Maximillion

Maximillion
I DEFINITELY SMELL SOMETHING

Friday, February 11, 2011

Romancing the Stoned

I was reading a post yesterday: Calling People Names - "Her First Love" and it got me thinking...was I that naive, that careless with my own heart back then?  The answer to that is a definitive...YES.  That post was a real and gritty story of the abusing of a young heart.  This is so much less than that but it is mine to tell.

I believed in the idea of love as all-consuming, all-powerful, and beyond my control.  My heart was untried and fearless.  It beat strongly and purely, having yet to endure a single romantic scar.  I could feel it's need to love and oddly, it's need to suffer.  (A little trip to the therapist might be in order as a result of my little retrospective.)  It was a constant demand echoing within me and all around me.  I was a fourteen year old girl.  I was supposed to have a steady boyfriend.  I was supposed to argue with my parents about him and stand up for true love against all odds...right?

Not surprisingly, I soon found a boy that stirred my heart and captured my imagination.  He was sixteen and his parents never seemed to be around.  I met him at the park with one of my friends and a couple of his.  We ended up at his house. 

He kept an electric guitar slung over his shoulder and he liked to paint in abstract bursts of color all over his walls and ceiling.  He barely spoke and when he did, it was comprised of maybe two to three words, never a complete sentence.  He was always focused on something else.  Something none of us could see but him.  Needless to say, my fourteen year old heart trembled before him.

He was the most tragically romantic creature I had ever laid eyes on in real life.  He would look at me with his flashing dark eyes from behind his long black hair and I would freeze in place.  Each time he took my hand or kissed my lips, I would imagine myself more alive, more real, as if I had been in a holding pattern waiting for his touch.

It was wonderful.  It was tedious.

We never talked.  As I mentioned before, he rarely said anything at all.  He wasn't interested in hanging out with friends, double-dating, going to the movies.  He wasn't really interested in anything.  The only time we saw each other was when I went to his house or met him at the park.  What had seemed so darkly mysterious was starting to become just a pain in the ass.  But I was young and he was my pain in the ass.  Plus, love was all about torment and tragedy.  I mean, look at Romeo and Juliet.  Look at Luke and Laura. (Many of you may not get that reference, which not only reveals my age but the fact that I used to watch General Hospital.)

I proudly wore my suffering like a badge of honor.  I was the envy of my friends.  Mostly due to the wonderfully imaginative details of our "secret trysts" that I would dole out to them the way my mom used to hand out Popsicles to us on a hot summer day.

Eventually, our love just fizzled out.  There was no big break up.  No tears.  Just a loss of interest on my part.  I don't imagine his interest was ever truly piqued in the first place.  I was the one trying to win his attention, he already had mine.  It just got boring after a while and there were just so many other boys around.  So I moved on to the next boy and to tell you the truth, I'm not sure he ever even knew I was gone.

A couple years later, I ran into him and realized that the dreamy look in his eye was definitely the glassy-eyed stare of a major drug addict-not the dark glimpses of a tortured and talented soul.  I also realized that my romantic devotion to him was a lot like my maternal devotion to my first baby doll.  A relationship with a lot of posturing and imagination but in reality, just a game.

In the end, the experience taught me nothing about life, love or relationships... 

It did however, teach me about french kisses and hickeys, so I guess it had it's uses after all.

12 comments:

  1. french kissing & hickeys are such wonderful things in high school! those brooding guys were so enticing, but never worth the bother in the long run. there was little fun to be had with a tortured soul.

    btw, i'd like to offer you a chance to guest post on my blog at some point in the next few weeks. you & one other (my mom) were my favorite liars on my last post. i don't have a specific topic in mind, but maybe something fun from your childhood. i love digging the old stories up & looking them over from a new perspective.

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  2. Ahhh, French kisses & hickeys As teens we recognize the importance of acquiring these skills as quickly as possible... Then, one day, we become the parents of teens. Then it's "AW, HELL NO!!!"

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  3. @ Sherilin...high school definitely had its own priorities. I would be thrilled to guest post on your blog, how exciting! Just tell me what I'm supposed to do since I'm a virgin at this.

    @ Vinny...those all important skills definitely fade in relevance as we get older but I agree, "HELL NO!!" is definitely my response to most things when it comes to The Girls and My Hubby is far worse than I with a resounding, "F*CK NO!!".

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  4. Oh. This is awkward... I think we dated the same guy. -J

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  5. ...ummm...I think we all dated that guy....ya, awkward...

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  6. email me & i'll tell you everything you need to know. well, not everything, but the pertinent details for this venture anyway.

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  7. good thing it didn't work out....and that's without taking the frenchies into consideration...

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  8. @ Julianna and @ Sandra...He definitely got around but judging from us, he had great taste.

    @ Sherilin...the Email is on its way

    @ Nikki...not again. I thought I was on base!

    @ caterpillar...breakups are sometimes the best things ever. And I say this knowing how good those "frenchies" were.

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  9. Yep, often the people we learn the lessons of love with are not the people we learn the lessons of love for.

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