When I typed the title, I thought of this Left-Eye song. It's kinda related, but not really. (She says "I flow I flow like water, like water...")
Two nights ago I was reading some of my old e-mails. I do this a lot. It's part of why I keep EVERYTHING I write. Notes from classes, random thoughts, ideas... all of it. It's an easy way to look back and see what I've come from and how I've grown (or not grown).
I'd sent myself a copy of an AIM convo I had back in '06 with my BFF (at the time) and after I read it this came out (so I wrote it down):
It's the connection. It's the feeling like I can present myself in a mess and you won't judge me, in fact, you'll help me. It's the knowing that when no one else gets it, you'll get it. It's not having to explain the stupid stuff I do or say either because you've done it or said it or because I've done it or said it before. It's the normalcy in all the chaos and the clarity in all of the nonsense. That. All of that. That's it.
My BFF and I got closer after we graduated from high school. I was surprised at the time, but it was so great to have her in my life. She got me on such a deep level and now, we don't speak as much (not really sure why) and remembering how much she understood me inspired that.
I shared it with a friend and a long discussion of what you should expect in a romantic relationship ensued. She said
what amazes me is that some people dont value it....better yet they just dont get it... meanwhile, im willing to be single forever until i find someone that does
We're on the same page about that, because I responded I don't get people who will give that sort of acceptanec up just to say they're with someone. I realize there are some people, though, who don't get how I could be ok with being single until I get exactly what I'm looking for.
Even now, my ex's words ring in my ear
Good luck finding a guy who meets all of your requirements. You want too much
I know he said that out of anger, but it's always stuck with me. I might want too much -- but that's why I'm ok being single forever...
LOL @ this. Man, this was the BUSINESS when it came out.
I just added a reactions option to my posts. I know sometimes I read blogs and I don't have anything to say, really, but I want to let them know I was there. Check at the bottom of every post for the option to simply click to let me know what you thought.
Can you go from being in a relationship with someone to "just friends"? Can you cross that line and then, well, uncross it?
I've always said no. My experience has always been that no matter what we said, no matter how much we talked about it, for one of us, at least, it was always hard to only see that other person as a "friend." My experience said that when someone says "Let's just be friends" it's there way of breaking it off without having to go through all the extra and that furthermore, they've probably been seeing you as "just a friend" for a while.
So when you're the other one, the one who got blindsided, how do you go back to "just friends"? How do you stop looking at that person and think about your future together, and start looking at them as... well... just a friend?
I hear it's possible. I hear people do it all the time. Is it only successful when both sides truly come to that agreement separately and THEN together, rather than the other way around? That is, one person doesn't tell the other one that "we'll just be friends" but rather through other conversations it becomes a mutual decision?
I'm full of questions because I'm trying to explore the possibility that being "just friends" IS possible...
One weekend, JD and another friend of mine, Jane came to visit. Jane's boyfriend, also a friend of mine, went to a school only 30 mins away. JD's parents had family friends living in the same area and we got to spend a night, the four of us, in a small apartment. I was happy for JD to come not only because we had the chance to spend time together but also because he would get to meet all my friends. I was most excited for him to meet my closest friend, O.
I'm not sure what happened, but I realized early on there was some tension between JD and O. I realized later that JD immediately felt competition with O. This was something that plagued our relationship to the end. Overall the trip was good. JD spent some time not focused on his parents and we got to spend time together. I noticed, however, that I started seeing sides of JD that I'd never seen before. One evening he admitted he felt like I was replacing him with O. O and a third friend, Madeline, and I had been spending a lot of time together. More often than not, if I missed phone time with JD it was because I was with them. I tried to reassure him that I wasn't replacing him and he needed to trust me, but to no avail. He was pissed. It was our first fight. I was left feeling drained and uncertain of our future.
I tried for the following days to reassure him that O and I, though close, were only friends. And this was true. I wasn't looking for a boyfriend and technically, didn't have a boyfriend; a fact I reminded JD of, regularly. I felt like instead of being happy that I had met new people and had good friends, JD was jealous and wanted me to be alone, like he was. He wanted to feel like he was filling the same role for me that he needed me to fill for him.
