Blog #19

Some people dance, some people sing, some people read or write or garden or play sports. But, the most relaxing thing to me is to sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil and draw. It doesn’t cost a lot of money and anyone can do it (although not everyone does it well) and in an instant you transform into the world in which you are drawing. One of my favorites of the many pieces I have made is a picture of a rose with a few petals wilted of the stem which at the point of its creation, was very significant to me, symbolizing the amount of heart break that has transpired amongst I and her. As written in my previous essays, once something is done in me, its virtually impossible to undo it, hence the wilted rose petals. This picture till today, sits on the dresser in my bedroom collecting dust as if it was created to be a dust buster. With every waking day, I look at the picture and imagine, what if??. I call her my friend because at this moment as I am writing this she is my friend, although that status changes as frequently as the weather. A few months ago, when I drew that picture for her, she was more than my friend. Although she was not my girlfriend I spoke to her everyday. She was the first person I spoke to in the morning and the last one at night and as much as I wanted to love her I knew I never could.

This story actually begins about 3 years ago when I started working at Lowe’s home improvement store. I worked there part time at night while I went to school and minded my own business. I did what needed to be done and I left. That all changed one night. It was late and the store was closed, I was cleaning my department when I heard someone talking and turned around to see one of my coworkers, Diane a fifty-something woman who worked front end, hugging a tall blonde with curves you would not believe.
I must have been staring for a few seconds because next thing I knew she was looking right at me with a big smile on her face. I wish I could have seen my face in that instant because I’m pretty sure I was wearing the quintessential dopey grin you hear about in all puppy love stories. Instantaneously, I imagined in my head the typical “she loves me, she loves me not” with a rose being the obvious choice of flower to be wilted. She walked out the door with Diane, who I learned was her mother, and took my heart with her. From that day on I was hooked. I went home that night with the intention of finishing a paper but I ended up staring at my ceiling for 2 hours. Though physically present in my room, I was on an imaginary cloud 9. We were walking through a park her hand was in mine, we were driving in my car and I couldn’t keep my eyes on the road, we were at the beach and my arm was around her waist, keep in mind, I didn’t know she had a boyfriend.

Every night that I worked I looked for her and every once in a while she would come in and wave and that would be enough for me. I had developed a sort of mother son relationship with her mom over the course of those few months. Her mom saw how I looked at her and she wasn’t a fool. She explained to me that her daughter, Colleen, was a senior in high school, very smart, funny, an extrovert, but terrible at flirting, and most importantly dating a real jerk. But I didn’t care, I was going to go for it and if she wasn’t interested at least I would know and wouldn’t be going crazy.
With the help of her mother I made the first move. She agreed to give my number to her daughter, but I decided to be somewhat romantic, and hopefully better my chances so i attached it to a 16inch red rose, which is the symbolic flower for love for I thought I was in what I thought to be love. She even promised me that she’d gauge her reaction and tell me what my chances were.
All that night I waited for my phone to go off. I pictured what would happen when she called. Real nonchalantly after the third ring “Hello?” like I didn’t know who it was calling. Her response would be “Hello, I’m looking for DJ.” To which I would say, “Hey what’s up this is DJ, who is this?” so then she would think I gave my number to girls all the time. Always play it cool. By the end of the conversation she would be in love with me and we would live happily ever after.
It didn’t quite go that way, however, and when I woke up in the morning with my phone still lying next to my head with no missed called or new messages, I knew things were not going to be that easy. I didn’t work the following night and her mom had the next day off. When I finally got a chance to speak to her my nerves were on end. I learned that she had given her daughter the number as soon as she got in the car after work that night. Colleen, she told me, had smiled her adorable smile and “blushed redder than my Lowe’s vest” and had ripped the piece of paper from the rose with my number on it in and put in her pocket. That’s when the trouble started because her boyfriend, we’ll call him Ryan, was at her house and happened to see the piece of paper sticking out of her pocket when she walked in., signifying the first petal wilted from the rose. From what I understand after hearing the story, there was a lot of yelling by him and a lot of crying by her. I felt a range of emotion I’ve never experienced before. I felt guilty for causing her this problem, I felt disappointed because I knew she would never call now, I felt anger at her boyfriend for ruining everything, but most of all I still loved her. Despite, everything I did something I never do, I gave up. What else was there for me to do? I had tried and failed and was now out of options. But I never stopped thinking about her.

Three weeks later I got my luckiest break thus far: I went from “she loves me not, to she loves me.” I learned that Colleen was in the store, better than that she was in the training room, attending orientation for new employees. She was now my coworker. I would have an opportunity to see those big blue eyes that could turn any frown upside down. I saw her several nights a week and although we worked in different departments, we would sneak and talk whenever we could, yes its fair to say she was sort of a sneaky type. Turns out she was not as bad at flirting as her mother seemed to think and as time went on, I fell harder and harder for this girl. And yet always present was the fact that she had a boyfriend. That should have been my first warning that this was on the fast track to nowhere, though, she never tried to hide that and always told me she loved him but it didn’t matter to me. Finally I convinced her to hangout with me after work one night, it only happened because her boyfriend was cheating on her at the time and was at his other girlfriend’s house. Another character that she displayed was that she had the potential to be spiteful, despite who was in the wrong. She would never have admitted that to me at the time but she knew what was going on and has since told me everything.
We met up at Menlo Mall with the intention of seeing a movie but there was nothing good playing, the bowling alley was already closed so she came up with the bright idea to take me to the strip club. I didn’t know whether to think she was crazy, awesome, or a lesbian. As time progressed, she turned out to be both awesome and crazy, but not a lesbian (so much for my chances of a threesome) All she was trying to show me was that we were just friends and could “hang” without it being a date. For any regular guy, that would have been heaven- naked girls dancing all over the place like oompa loompas, but all I could think was “look away look away, she’s sitting right next to you”. We continued our friendship for a few more months in our flirty coworker fashion until she disappeared. After three weeks of looking for her at work and not finding her (I tried calling but her phone was shut off) I finally asked one of our coworkers what happened. As it turned out, Colleen had quit and according to her mother had run away with her aforementioned bad seed of a boyfriend. It felt like someone had slapped me in the face. She didn’t even have the balls or consideration to tell me. Another petal off,- “she loves me not”

