Today, I couldn't stop thinking about my past (and extremely limited) romantic life. I can't claim ten million boy friends like Paris Hilton or even a husband like my mom can. I had a 'boy-friend' pre-middle school, but the worst we could manage in secret was holding hands then dropping because of how sweaty they had become. If we really got racy, we'd even take a walk to the drinking fountain in the hall when no adults were around. I remember going out forever, like five whole months (a real record breaker) then one night, the boy came to me and asked out, I happily said yes. I was too stressed out, what if we were caught? I might get spanked or my new book taken away. No boy was worth that mess.
Well, that was pre-middle school as I said before. A different era. I'm a different human now, all that remains is the same thick German nose and my curly brown mop of a hairstyle. Like Victoria trying to call Albert on an iPhone, I am a displaced, unprepared fool trying to navigate high school with nothing but a elementary school education on fleeting young romances. They say, "nothing ever prepares you like working in the field.". All I can say is, amen, falling into love for me was like being dropped into a vat of toxic waste. A real eye-singeing if you ask me.
I had been given the chance to go far away the summer of my seventeenth year, all by myself. So, after kissing my family goodbye, giving my plane ticket to a large, black woman somehow managing to look dazzling in a airport uniform and skipping down the lines in my lucky purple Keds, I pulled my lumpy green luggage down the way and eagerly awaited my plane. My adventure (in my current state of mind) had nothing to do with true love or finding it for that matter. Mostly with going away. But even in my pseudorunaway-state of mind, I couldn't help but notice the cowboys when my plane landed in Dallas. I had an hour to scurry around the airport and play Tom Hanks (playing poker for the lost and found with fellow 'inmates') to pass the time. I found my waiting area and plopped down and chowed into a ridiculously-end-of-the-world-priced vegan turkey club and a gallon of icy water (which was a mixup at the shoppe I'd bought it from and another story involving a delusional Armenian with cute earrings) when....I finally was able to view the people about to fly into the tiny Colorado Springs Airport (my final destination). I figured the majority of the tanned teens to be going to the same place that I was. A small mountain hotel and hidden tourist gem with ice cream shoppes galore.
True love sometimes strikes like a tiger, snatching a small baby deer with its teeth and ripping its head off. Yes, I have come to the truthful conviction that love, is a violent action with teeth, quite capable of ripping.
Love hit me slowly. I just felt like using that frank metaphor even though it has zip to do with my own experience. But if quick love is all that terrible, slow love is like peeling a bandaid off of a festering wound after three days in the heat. Much worse than a two second death.
Love was like that. Only for me, it left an infection and other costly complications. Thankfully no amputation was needed and I recovered to my present state of madness.
On with the darn story you shout. Okay, okay, okay.
I had settled into my room, met my adorable, wilderness-loving roomate whose name was Angela and I couldn't help but drool out my 19th century window, at the mountains and the beautiful little swirls covering them that I assumed to be trails and small roads. A good setting for a story, I probably thought as I walked down the thousands of stairs to the old dining room straight out of Bonanza. I ate something delicious that I cannot remember for the life of me, listened to a boy play the piano better than anyone I'd ever heard live and silver clattering and glasses sloshing. The sun was setting and unlike the weather back home, it was cool enough to don a jacket.
Dinner was over and it was required that we meet in the 'classroom' for a introduction and our directions for our next two weeks. I met my classroom mates, including the imaginary person to my left (I sat on an edge and so I only had a right seat buddy) whom I fondly renamed twenty million times in the days that followed. The sweet guy who sat behind me had a silly laugh that was extremely contagious and the young man who sat at my right, a lanky, early-morning riser who claimed he flew a cessna in his spare time. I was happy just to be there and the people at that time, a bonus. I had met several at the airports and had even sat next to a cute long legged swimmer from up North (very nice and he made quite an excellent body guard), but nothing prepared me for the man I saw sitting directly left, near the other side of the room. Basically, I had an excellent seat, I saw nothing but his super tan biceps resting on his desk and his curly hair showering his profile. I did listen to the into that night, and I even remember something about a up and coming band called the Dishpit....but, I couldn't help but glance over at the young man who was completely inthralled in the intro, and I did so at my leisure approx. seven to eighteen times. That night is still in a fog. Apparently there were 184 other students, predominatly males, not that I noticed.
Oh dear. I must go now. I'll be back and I will finish but first, I must complete my Spanish. 'Night and Later.
Glad you finished.
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