In the time since his visit and our first blow up, JD had tried to commit suicide. This struck a chord with me because I had a friend kill himself in the second semester of my senior year in high school and JD was there to witness all that put me and other friends through. As a result, the school asked JD to take a leave of absence for the semester. They would spend the time reviewing whether or not to allow him back for the following semester. JD was clearly upset by the decision but willing to do whatever he had to, to get back to a place he felt like "made him whole." He enrolled in a small school for the semester and tried to grin and bear it.
I don't know what's been going on with me lately, but I've been finding little gems of music and playing them on repeat for NO reason. The songs speak to me, but I can't figure out why. Today, this has been on heavy repeat... (I even made a Pandora station around this song)
This'll be a special edition of "Look What I Found" 2 topics so far, and both are instances where we might question how much the internet adds to our lives.
First, everyone's buzzing about what Asher Roth said on Twitter last night.
So the joke is, he was at Rutgers hanging out with some "nappy-headed hos"
The joke wasn't funny and now people are buzzing that maybe he just committed artistic suicide. He didn't, but people need to be careful with Twitter. I've read a few other blogs that are discussing this angle more from the "When Twitter Kills" side than from "When Stupid People Make Bad Comments" and based on the comments, I'm beginning to see that, unfortunately, artists do have to be careful on Twitter. Too many of us expect them to be their stage persona all the time and we fault them for being real people too (I'll admit, it took me a minute to adjust to how much Solange tweets about being a mom...). They make bad jokes and stupid decisions just like we do, and too many of us don't seem to understand that.
Some celebs may need to rethink how they're using Twitter.
Asher Roth just needed to re-think that bad ass joke he made. The Don Imus thing is a deaded issue. No one is talking about it, and so his random reference to it makes limited sense. It wasn't until someone put the joke in the context of him being at Rutgers that I even began to understand where he might've been coming from. I still maintain that with this issue being so far back in most of our minds, he was on the wrong end of the stick with this.
Oh, and the "interns" or "street team" or whoever Asher's people are deploying on the blogs to try to show the "other side" of this issue are pissing me off. I may have a blog commentary on that later. Check out the IPS's blog post on it and read some of the comments.
Next is a website one of my co-workers forwarded to me (I have a total secret crush... LOL...) STDCarriers.Com.
When I was in high school, there were rumors of a girl who was arrested at another school for having unprotected sex with people without informing them she had HIV/AIDS. The story was something like she'd moved to our city from NYC to live with an aunt and her anger at having the disease made her do this. I never got concrete proof of this, but stories like this DO happen. So, arguably having a website to cross check your potential sexual partner on could be helpful, but on the OTHER side... DAMN. What if your name pops up there and you don't have an STD? This is definitely scary.
Oh and I tweeted about this: What's with mainstream media's (MSM) "new" fascination on "women who leave men for other women." Oprah did a show on it and now it's "all the rage" LAWD. That bothers me. Between this and something that's been happening to me, I may need to dedicate a post (sigh). I'm not sure if I really will, just yet, though. Let me think on it.
Back when my job sent me down to my home state to work for a month, I found out that one of my co-workers was having an inappropriate sexual relationship with one of our bosses.
To make matters worse, she had drawn two of our other co-workers into the mess and it almost hit the fan when yet ANOTHER of our co-workers admitted that she had been sleeping with this same boss.
The fall out from this was awkward. In an effort to keep things quiet, co-worker 1 who we'll call Lisa asked co-worker 2 who we'll call Danielle to go to dinner with her and the boss. The idea was a friendly work dinner wouldn't be seen as suspicious by any other co-workers. Long before we went back to our home state, Danielle was accidentally made privy to what was going on between Lisa and our boss, and then later co-worker 3 who we'll call Angie was also told when Lisa needed a friendly ear.
