EPT+ Show Spoiler [An Afternoon Walk] +
I walk slowly, as my eyes are constantly drawn to the left. I lead left. It is an inevitability. I expected this to happen. To this degree? No, not really. That may be understandable, though, as I did kind of feel dirty for thinking about it beforehand. The last time I had seen her, I was thirteen. I knew she'd still be beautiful, but to think about the image I had inside was to almost commit an intolerable act.
No longer.
There, on my left, holding my arm, is the most incredible person I have ever met, inside and out. She stands maybe five ten; I need only bend a little to kiss her. Green-blue eyes, which were completely green the last time I saw them. How did they change? And dark, fine hair. I wish she hadn't cut so much of it. I don't mind it, really, it's nice looking, but I liked it when it was longer too. Her complexion is fair, something I've always liked. It contrasts with her hair. Very light skin, extremely dark hair, and vibrant green eyes. Those were the features that stood out to me in memory. They still strike me on this day. She has no make-up on, I've never seen her wear any. She's never needed or wanted it. She needs no more color. The bright red that usually greets my glance, highlighting her cheekbones. The curves of her lips and dimples as she smiles in return normally add to the flush across her cheeks. As her lips slide back, her white teeth are revealed, adding another clashing color to her face. As I have come to expect from this place, a sudden gust of wind comes, and the side of her hair moves into her face. I am momentarily disappointed, as my view is broken. But she brings her hand up, and pushes her hair back; A display of unconscious grace that I will study many more times in the following days. As that hand falls to the side, I tighten the grip I have on the other. I smile once more as I feel her hand squeeze in return. I smile, you smile. I grip, you grip. Call-and-return, call-and-return. Perhaps...
The wind pushes the hair once more, the ever-constant wind of "here". As she sweeps those almost-black strands behind her ears, she bumps her hat. I am unsure as to whether my expression changes, but the feeling inside shifts a little. Whether or not it is it's purpose, the hat covers a rather bad sunburn. I greatly enjoy spending the day outside, going to nowhere, stopping at anywhere; But as the second day had shown me, pleasure comes at a price, sometimes. She says I worry too much, but I do not believe it so. I do worry alot. Not unnecessarily, however, for I have much to lose. I can lose her. I had for three years, in a different sense. Why not longer? If the simple pleasure of being with her can be taken from me for that long, how much harder would it be to simply yank her out of my life forever? These were strange, complex things to be building off of just a sunburn, but they came from a base source. I care for her, more then anything in the world. I avoid those sunburns, I avoid all pain, and I try to be there for her when there is pain to be worked through. But, I worry.
As we pass that picnic table, I wonder where we might be going. Upon further investigation, I find that I do not care much beyond that simple wondering. Just walking is fine. In silence and otherwise. I like her voice, though. Clear, without notable accent. The emphasis on certain words is easier to discern this way. She's immensely intelligent, quite a deal more then I. It shows in her idle wonderings and her deeper thoughts. The only time I'd rather her not be talking is when she cannot. I smile at this thought and glance to my left again. She is not looking this time. I smile again, perhaps a little sadly, and instead look for four-leaf clovers for awhile. As it becomes readily apparent that I am failing, we come to a stop. We've arrived at the playground which never seems to have any children on it. But we are here; Surely we will find a game to play. And we do. Tic-Tac-Toe and fall asleep. I've fallen asleep.
Give me a kiss?
No longer.
There, on my left, holding my arm, is the most incredible person I have ever met, inside and out. She stands maybe five ten; I need only bend a little to kiss her. Green-blue eyes, which were completely green the last time I saw them. How did they change? And dark, fine hair. I wish she hadn't cut so much of it. I don't mind it, really, it's nice looking, but I liked it when it was longer too. Her complexion is fair, something I've always liked. It contrasts with her hair. Very light skin, extremely dark hair, and vibrant green eyes. Those were the features that stood out to me in memory. They still strike me on this day. She has no make-up on, I've never seen her wear any. She's never needed or wanted it. She needs no more color. The bright red that usually greets my glance, highlighting her cheekbones. The curves of her lips and dimples as she smiles in return normally add to the flush across her cheeks. As her lips slide back, her white teeth are revealed, adding another clashing color to her face. As I have come to expect from this place, a sudden gust of wind comes, and the side of her hair moves into her face. I am momentarily disappointed, as my view is broken. But she brings her hand up, and pushes her hair back; A display of unconscious grace that I will study many more times in the following days. As that hand falls to the side, I tighten the grip I have on the other. I smile once more as I feel her hand squeeze in return. I smile, you smile. I grip, you grip. Call-and-return, call-and-return. Perhaps...
The wind pushes the hair once more, the ever-constant wind of "here". As she sweeps those almost-black strands behind her ears, she bumps her hat. I am unsure as to whether my expression changes, but the feeling inside shifts a little. Whether or not it is it's purpose, the hat covers a rather bad sunburn. I greatly enjoy spending the day outside, going to nowhere, stopping at anywhere; But as the second day had shown me, pleasure comes at a price, sometimes. She says I worry too much, but I do not believe it so. I do worry alot. Not unnecessarily, however, for I have much to lose. I can lose her. I had for three years, in a different sense. Why not longer? If the simple pleasure of being with her can be taken from me for that long, how much harder would it be to simply yank her out of my life forever? These were strange, complex things to be building off of just a sunburn, but they came from a base source. I care for her, more then anything in the world. I avoid those sunburns, I avoid all pain, and I try to be there for her when there is pain to be worked through. But, I worry.
