Blackbook Diaries: Entry 1
The smell of fall on the air still brings me back to the time when we met. The leaves were golden but not quite dead, still full in the tree's. We were both leaving our dorm at the same time to go to a mutual class. We knew each other but yet we didn't really know each other. It was two weeks into fall semester of freshman year, a blissful time when everything is fresh and new again. We probably would have spent the entire walk in silence if not for my propensity to naturally talk to anyone about anything. Silence is not something that I am comfortable with, and because I had my headphones resting around my neck there was no musical escape without seeming entirely socially awkward.
I said "hey" and you said "hi" in that small way that would go on to feel like my own personal welcome, as if you reserved it for me. A week from this moment you tell me it's because you referred to me as the cute guy from lit class to your friends and you were suddenly nervous and shy. I had noticed you in class and in the dining hall numerous times but could not find something cool and nonchalant to get your attention. Apparently all that it took to gain your attention was to hear me adamantly defend the written word and tear down modern society as shaped by reality tv, a feat that I managed to do in the first class that we shared together.
I don't remember much of the content of that first conversation, but I chalk that up to the immense amount of anxiety that was coursing through me as I tried to avoid sounding like a dumbass. I do remember you smiling and laughing quite a bit. We never shut up the whole time to class, and that day you sat beside me for the first time. We played the dot game on a piece of paper from my notes, only really taking a break when one of us volunteered information for class.
When class ended we fell back into conversation and walked to this little patio with a tree and sat under it in the nice autumn sun talking about books, music, and movies. We literally spent an entire day just getting to know each other. So when we both entered the dining hall holding hands and separated for the first time that day, both of our friends looked confused. Your's because of you coming in holding the hand of the cute guy from lit, and mine because I was holding the hand of the cute girl from lit.
You see, you always had my attention. The first day of class I was early and sitting in the back as I am prone to do, listening to my music and sketching. I looked up as every person walked into the classroom, but with you there was an intriguing sequence. Not only did I actually follow you to where you sat with my eyes, the entrance was scored perfectly by my iPod. While not exactly romantic or slow like one would think of for a moment that I deem perfect, that never happens in real life. "Stars in Your Eyes" by Armor for Sleep. Not slow. Not even romantic. Emo rock at it's best. But it fit. To this day, almost four years later, that song still brings back that memory of watching you enter my life.
You see, that's the great thing about auditory memories. The sad thing is that that's not the only musical memory that comes to focus. We started fast and furious after each of us carrying a torch from the first moments together. The thing with things that start fast and furious is that they end just the same. We were never destined to be soul mates, at least not as far as I can tell based on our current situations. It was passionate. Wonderful. Radical. Full of moments where we each delved into the freshness of college romance and getting high as can be on a semi regular basis. This aspect of our relationship I can recall greatly whenever I hear Sublime. Particularly "Caress Me Down" and how you wanted me to caress you down to that song.
But like any perfect moment or relationship, there are always ups and downs. The thing is to hope that there is one more up then there is down because otherwise everything that you invested, every feeling that you felt, it has all been for nothing. You will be left with nothing but useless trivial facts that will come back to you at random times throughout the years. You will think about the way she would ask if you wanted to smoke before you even realized you wanted to. How she was the only girl to not look down on you for your love of recreationally getting high, how she in fact seemed to love it. How she alone loved everything about me all at once and how somehow even that wasn't enough to keep me from walking in on her fucking that random guy from her econ class. No, not all of the perfect love that I had felt we had found could keep me from unseeing that, keep me from feeling utterly devastated and debilitated of a crippling defeat that I could have never predicted.
From that point on there was no more hitting the staples "That Was Easy" button after we were done ravishing each other, a competition to see who could hit it first would never again happen on a regular basis. Yes, in the years after we will varying backslides including an altercation in a Sheetz bathroom because we both just felt that we needed to have each other right there. No, this love is not perfect and perhaps it never was. But for a brief time period when I was 18 this love was the most perfect thing that I had ever encountered. There is however a silver lining, a very tiny silver lining. Every failed relationship teaches us about ourselves and our choices and why things fail. We learn how we cope and how we choose what we like, but most importantly we learn that that is not the fabled, mythical one. For everyone has that one person who is supposed to make all of this take all of the pain and bullshit games out of the scenario. We are supposed to give all of ourselves and receive all of the other, and the sheer fact that she was able to be fucking another guy while in a relationship with me just proves that she was not the one for me. I just wish that I could listen to Sublime without feeling all of the good times and bad times racing to the front of my mind where it inevitably puts me into a nostalgic and depressed state of mind that kills me emotionally.