Eventually it all got to be too much and shortly after we got down to the state, both Angie and Danielle asked Lisa to end her relationship. Lisa promised she would, but when everything got busted by that 4th co-worker who had also been sleeping with this boss, it came to light that Lisa had lied. Both Danielle and Angie were upset.
I understood their anger, but ultimately felt like while none of us agreed with what Lisa was doing, as adults we had no right to tell her what to do. She made her choice and the consequence was that both Angie and Danielle felt they had to leave their friendship with her alone. This meant they weren't speaking to her and wanted nothing to do with her.
Fast forward to today. Though we're all co-workers, Angie works in a physically separate office. The tension between Danielle and Lisa was palatable and a few unknowing co-workers began to pick up on it. Recently, Lisa asked Danielle to go to lunch with her. They spoke and cleared the air. Danielle made it clear that she wasn't looking to go back to being friends, but cordiality was a necessity. Since then, the awkward tension.
Because Angie doesn't work in our office, she didn't know things had changed until today. Today she ran into all of us in the hall and seemed to be taken aback by the friendly nature with which we all interacted. Later she sent me a gchat message. In a passive aggressive way, she basically asked me what had happened so that things were so different between Lisa and Danielle. I told her that the tension between the two had gotten to be too much. In turn she said she felt like she had been left out in the cold and no one had her back because no one was as mad as she was anymore. I told her she should probably speak to Danielle.
Danielle on the other hand has been upset with Angie for a while. We'll make plans to go out and Angie will bail super last minute. Like won't pick up the phone when you call to confirm and always has some variation of "I was sick" as an excuse on the other side of the plan. Danielle feels upset that Angie won't come talk to her about this, but that further she seems to be critiquing her friendship loyalty when she hasn't been a very good friend herself.
There's a lot to be said about this situation. But what struck me the most was how absurd this is. Like I said, the choices Lisa made were for herself. They did effect more people than just her, but at the end of the day they were still her decisions. None of us needed to support them and none of us had to accept being lied to, but who are we to still be carrying that baggage around?
When you stay mad at someone like that, you give them power to control your emotions. How does that make any sense? I believe that anger was the last way Angie felt she had control over the situation but in reality she lost control a long time ago. The kicker is it was just today she realized she lost control and instead of turning it in on herself, she continues to look outside for an explanation for it all.
I told ya'll, I'm not doing stupid drama in 2009...
I cannot stand being 3rd wheel. It absolutely drives me crazy. Knowing this about myself, I don't kick it with my friends who are in a relationship by myself.
Why do I loathe it so? I'm not really sure. What I do know is watching two people all over each other while completely forgetting about my presence has never been something I enjoyed doing.
Enter my current problem:
So my friend B wants me to go on a trip with her and another one of my friends, D. I met D through B. D and B kinda are in a relationship, kinda aren't. While I know D doesn't really care if I go, I have a sneaking suspicion that if he could choose, D would choose that I not go so that they (D and B) could have some quality time.
I don't want to have to have this conversation with B. I don't want to have to tell her that I'd rather err on the side of caution and not go because she will go straight to D and demand that I go which in turn will create tension. Especially since this is all based on feelings I have, not on anything that's been said.
Oh, I forgot to mention I've spent the last 2 weekends with them. So while nothing's been said, I've seen all I need to see to know what'll happen if I go on vacation with them...
Guys, I'm a sucker. B will call me, she'll whimper and I'll give in and potentially be miserable. What's really messed up is that if I do make it through B's whimpering, she'll call D and D will call me and demand I go so that B won't be upset. I know, I know, gotta do what's right for me, but did I mention I'm a sucker? Has anyone picked up on how I let my friends run my life (sometimes)?
I was hoping to get lucky and they'd drop this whole vacation thing all together. I was beginning to wonder if they felt obligated to invite me because we've been pseudo-planning this all this time... So when our first plans fell through, I tried hinting that I'd rather go home and got shot down on that.
Guys, I'm fabulous, but I just refuse to believe they think I'm THIS fabulous.
