of the room and kept walking. Some hours later, while I was still walking, I found that I'd forgiven her, so I made my way home. She broke up with me the next week, though, I think because she realized that she didn't trust me anymore.
Our break-up went... poorly. We'd just had sex and were doing the whole afterglow thing when we had the following exchange:
Me: I love you.
Her: I think we should break up.
There was a lot of crying. A lot of feeling rejected and lost. I asked if we could still be friends, and she said she didn't want to, although she did want to check in with me every few months or so, to see if I was doing well; I was numb enough to agree to that. I realized a few minutes later that I'd have to give her stuff back - all the little keepsakes and things I'd borrowed to remember her by - and it took nearly all my will to get up and collect them.
But I did.
I have 2 things that I'm grateful for in regards to that break-up. 1) It happened at my apartment. It was bad enough losing her; it would have been so much worse if I'd had to do it with a 4 hour bus ride in front of me. 2)The way she did it was rather shitty, so I was able to rely on anger for a while.
After a couple of weeks went by, Emily called me, wanting to get back together. That wasn't an option, because I'd moved on really quickly - too quickly, really. Even if it had been possible, I wouldn't have gone back. A person only gets one romantic relationship with me. There are a bunch of complicated reasons for that, but the big one is that I need someone who considers the consequences of their actions. If you didn't think it through enough beforehand, I don't want to be with you, anyway. Even during my worst heartbreak, when I often couldn't stand for the crying, I felt almost immediately that I couldn't go back. Not because of revenge or pride, just because it was extra proof (you know, besides the break-up) that we wouldn't make it.* Of course, the point was moot, because that person didn't want to get back together.
I still google Emily every once in a while. I'm a curious person and she was my world, once upon a time, but there's never much to find. I'm glad, though, that we ended when we did. I don't think I'd be happy if I was married/functionally married to her.
*This did not prevent me from crying, being irrationally angry, miserable and generally annoying to everyone around me.
We met at GLASS (Gay/Lesbian Adolescent Social Services - which is awesome and every city should have one) when I was 16 and she was 17. We connected over clothes, of all things. I liked her different colored sneakers, she liked my crazy skirt. Although, I am of the opinion that what she really liked was that I was willing to wear said crazy skirt.
Plus, you know, I thought she was pretty.
It was a teenage relationship, so it surprised everyone, including us, when we ended up dating for 3 years. For the most part, it was a good relationship. There were a couple of terrible things that happened, though, and I really regret the way I handled those situations.
I pretty much only saw her on the weekends, because she lived far away from me - I've always lived in Boston, and she was in a small town in Central MA. (I don't know if it was small or small-ish, but the town center actually had a Bob's General Store, so I think it counts as small.) It was an hour's drive from my house to hers, but I didn't drive. Even if I'd had my license, there wouldn't have been a car for me. Instead, I spent an hour on the T, followed by an hour on the commuter rail, followed by 30 minutes in the car of whomever picked me up. Two and a half hours was a lot, and it just didn't make sense for me to visit for less than an overnight. This did not please my mother. She insisted that Emily and I not be allowed in the same room alone with the door closed, and I definitely wasn't allowed to sleep anywhere but the guest bed.
In contrast to my parents, hers were awesome. Eventually they relaxed the door rule, and ended up following the letter of the guest bed law by moving the bed up to Emily's room. I loved them like my own parents. More, sometimes, because my teenage years were quite rough and, well... I was a teenager. Teenagers aren't allowed to always love their parents properly.
We'd always been long-distance (for teenagers, at least), so when she went to college up in the Northampton/Amherst area it didn't change our dynamic much. Phone calls had always been integral to our relationship, and they stayed that way. We saw each other a little less - every two weeks instead of every week - but it still worked.
But after a while, it stopped working. As in most relationships, there were a bunch of little things that added up to a big mess. I think the catalyst came when she accused me of cheating on her with my best friend. We were in Boston, away from my apartment, when she said that. I didn't reply, just shook my head, walked out of the room and kept walking. Some hours later, while I was still walking, I found that I'd forgiven her, so I made my way home. She broke up with me the next week, though, I think because she realized that she didn't trust me anymore.
Our break-up went... poorly. We'd just had sex and were doing the whole afterglow thing when we had the following exchange:
Me: I love you.
Her: I think we should break up.
There was a lot of crying. A lot of feeling rejected and lost. I asked if we could still be friends, and she said she didn't want to, although she did want to check in with me every few months or so, to see if I was doing well; I was numb enough to agree to that. I realized a few minutes later that I'd have to give her stuff back - all the little keepsakes and things I'd borrowed to remember her by - and it took nearly all my will to get up and collect them.
But I did.
I have 2 things that I'm grateful for in regards to that break-up. 1) It happened at my apartment. It was bad enough losing her; it would have been so much worse if I'd had to do it with a 4 hour bus ride in front of me. 2)The way she did it was rather shitty, so I was able to rely on anger for a while.
After a couple of weeks went by, Emily called me, wanting to get back together. That wasn't an option, because I'd moved on really quickly - too quickly, really. Even if it had been possible, I wouldn't have gone back. A person only gets one romantic relationship with me. There are a bunch of complicated reasons for that, but the big one is that I need someone who considers the consequences of their actions. If you didn't think it through enough beforehand, I don't want to be with you, anyway. Even during my worst heartbreak, when I often couldn't stand for the crying, I felt almost immediately that I couldn't go back. Not because of revenge or pride, just because it was extra proof (you know, besides the break-up) that we wouldn't make it.* Of course, the point was moot, because that person didn't want to get back together.
I still google Emily every once in a while. I'm a curious person and she was my world, once upon a time, but there's never much to find. I'm glad, though, that we ended when we did. I don't think I'd be happy if I was married/functionally married to her.
*This did not prevent me from crying, being irrationally angry, miserable and generally annoying to everyone around me.