A year passed and I had not heard a word from the girl I still thought about at random moments in my life. Logically I should have given up hope but emotionally I couldn’t. And then like out of a dream she was there in my aisle looking at me with those blue eyes that made my heart stop every time I saw her. Instantly an entire year was wiped away. I wanted desperately to ask her what had happened to her over the past year,- why she left me in the dark without any explanation, why she made me hurt, but I couldn’t muster up the confidence to. Another trait found about her, she was very inconsiderate when it came to emotions. She gave me a huge hug and I thought I would never let go, this was the moment I knew I would never lose her again. She told me her and her boyfriend had broken up and I immediately asked her to go to the movies, though something sat uneasily with me, and 9 out of 10 times, when I have a gut feeling about something, im usually correct. To my amazement she agreed and we had our first date. It might seem average as far as first dates go, Pirates of the Caribbean followed by a make out session in the parking lot. But, to me it was an accumulation of two years worth of waiting and dreaming and fantasizing, coming into fruition.
Letting go of her and getting into my car that night was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I got home and awaited her text and was not disappointed. “she loves me”- another petal to the ground. We continued talking pretty much 24/7 for two weeks and then suddenly she disappeared again.- “she loves me not.” After three days of not a single word she finally sent me a text telling me she had gotten back with her ex. I felt as if someone had literally reached into my chest and ripped my heart from my body. Never had I felt such pain and betrayal and stupidity for believing I could ever be that happy. I didn’t know what to say to her so I just never responded.
Three more months with that hurt and still I loved this girl. I received a message from her one afternoon asking to hangout and like a sucker for love- I agreed. She was much more reserved this time. Things were not the same but I was not going to let her get away again. I told her about a poem I had written several months before after our first date. I told her that it explained that I loved her and why and how I couldn’t stop loving her. I asked her if she wanted to read it. Her response was not the one I wanted to hear. She told me I couldn’t love her, that I didn’t know her, and that no one loved her. She would not accept my feelings as truth and instead got mad at me when I tried to explain it to her. I was confused and hurt and ripped up the poem. Still to this day she has no idea what it said.
We hung out a few more times but it was awkward and I didn’t know how to act around someone I loved, who clearly did not love me. She solved that problem a month later, by getting together with her ex AGAIN. This time my heart was ripped out, stomped on my a 400lb man, run over by an 18 wheeler, crushed by a herd of stampeding elephants. I knew I would never love anyone as I did her ever again. There was nothing left in my heart. I was destroyed emotionally. I vowed never to speak to this girl again. I would never let her hurt me, she was a pariah and the worst thing to ever happen to me.
This was when I decided to draw this rose, something that is so beautiful if nurtured and taken care of suitably, but also with the potential to prick you and possibly draw blood. Once a rose starts loosing its petals, it looses its purpose, its vigor, its pizzazz, its beauty, its value, its worth. This is what she had unconsciously done to what could have been. She took something so good and deflowered it. Unlike lego blocks that can be reassembled back together after being dismantled, the petals can never get attached again. If you remember clearly from my previous essay, this situation is somewhat similar to what me and my beloved brother went/is still going through. She had hurt me, but she did it on a one-way street- no going back.

Yet here I am telling you about the picture sitting on my desk. I drew it a few years ago, after one of our many dates. While my hand moved the pencil across the paper I envisioned the many chances we had, the opportunities to make each other happy, and the fact that no matter how many times we can lose a piece of ourselves we still live and go on. We have split up and gotten back together more times than I can remember.
Not once since those initial two break ups has she been the one to leave. She has spent the last year trying to make up for hurting me and to an extent she has. I still don’t her now trust her now even though I know she would never get back with her ex. But it’s not about that anymore. Every time I get close enough to feel an emotion further than “like” I find a reason to fight with her. She has called me out on it and knows very well that it is not something I have any control over. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to love her again. I don’t know if my subconscious will ever allow me to. Despite all of this we talk everyday and she chooses to stick around. She has told me several times she loves me and I haven’t been able to say it back. She is aware that there is a possibility I never will due to her prior faults. Its dying, the rose- slowly but steadily, it lost all of its petals, it was never the same again, it was young but had an early expiration date. She doomed us, she doomed me, she doomed what could have been. We could have grown to be something more beautiful than the biggest brightest red rose, unfortunately, were just the left over petals wilted all over the floor, washed away by the everyday works of mother nature.