I have Greek friends (whenever someone says I have (enter label here) friends, I always think of when white people say "I'm not racist, I have black friends" or when straight people say "I'm not homophobic, I have gay friends..." and I laugh to myself, just an aside).I find myself a bit intrigued by some things Greek, and considering I'm not Greek, feel like I know more than my fair share of information on Historically Black Greek Letter Organizations... (<<<<<---- that was random background info to explain why the following got me to thinking).
A few days ago, a hazing incident that occurred at a University in my hometown was brought to my attention. A girl was pledging a sorority and the members of this sorority beat her on several occasions. After she was officially let into the sorority, she filed a police report. She had contusions and a concussion; her future sorors had broken eggs and poured milk over her head, had beat her about her face and torso and had punched her so hard in her stomach they caused vaginal bleeding -- as a woman, I'm scared to even think of what damage they must have done to cause that.
I'm not sold on the explanations for pledging and hazing (hence why I didn't pledge). I get what the purpose is supposed to be, but I'm not convinced that everyone understands the difference between "testing" someone and cruelty. That's sad because who doesn't know you can't punch and kick people?
What I'm really confused about, though, is what happens to a person that makes them put themselves through something like that. True enough, you shouldn't have to be beaten, humiliated and degraded in order to join a group. At the same time, if you find these things happening to you, at what point does a light bulb go off and you say "Hey, I'm a human who shouldn't be treated this way."? Further, what's the mentality of the perpetrators that makes it easy for them to beat another person? I was discussing this with a friend and she said, "I don't know why you would want to see someone in pain like that which is why I (would) have a hard time coming to the day light and calling you my sister after you have beat the shit out of me. You must hate me..." I found so much truth in that assertion. You gotta hate someone to beat them that severely, and how am I supposed to leave this process seeing you as anyone but my enemy?
Let me say, though this story involves a sorority, and Greek orgs get a lot of flack for hazing, hazing happens everywhere. Sometimes it's relatively harmless, like making the new guy at work buy lunch but sometimes it's obscene like the story I read that cited an incident at a middle school where young boys were sodomized with, among other things, pine cones...
What is it about the mentality in a group that makes us feel like it's important to make new people prove themselves and that the proving process has to be demeaning and humiliating? It's disturbing when you think about how we treat each other sometimes...
I smooth forgot I owe you guys 2 vids today... (my bad)
This is a personal fave, AND Bow Wow sampled it in his new song. As a matter of fact, I still haven't listened to his whole song because I get caught up singing this one..
Part 5
Somehow, the two of us never really lost contact. In fact, we talked almost every night that summer. I even went down to visit him and he came up to visit me. There were never any talks of getting back together, but we were obviously more than just friends. He and I made plans to spend time together when he returned to my hometown to start his 3rd year of school. It would be just a few days before I left to start my 1st year of college. In the meantime, I got an invitation to be a part of a pre-orientation program at my college. My mother thought it was a good idea, so I signed up. It meant that I would leave before he got into town. He was upset, but I felt making new friends at a new place was more important.
JD had Type II diabetes. In the time that I knew him, I grew very educated on what it meant to have the disease. I found myself always asking him if he had checked his sugar and making sure he was taking care of himself. Right before he was to come up to begin orientation for a leadership program at school, he developed an infection, a complication from his disease. He missed the first part of his orientation and was feeling pretty down. Though we weren't supposed to have cell phones during my pre-orientation program, everyone in my, what had become a, tight knit group had our phones and each evening after dinner we took the opportunity to call parents, siblings, friends and significant others. During one of our talks, JD, now at school, said, "you know. We never really broke up." As I pressed him further, he explained that what we had "really" done was open the way for me not to be hindered in my first year at school. He told me it would be fine for me to meet new friends and date others, but that we still had a bond. Even now, I'm not sure exactly how those words made me feel, but instead of liberating me to go and do as I wanted, they locked me into a very undefined relationship.
