I know I said I wouldn’t write about relationships or love or anythig like that, BUT..I’ve been consumed by what I came across this afternoon. So, deal with it.
My mom’s phone doesn’t work very well. So being the good and cheap daughter that I am, I offered up my old phone. Hadn’t used it in a little over a year so I dug it out of an old purse, charged that little black and red slider up and switched it on. And holy crap. Flashback city. Everything from the pictures of my high school teammates to the way I had to just about break the phone squeezing the navigation arrows, screamed nostalgia. It hadn’t really been that long since I used the phone, but so much has happened in that short time, it felt like ages. I remembered how difficult texting was on this peice of crap. Texting. Messages. There had to be some old messages left on this bad boy. Quickly I navigated to the inbox where 50 text messages provided a window into my past. The first few messages were harmless, “Hey, what are you doing tonight?”, “See you at the game next week”, “Good luck on your exam”, normal conversations. But then, there it was. That number. 210***5893 (Can’t have you calling my ex). I had deleted the number before I stopped using the phone so it didn’t have a contact name, but I didn’t need the name there to know exactly who those numbers belonged to.
Hannah. My first real girlfriend. She was something special. I loved her laugh, and she had the biggest smile you could imagine, her legs went on for days, her hair was never unruly, always straight and tame, a big heart and no patience, a little melodramatic at times, but she made up for it with the way she kissed. Ah, I hadn’t thought about Hannah in almost a year. Our relationship ended very on pretty bad terms. I’ll spare you the details, but I refused to speak to her for just about the entire spring semester of her senior year (my junior). Then I found it in myself to forgive her after she graduated and we tried being friends, which is to say we pretended not to be attracted to eacother for a couple of months. Then out of the blue she decided she was straight, and became a super Christian. Now, I am a fervent believer that sexuality is not a choice and up to this point I thought she held that same idea. So naturually I was a bit upset with this hypocritical choice. Lie to others fine, but don’t lie to yourself. Especially since I knew the lie was that she was still attracted to me. This would ultimately be the reason we ended our friendship. She said she did not want to associate with anyone that she had a relationship with, and I was just pissed off. And that was that. Last I heard she went off to Louisiana for a mission trip or something.
Despite all that just seeing her number was enough to send me diving head first into a cool pool of memories; first floating on thoughts of our first encounters,walking to class together, leaving cute notes in eachothers lockers, then swimming comfortably through all those feelings I once had for her. Looking back it was only puppy love, but at the time I thought she was the most wonderful thing to ever happen to me. Then like a blow to the gut, I remembered why she wasn’t, and as if I were tied to a cinder block I began to drown in the anger I held through our break up, and again at the end of our psuedo friendship. I didn’t want to think about her anymore, I was over her. Or at least I thought I was. Only a few texts about nothing got me so worked up all day thinking about everything that happened, how things could have been different..or not. Was I too mean when she ended it, should I even care that she’s straight now, what does that matter to me anyways? I almost called her I was so torn up. Thankfully I stopped myself. We had what we had, and now it’s over. She moved on, as did I. So, after agonizing about what my thinking about her all day meant, I’ve come to terms with the fact that thinking about her is normal, she was a very important relationship for me. I learned a lot from her and she will always hold a special place in my heart, all of her. The good and the bad.
