Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Found Wanting
_____________________________________________________________________


To begin my story with "once upon a time" wouldn't do it justice. Nineteen years of time and belated effort spent on a personal and cosmic dime. Instead, I'll start at the beginning rather than the theatrics. Before my first breath, my mother knew a woman named Beth. This woman had a daughter born two years before me in a house on the street I would live. Her name was Krystal and she was every bit as precious as her namesake, but worth that weight in trouble as well. Her hair was a rich brown like the eyes in her head on which the light often played. Stubborn, loud, adventurous, intelligent, talkative, and softly spoiled like a humble princess.

I came to know this sight well from the second I breathed the stale Washington air. When words could finally thoughts justice and my legs could do right by my ambition I spent almost all my time with krystal and the neighborhood stray, Tommy. Tommy was just a young black lab living on the streets in which we played, but regardless of his questionable company, he was our friend. He was as hard headed and curious as the rest of us, so he fit in to our rag-tag coupling with ease. We were together each day for years. Stories would exchange and boredom would become a feeling reserved for the old and the lonesome.

Unfortunately, this is when the story takes the first of many turns. Moving from Washington was now a requirement for my mom and I. We spent weeks getting ready for this change, but I couldn't spend it how I would have liked. My time was spent packing and cleaning rather than with my two real friends. The day I left was a grim one indeed for all involved. I left Washington behind for the mysterious Arizona destination I was set for without even a glimpse of the precious Krystal or the eager Tommy. I left two-thirds of myself behind, only to realize later that week that one of those vital thirds had been taken away from me. The energetic and loving glue that held my childhood and my silly crush together had been washed away by a beast of metal, rubber, and flesh.

Without my dog or my friend I was lost and remained so until my freshman year of high school. Beth and my mother had remained friends since the move and eventually the time came to see each other again. I did not know what to think about seeing them again after so long, but excitement could still be found underneath the jumpy anxiety that showed. A few days later, the solid figure of a young woman I used to know appeared behind her mother in the doorway of my exiled Arizona home. Her figure was full and her demeanor was different than I remember, but I could still see the light dance across her eyes in the way that had mesmerized me so many years ago as a child of Washington.

We had both become very 'strong' emotionally and reflected such in our character. She had become the optimist everyone wishes to be and I grew to become the pessimist everyone is impressed with. We argued and we fought in between moments of conversation and civility for days before they returned to the streets on which we were born.

Things had changed in a drastic way and there was nothing I could do except wonder if she felt it too. Being the emotional cripple I had turned out to be, I dealt with it by trying to justify these new outcomes. I went on telling myself that we don't like each other now as friends or anything else. There are times I would even call it hate to smooth over the conflictions and confusion that raged as a tempest would over my past and spirit without remedy.

Time continued to pass unburdened by the troubles in my soul. Friendships came and passed with little thought as two years were stacked atop my fifteen. Being seventeen meant moving into the so called "big leagues". Hormones kick into gear and maturity starts to really hold up. Junior year had started for me and Krystal was already a Freshman in college. Few words were exchanged between Krystal and I during this year but things seemed to start defining themselves little by little. Almost every word we said to each other was responded to light venom. Everything seemed so clear until I looked back at the way the conversations flowed at the visit. We would always cross glances and I was able to notice that she had the same lost look back then that I've had since the very day she left.

All of these hidden feelings and nostalgia simply prolonged my confusion and lust for a conclusion. Of all the relationships I've had to date, this one has warranted the most thought by far and it drove me insane senior year came creeping along and I was kicked into high gear. I had turned eighteen and my confusion had led to a new kind of fascination. I did a lot of work, bumped up my grades and maturity grew three sizes that year. Honestly I only did it for other people. I wanted to make some people proud and impress others. "Others" would be Krystal namely.

I'm not sure if that actually worked at the time but the conversations we had were always civil. The biggest problem was that I had kind of been put on the shelf as a friend rather than the macho love interest I aspired to be. Of course this got me down but I stayed persistent and awkwardly flirtatious through it all until high school was a thing of the past.

Ok, so at this point the game is on. I'm free from public schooling and free to make some risky moves. Keeping in mind that in all other situations that "risky" would of course mean "foolish" but this time it managed to pay off. It was time to make my feelings known to someone who barely gave me a second look as anything more than a friend. Luckily I learned more than just writing in eighteen years. Using the works and prose f other writers had become a valued trait as well. The heartfelt letter to my Venus was littered with the petals of A red, Red Rose. All I can do is thank god that she had heard the words before since "arts" and "thou's" aren't exactly everyday words.

I felt confident now that I had cracked the shell into romance ever so slightly. We got to know each other again. Sometimes we would talk on the phone and other times we would be on the magical picture box known as the computer. Within a year we were talking every day. Eventually I convinced her to come to Arizona. We stayed holed up in my small apartment for the next week. By then, we knew that something special was hanging in front of our unwitting and young faces. Three weeks passed and we would move to a small New Mexican town where the scenery and breeze was sure to impress and sooth. So, here I sit in my home. My love lay sleeping with her head gently rested to the pillow, and at her feet lay our little dog Joey. Forty years and we've come full circle again and then some.

Thou' it were ten thousand mile.