But you're sure you could be right.
I have this thing I keep up on the top shelf of my closet, shoved in the left corner, probably covered and hidden by numerous long-forgotten t-shirts that have never even been worn. I call it my boyfriend box.
I don't look through it very much anymore. I think it's been almost a year since the last time I opened it up and pawed through the contents. But it's not like I don't already know what's in there by heart. All things that I've kept for the memory of what they are, everything in it is something meaningful from the guys I've dated before. Things like very many folded-up "love" letters written on blue-lined notebook paper, gift-given quarter machine jewelry, an Ace of Base cassette tape, flowers pressed from the funeral, movie ticket stubs, a badly-written card decorated with lucky charms cereal, a ton of assorted pictures, and some of the worst poetry to ever come from the very clueless but well-meaning mind of a then thirteen year old boy. It probably all sounds like a lot but I really didn't have that many serious boyfriends.
I wasn't officially allowed by my parents to date anyone until years after my friends had already started. And for a good while, that was completely fine by me. Dating seemed kind of scary. It really wasn't until my guy friends started leaving me hanging for other girls that it really hit me that it was really happening and dating was going to be a part of things whether or not I wanted it to be. And when you grow up with almost solely male friends, the change of them blowing off a basketball game with you because they'd rather be putting their hand up under some other girl's shirt is a hard thing to accept. I wasn't competing against them for fun anymore, I was competing for their attention instead. It was frustrating. Then, because I wasn't rushing into dating, my friends would secretly set me up. It's how I had my first few short-lived relationships; those shallow, meaningless ones where you dated someone for six days and thought it was totally love until the guy wore an ugly shirt one day and you lost all your feeling for him. I went on with that stupidity for a while before I finally fell for someone by accident and it turned into something real. But still, it wasn't love then either. After all the dating, the somewhat longer-termed and less shallow relationships, only once did it get far enough for love. And like the things in the box, I wanted a part of him forever. That was the only reason I actually allowed someone else's name to be carved through ink into my skin. I did what I'd felt and I felt I'd never want to lose him, no matter what happened. I stayed true to that, even after we stopped being a couple and after I cursed myself for the dramatic way I chose to keep him. I just consider love to be something you shouldn't let fade completely, not when it's so hard to find to start with. It's why I still hold onto the box after all these years, for the reminders of what lead up to me finding love the for the first time. It's a map of the past and maybe in all of those things, somewhere, is direction for the future.
For right now, things are moving at their own pace. He handles me through my non-stop talking about bad television. (He even acts like he's interested!) He remedies my probably constant bitching about being cold. I fall hard for his random breaking into song and I don't make fun of him too much for watching unspeakable things. I guess I'm trying to say that I'd never snub him for any ugly shirts he may own. I've probably even worn some of them. Because this is something. I spend more time at his place than I do my own, and soon I'll be leaving my apartment for even longer than usual, when Nick's tour starts this week in Japan. I'll be following him around, watching him be a Backstreet Boy as long as possible until I'm due back home for filming. I'm excited about it, I'm nervous for it. I'm still struggling with the packing! But I'll be with him and it feels like the best way to keep him right now, for a little bit longer.
I hope all of you have the best Valentine's Day and find something worth holding onto on Thursday.
I don't look through it very much anymore. I think it's been almost a year since the last time I opened it up and pawed through the contents. But it's not like I don't already know what's in there by heart. All things that I've kept for the memory of what they are, everything in it is something meaningful from the guys I've dated before. Things like very many folded-up "love" letters written on blue-lined notebook paper, gift-given quarter machine jewelry, an Ace of Base cassette tape, flowers pressed from the funeral, movie ticket stubs, a badly-written card decorated with lucky charms cereal, a ton of assorted pictures, and some of the worst poetry to ever come from the very clueless but well-meaning mind of a then thirteen year old boy. It probably all sounds like a lot but I really didn't have that many serious boyfriends.
I wasn't officially allowed by my parents to date anyone until years after my friends had already started. And for a good while, that was completely fine by me. Dating seemed kind of scary. It really wasn't until my guy friends started leaving me hanging for other girls that it really hit me that it was really happening and dating was going to be a part of things whether or not I wanted it to be. And when you grow up with almost solely male friends, the change of them blowing off a basketball game with you because they'd rather be putting their hand up under some other girl's shirt is a hard thing to accept. I wasn't competing against them for fun anymore, I was competing for their attention instead. It was frustrating. Then, because I wasn't rushing into dating, my friends would secretly set me up. It's how I had my first few short-lived relationships; those shallow, meaningless ones where you dated someone for six days and thought it was totally love until the guy wore an ugly shirt one day and you lost all your feeling for him. I went on with that stupidity for a while before I finally fell for someone by accident and it turned into something real. But still, it wasn't love then either. After all the dating, the somewhat longer-termed and less shallow relationships, only once did it get far enough for love. And like the things in the box, I wanted a part of him forever. That was the only reason I actually allowed someone else's name to be carved through ink into my skin. I did what I'd felt and I felt I'd never want to lose him, no matter what happened. I stayed true to that, even after we stopped being a couple and after I cursed myself for the dramatic way I chose to keep him. I just consider love to be something you shouldn't let fade completely, not when it's so hard to find to start with. It's why I still hold onto the box after all these years, for the reminders of what lead up to me finding love the for the first time. It's a map of the past and maybe in all of those things, somewhere, is direction for the future.
For right now, things are moving at their own pace. He handles me through my non-stop talking about bad television. (He even acts like he's interested!) He remedies my probably constant bitching about being cold. I fall hard for his random breaking into song and I don't make fun of him too much for watching unspeakable things. I guess I'm trying to say that I'd never snub him for any ugly shirts he may own. I've probably even worn some of them. Because this is something. I spend more time at his place than I do my own, and soon I'll be leaving my apartment for even longer than usual, when Nick's tour starts this week in Japan. I'll be following him around, watching him be a Backstreet Boy as long as possible until I'm due back home for filming. I'm excited about it, I'm nervous for it. I'm still struggling with the packing! But I'll be with him and it feels like the best way to keep him right now, for a little bit longer.
I hope all of you have the best Valentine's Day and find something worth holding onto on Thursday.