As my first year of school went on, I made amazing friends. Had many experiences and found a niche in my new school. Meanwhile, JD was having a rough time. His mother found out his father had been cheating on her, he was having a harder time at school dealing with everything and he found himself needing me more than I had time to give. Knowing he needed a friend, I would often neglect my other friends and miss out on opportunities in order to stay holed up in my room talking to him.
In the event I was with friends, JD would be noticeably irritated with me and would even be so bold as to ask me to leave the room. The idea of allowing me to spend time with my friends never seemed to cross his mind. I played his game, though, in order to keep the peace.
I thought of this title and then immediately this song popped into my head...
First off, I've been blaming my lack of posts on all this travelling I've done. Speaking of which, allow me to give the low down on that...
April 2 I went to New Orleans to celebrate my BFF's birthday. Lots of ignorance, so it was fun.
I left there to go to Memphis for work stuff. I had fun there as well (anytime you're spending someone else's money, it's gonna be fun).
From there to Nashville to hang out with friends and pretend I was an undergrad again. While there I was (easily) talked into coming back the following weekend and that's where I was this past weekend.
I was in a HORRID mood on Sunday. Some of it was my friends being selfish, which I tweeted, but I realized later a lot of it was just me not wanting to leave. I gotta get back into the grind of work. To do that, I decided I need a new attitude. Another friend of mine said she needed one as well, so we decided to start a gratitude journal together (something we've been saying we were gonna do since sophomore year in college). Let's see how far that takes me.
My first entry was: Today I'm grateful for a job that keeps me busy, makes me think and lets me interact with people... even when those people make me suicidal and I'm grateful for a job that pays me twice a month so I can spend said money on random trips. I'm grateful that the vast majority of planes make it to and fro safely, because with as much flying as I've been doing, my odds for dying were kinda high. I'm grateful that I have really good friends to go visit on said random trips.
Glennisha had a super on point post about how Twitter is effecting bloggers. Everyone's tweeting, nobody's blogging. It took me far too long to get this out because I was too busy on Twitter. Twitter really satisfies my need for stream of consciousness expression. If I could only speak in stream of consciousness, my life would be complete.
Re-discovered this song on my iPod and it struck a chord with me, for real. Only Jesus knows why because commitment makes me shake like a crack head going through withdrawals. I'm not even playing.... enjoy!
The next part of the series should be up later tonight.
Usually my posts are easy super heavy or super... well... empty, so let's see how I can do in the search for the "happy medium"
First off, I'm watching this MTB4 from last week. Diddy makes me unhappy inside. I don't like him. I think what messes me up the most with him is that back in the 90s, he really was on some gangsta stuff... I mean we have him to thank for Jodeci, MJB and the whole hip-hop/soul movement... but lately (as in the last 5 years), I just can't with him.
I don't like Day 26's first single "I'ma Put It On Her"
Aundrea took her getting kicked to the curb way better than I would have...
I'm going back to my second home tomorrow (I was just there a little less than a week ago) and I'm SO excited. What's important to note is that I'm surprised at my excitement. I won't be doing anything special (though T.I. is performing at my alma mater, and I don't do short men, but I would do him) so I don't get it -- but hey whatever makes your boat float, right?
I had a random dream last night that I went to a pre-Grammy party with Kanye. IDK what that's all about...
I need to go pack again. I HATE packing. I think it's like pergatory...
Ok. I'm outtie for right now. See some of ya'll on Twitter and I'll holla at the rest of you on Monday...
My posting has been at this obscenely unacceptable level because I've been out of town. Any of you who follow me on Twitter know it's been ridiculous. I'm going out of town again on Friday and so that'll throw me off as well. I did manage to get two posts in -- and I know I owe you guys a Throwback Tuesday. We'll double up next week.
Couple of videos to share for Look What I Found... hope you enjoy...
I have to give Thembi credit for putting me on this one. She has it posted over at What Would Thembi Do? This mess right here is unacceptable on so many levels. Forget what they're doing, WHY are they videotaping this stupidity? Youtube has been a great addition to our lives, but it's making some people stupid.
