Shakespeare wrote in ?Romeo and Juliet? :
Why, such is love's transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest
With more of thine: this love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
You know some experiences seem to leave an indelible mark on our psyche. Love can open our hearts in ways we can seldom imagine. What qualifies though as love? Is there something tangible that has to happen before you can call it love? We have so many ways to describe the feelings another human being can cause in us. But how do you know when it?s only lust or some crush? Can you really fall in love with someone without those feelings being reciprocated?
When I was in the second grade our class reported three times a week to the opposite end of the school for music class. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we marched down the halls and lined up waiting our turn to go inside. The same class was getting ready to leave every time, and three days a week I watched as my fellow male classmates went apes hit over one girl that exited the classroom. That was the eighth grade class. It has never ceased to amaze me that despite having virtually no recall of anything else that year I can vividly picture in my mind her reaction as these little monkeys pushed and shoved each other out of the way to get a glimpse of her, or if they were daring enough, to try and touch her. I never once joined in the ruckus. One day as she fought her way out of class she looked me square in the face and smiled. I didn?t give it a second thought as she walked away.
A few months later I found myself a bit surprised to watch her stroll into my father?s barber shop and start talking to my sister. I ducked into the back and stayed hidden until she left. My sister told me later that she lived next door with her father and step mother. Turns out that my sister was friends with both of them (She?s twelve years older than I am, so she was grown and working with my dad at the time).
After I finished fifth grade my esteemed father got the wonderful notion that by pulling me from public school and purchasing the home kit they would no longer need to worry about bad worldly influence. They actually sell these things. My junior high school material came from the Calvert School of Baltimore, and my high school material came from American High School of Chicago. What I hadn?t yet realized was that my father intended to cut off all outside contact, and as result most of those years on up to my sixteenth birthday were spent in isolation at home. Save of course the meetings, field service and assemblies. Luckily enough my sisters friend next door befriended me much as he had my sister. He had the displeasure of watching what my father had put my sister through so it was very nice to have someone to talk to that understood what was going on.
This is where the trouble starts.
Enter Christie. The Daughter. The girl from music class.
I?m not really sure at what point she began consuming my thoughts. But it happened. Oh brother did it happen. I?m also not sure why I feel so hard for someone six years older than me. Was it lack of options? At any rate for many years as I sought out the listening ear of my friend I also carried around a longing that no one that age ever should. She went out of her way to be friendly towards me, but every encounter brought with it a pain that was hardly worth the brief moment of contact. She had the life I desperately wanted. She had friends, freedom, and most importantly, a life all her own. That?s something I still lack. Basically I traded one domineering control freak in a cheap suit (My Father), for a big red one with eighteen wheels. She married not long after I got my first job and started putting some distance between myself and the Kingdom Hall. He abused her, both physically and mentally. Her father came home one night to find her passed out on his couch with a healthy dose of the Medicine he receives from the VA missing. I went to the hospital after it happened to see her but she had already checked herself out and was gone. She finally divorced the asshole but shortly afterwards she had moved in with someone else. In the years since I?ve had some of the worst relationships you could ever imagine. Recently I?ve wondered about those relationships and the things I did to screw them up. For the last nine years every woman I?ve met, every date I?ve been on, every romantic encounter I?ve had - None of them has truly been satisfying. My thoughts always turned to her in every case. I found out the day before my birthday that she had married yet again. To another asshole. To be honest I still don?t understand why this bothers me. If I could say ?Oh I could make her life better? then maybe I could understand it. But I can?t. I have yet in twenty five years to make myself happy, much less someone else. I can?t explain this obsession, I thought it was a crush. Then I thought it was simply lusting after something I knew I couldn?t have. But now I wonder. Why after all these years can she invoke such a response in me? Maybe I?m just losing my mind. Maybe I should just try drinking her off my mind like I did with everything else.
LH
Confused more than ever.
