EPTHigh School. Those were the days ... the days of insecurity, zits, marching band, Lord of the Rings films, euchre at the lunch table, and chemistry experiments gone wrong. This story begins in the winter of my freshman year, and doesn't end until fall of my junior year - but I promise it ends with a bang.
Let me give you some necessary background: I was a nerdy kid. (Let's face it, the nerdy bit hasn't changed.) In middle school, I had one best friend. I loved to read, I was teacher's pet, and I was not popular. My best friend and I did everything together. We were even writing a book - I'd do one chapter, she'd do the other. But abruptly, in the summer between 7th and 8th grade, she moved. I was devastated. 8th grade was approaching, and I wasn't sure how to make my way among the other females in my class. Soon, though, I learned of a recent phenomenon - boy bands. Yes, friends, this was the era of *NSYNC and The Backstreet Boys. Each girl in the class had a favorite. I had no idea who these people were, but I dutifully picked one of the Backstreet Boys to hang my heart on so I could fit in. Quickly, I realized I would need to do more than that. Most of the girls in my class had a boyfriend, and I needed to get one too. The guy I really liked was with someone, so I picked other guys mostly based on their popularity and tried to ask them out. You may have predicted the futility of this approach. Sure enough, 8th grade came and went without yours truly finding a boyfriend. I was hopeless. Surely no one would ever love me. (Side note: the guy I really liked turned out to be gay. So did the boy band guy. I can really pick 'em)
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My 8th grade self didn't know what to make of them either.
I moved on to high school, where every face was different. Only two other classmates from middle school went to the same high school as I did, and they quickly found their own groups of friends (notably not including me). I got along as best I could, hanging out with people I met in band and meeting their friends. I began to know more and more people, and soon I had a new group of folks to hang with. Of course, I picked one to like right away. There was flirting, but nothing serious. Again, I despaired. Love seemed so far away. I prepared to spend my life with numerous cats in a small house with a garden reading books forever alone.
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I was totally ready for this existence.
Two weeks before my birthday of freshman year, the long-awaited happened. Someone asked me out. We'll call this guy ... Felix. I was shocked and amazed. He was a friend of a friend, and even more impressive, a sophomore! ooooooooooo. My thought process was as follows: "I should say yes. In a few weeks, once he gets to know me, he'll surely break it off, but at least for the rest of my life I can say that I dated one person!" Man my self-esteem was off the charts! I honestly believed this - that once he knew me better, he'd break up with me. Little did I know ...
I said yes. I had a boyfriend. I had a boyfriend for my birthday. He bought me roses. My life was made.
Weeks went by, then months. We were still together. I honestly couldn't believe that our relationship was lasting this long. But to my surprise, last it did ... through freshman year ... through sophomore year ... he took me to his junior prom! At this point things started to get rocky. Maybe in my heart I knew that Felix was not "the one" but I was afraid to end it, since as you have seen, dear reader, I thought I would never get another chance. My junior year began and we were still together. Finally, however, I came to my senses and decided that I would break up with him.
I had, at one point in our relationship, attempted to end it. This devolved quickly. We shared a locker (how romantic!), and in it were little magnetic animals he had given me with things written on them like, "I love you!" After the first period of the day that I told him I wanted to break up, I opened our shared locker to find that all his stuff was gone (no surprise). However, he had ripped the heads off each of those magnetic animals and left their poor remains oozing stuffing and scattered about the locker. I was terrified. What had I done? To ameliorate any further damage I reneged on my breaking up - things calmed down and were back to normal. (I really can pick em, eh?) Needless to say, that incident had made me wary of a second face-to-face breakup, especially in school where Felix would cause a scene. I hatched what seemed to me to be an ingenious plan - a plan that involved a long-distance break up with recovery time built in. Winter Break.
My plan was simple. I would write him a note explaining my feelings. He would read it during Winter Break, have his rant and range in a safe location (i.e. one without me), and have two weeks to recover before school began again. BRILLIANT!
I wrote him the note - and here's where things began to go wrong. I couldn't just give him the note, that would be too suspicious. So I (genius that I am) placed the break-up note inside his Christmas card. Yes, friends, you read that right, inside his Christmas card. I would like to state here that I explicitly wrote on the outside of the note "Do not open until after Christmas." I thought this would make it safe. But again, dear reader, you may have already guessed the outcome of my scheme. Felix had a crappy Christmas, and he opened my note on Christmas day to make himself feel better. Unfortunately for him, his plan failed. Instead he got to read my break-up note.
Of course he called me and begged for me not to go, but this time I stood firm. It was finally over.
Just to top it off, the first day back at school he had a new girlfriend and was holding her hand. Say it with me, readers, "REBOUND!" That lasted him a year, and then he graduated and I lost track of him. Good riddance, I say. I was able to move on, regain my lost self-esteem, and look to new horizons for dateable material. If I do say so myself, I improved my dating situation drastically in college - but that's another story for another day.
TL;DR I totally broke up with my high school boyfriend of two years in a Christmas card. Yep, a Christmas card.
Funny side story: Two summers ago I was at Cedar Point (huge roller coaster amusement park) with my brother, husband, and cousins. We were waiting in line for the Millennium Force (yes great choice of coaster, thanks) when I heard someone say, "Hey, your name's not Felicity, is it?" Shocked, I turned my head. It couldn't be ... but it was. Felix stood in the row behind me. We were separated by a metal bar, but that was all. Even though it was many years later, and even though my husband was standing right beside me, I reverted into my freshman high school zero-esteem self. "Hi" I said. Then God blessed me greatly. The line began to move. Without a further exchange of words, I turned my back on Felix and filled the empty space between me and the people further up the line. That's the last I've seen of Felix. Did I mention that he got super fat?