MSNBC knows they were wrong for this... and if you don't get the jokes... well, consider yourself now an informed citizen as far as the "grassroots" efforts going on in our country. :)
I’ve told this story countless times before. But I’m interested in seeing how a fresh tell of it will look.
Before I get into it, let me say I wanted to post this yesterday, but I was still on my “runaway” (instead of “getaway”) and had very limited internet access. I’m a little disappointed I couldn’t post this yesterday, but hey… we don’t always win.
Five years ago yesterday, a lot of things changed for me. The night of April 12, 2004, a little over a month before I was to graduate from high school, I found myself on the phone with my boyfriend unexpectedly. He called me while I was asleep. My phone never used to wake me up. No matter how loud it was, or how close it was, it never woke me up (wish I could still say that). I took the phone waking me up as a sign. He had told me that he was stressed about an upcoming test and I thought he was calling to relax.
The conversation never went to his history test. We chatted about mundane stuff at first and then he told me something odd was going on. He could see the lights of an ambulance at a nearby dorm (he was an on campus student). He put me on hold while he tried to figure out what was going on. He came back to the phone and said “Something’s wrong with Kris. I think he tried to kill himself…”
I stopped breathing for a second, but quickly smiled thinking of how I would go visit him in the hospital the following day and give him a hard time for scaring everybody like this.
Kris was a year under me and had, in the previous 3 years, become like a little brother to me and moreso to my BFF at the time. He spent every weekend at her house and her parents had adopted him as their son. However, Kris suffered from severe depression, but his relationship with the BFFs mom, who was also a faculty member at our school, got him the quick attention and appropriate medical support he needed. So for the rest of his freshman, all of sophomore and most of junior year, Kris seemed fine.
My boyfriend was silent for a moment and then said “I need to go. I’ll call you back…”
I immediately dialed up the BFF sure she had heard the news and would be able to confirm for me that Kris was alive. She answered the phone bawling. I was shocked she was taking it so hard. “So I guess you heard about Kris” I said with a little chuckle. I think my psyche went straight into denial mode because imagining anything other than Kris lying, very much alive, in a hospital bed was too much.
I heard shuffling and then the BFFs mom was on the phone. “How’s Kris?” I said, not wanting to sound too worried. The BFF’s mom quizzed me on how I had heard and then said, “Kris is gone…”
Have you ever seen a movie where a character learns bad news, a lot like someone died, and immediately cries out “No, that can’t be…” and if you’re cynical like me you think “Well why would they say that if it wasn’t true?” But I said “No, that can’t be… I just saw him…” 5 years later, and I remember those words so clearly because as ridiculous as they were, as non sequitur as they were, they were the last bits I had.
Earlier in the day, I’d spoken to Kris for the first time in what felt like forever, but really had been 3 days. Normally Kris spent the weekend at the BFFs house and we, much like older sisters, tried to keep him out of the room and the car when we were trying to have “girls time” or go somewhere. That weekend, though, he didn’t get leave from campus and didn’t come over. Monday morning, it hit me that I hadn’t seen him and when I asked the BFF she simply said that he hadn’t gotten leave. I found out later that morning that he was going to represent our school at a conference at the local college. I saw him briefly as he was preparing to leave. I can still see his bald head bent over as he tied his shoe. “Kris!” I shouted, “Why do you keep shaving your head?” I hated his bald head… I thought it was so awkward. He looked up at me and grinned.
Then the next day, Tuesday, I saw him in our student center. I grabbed him and told him not to move because I wanted to talk to him. I went back to listening to a friend and it seemed that in the same second I turned to Kris but he was gone. I whirled around the other way watching him wave to me as I called his name and he walked out of the door. That was the last time I saw him alive.
I called a few friends to tell them and every time I had to say it, it got more and more difficult to do. By the last person, I was crying uncontrollably. I thought I might cry all night, but the next thing I knew, my alarm was going off.
I could feel the sadness in the air as soon as my front tires hit the long driveway down into my school’s campus. No one knew what to say or how to feel. The only thing we could think was “why?” We all played the “What if…” game. I thought about what if I had called him later that afternoon, or sent him an IM like I thought about doing. I know that none of that probably would’ve changed what he planned to do, but I occasionally play the what if… game now.
Kris’s death still bothers me and 5 yrs later, I’m still not sure I’ve accepted it. I didn’t go to his class’s graduation because I found out they were saving a chair for him and I thought that would be too much. My mom wouldn’t let me go to OH for his funeral and in some ways, I think that’s added to me being able to pretend like it didn’t really happen.
That was a lot for a 17 yr old to experience. It did bring my friends and I closer. I found that we would call just to check on each other, sometimes.
After his wake, my friends and I were sitting in the student center joking to keep from crying and talking about how much we’d miss seeing him slumped over in a chair, covered in his black puffy jacket, asleep, as if he didn’t have a bed less than 100 yards away. One of my friends said, seemingly as an after thought: “I hope I don’t forget what he sounded like…”
I think that’s been my goal for the last 5 years, not to forget what he sounded like. Yet, I have – and so now I just want to remember him. I want to remember Kris so that his story doesn’t have to be anyone else’s story; so that my story doesn’t have to be your story.
To see a previous incarnation of this story, go here.
I think everytime I title this post (same subject every Monday) I give it a new title, but the same label -- so if you need to find them all, it'll be easy.
I'm posting this one a bit earlier than normal. I'm sitting in the airport waiting on a flight to the A, that will connect me to a flight to M-Town. All work related stuff. I had a great time in NOLA, am excited (surprisingly) about M-Town and then about going home for Easter.
I have plenty of things to post about, but until I get some time to do that, enjoy the next part in what's shaping up to be a pretty long story...
Part 4
As a Senior, I was afforded extra days on my Spring Break. I spent the first half at a recruitment weekend for my future college and the second half at my best friend’s family’s lake house. JD, meanwhile, went to Canada with his father and best friend. He also told me he was going to meet up with a friend from a summer camp he went to each year while he was there.
The night after he got back from his trip, he called me to tell me all about it. First he asked me about my time at the university. I told him about all the cool people I met and how the school had moved up a few places on my list. I also mentioned a guy I met that I thought was really cool. Of course I did it to illicit a response from him.
JD went silent for a moment and then said he had something important to tell me. He began to detail for me how he had slept with his friend. He told me that his best friend sat watch while he and the girl had sex in his hotel room. I was shocked. He and I had talked about our own opinions of sex and he had been clear that he thought it would be best to wait. The sudden nature of this whole situation confused and saddened me.
Of course JD realized I was upset. He tried to reassure me that it meant nothing and was only further proof that the girl was nobody to him. “You should be glad I’m not trying to ruin our relationship with sex” he said.
The next morning I told my best friend about it. “Do you forgive him?” she asked me. I thought about her question and realized that there was nothing to forgive him for. We weren’t together, no matter what I was wishing or hoping or scheming for. I had to accept that he made a choice that he was free to make.
During our next conversation, JD answered a few questions but quickly told me he didn’t want to talk about his night with the friend. He told me she didn’t mean anything and so I shouldn’t worry. I was still upset, but knew that I had no reason to be.
His Spring Break rendezvous was quickly a thing of the past and we were back to talking about our future. Two months before my graduation date I sent him an e-mail asking him to be real with me. To consider us and our possibilities. He called me upset. "What do you want from me?" he shouted. I knew I was pestering him and I understood why he might be angry but I knew that settling wasn't something I would be good at so I laid it all out on the table. He relented. On one condition -- that we keep our relationship to ourselves. "I don't like a lot of people in my business" he said. I agreed -- I was just so happy that I'd gotten what I wanted. I called my 3 best friends right after our phone conversation.
The remainder of my time in school went off without a hitch -- at least between JD and I. We "broke up" the night before I left for my 8 day senior trip and the day of my graduation, he called to congratulate me and wish me well. I thought our relationship was over, at least us being more than friends. I was wrong.