As we pass that picnic table, I wonder where we might be going. Upon further investigation, I find that I do not care much beyond that simple wondering. Just walking is fine. In silence and otherwise. I like her voice, though. Clear, without notable accent. The emphasis on certain words is easier to discern this way. She's immensely intelligent, quite a deal more then I. It shows in her idle wonderings and her deeper thoughts. The only time I'd rather her not be talking is when she cannot. I smile at this thought and glance to my left again. She is not looking this time. I smile again, perhaps a little sadly, and instead look for four-leaf clovers for awhile. As it becomes readily apparent that I am failing, we come to a stop. We've arrived at the playground which never seems to have any children on it. But we are here; Surely we will find a game to play. And we do. Tic-Tac-Toe and fall asleep. I've fallen asleep.
Give me a kiss?
I only ever keep such diaries when I am with her. I've incredibly bad short-term memory, and I like to write to myself, so that I can remember the details more clearly later on. Everyone has fading memories, even the most wonderful of times do eventually. But, I've so many happy times when I'm with her that I would hate to ever forget. So, I write.
Anyway, with that little bit of side-tracking out of the way, let's continue.
After visiting Jacqueline in Maryville, one would expect things to have gotten better. The sexuality/physical issue was resolved to a degree, though she still to this very day prefers women over men. The rest was showing steady progress, and I'd just had the most fun in years visiting her. However, our newfound level of closeness with eachother proved to bring about new troubles.
In my last post, I started out with explaining that I'd dropped out of school in the seventh grade. Combine this with never having been a social butterfly, to say it in one way, and that so my social views were extremely limited. As such, I had opinions about things that were not shaped by experience, merely by public predujice. For example, I despised your average drunken college student. I viewed it as weak to need the alcohol as a social lubricant and disgusting that anybody would allow themselves to let go of that much of their self-control. My views on, say, sex toys (vibes, dildos, etc) were that they were a betrayal of sorts, that if a girl used them while she had a boyfriend/husband, then she wasn't being completely true to him. My view on casual sex was that the people who did so were corrupt morally, that none of them could understand what love actually was. Looking back, I find that I don't like who I was at all, and that sadly remains true throughout inspection of most of my past.
I was completely naive through my lack of life experience, and it actually caused a lot of problems. Not because Jacqueline made them become so, but because I made them become so. Almost every single opinion I had at the time was formed on the fly, based off how I felt in that particular moment, because I'd never had to deal with any of it before, particularly the sex toy issue. As such, as with most judgment passed based on feeling, I got very defensive when those viewpoints were challenged. And when I got defensive, I got angry, and I lashed out. I made disagreements into arguments, different views into a direct challenge of morality. This caused a lot of trouble, because it got to the point where Jacqueline began feeling like she couldn't talk with me about anything. Coupled with her depression, she'd just break down and cry any time a new disagreement came up, because it never got anywhere but with me getting angry.
Another problem was arising as all of this happened. Jacqueline's depression was evidently there; She'd often feel like she'd just like to break into tiny particles and no longer be a sentient being anymore. She'd cry for hours in my arms without ever having a reason to feel sad. She just felt sad, so intensely so that it was exhausting her, that she just wanted relief from it. It wasn't a cry for attention, either. I heard it second-hand from friends or relatives who just stumbled upon her doing it, left without bothering her, because they knew it'd only make Jacqueline feel bad. She hates pity, and she never told me when those things happened without me around. But, it was still evident that things were getting worse, as the bad times would come more and more often.
Then everything came to a head. In early spring of last year, I hurt Jacqueline bad while she was depressed. She said that she loved me, and goodbye. I stopped her from doing it, but it shook me. It shook me bad. I cried for three days off and on thinking about how I'd almost lost her completely, and I don't care who may look down on that. It was a reality shock for me, because despite dealing with all of it for a long time, I was never so close to the truth. Realizing all that had happened, I decided to change.
Personal change for me was categorized into two different sections: How I Feel and What I Think. I had to learn to separate the two, so that I could feel my own way while not judging others for feeling a different way. I had to learn to think instead of throwing down the hammer whenever a viewpoint was challenged. I've learned to do that now and I actually enjoy (sex toys, anyone? ;D) some of what I judged wrong back then. I'm a much less moody, judgmental person and it shows in everything I do, in the ways I react to everything.
Things seemed to be getting better for awhile for us, between us, but something was wrong with Jacqueline still. She was wearing down, and it began to manifest itself in ways that it never had before. She started becoming overwhelmed by sounds and sensations, curling up into the fetal position to try to block it out. She began hallucinating, seeing things that weren't there, and even attacked and "defeated" a tree that was apparently her enemy.
She knew something was wrong and one morning, told me she was going to see a campus doctor. She made it to the office, but when she got there, she freaked out. She began attacking the people who were trying to help her, and she had to be sedated. Twelve hours later, she wakes up in a psych ward. I know nothing of all of this, and end up having to call her mother to find out where Jacqueline had disappeared to the next day.
Jacqueline was there for about two weeks. We talked on the phone when we could, and we wrote to eachother when we couldn't. We at least tried talking on the phone, I mean. Sometimes she was aware enough to. Others she was...just kind of gone. One thing she said to me in particular stuck with me, made me see just how serious things were. In a childlike awe, she watched some window washers cleaning the window outside where she was at. She couldn't figure out how they were staying up in the air like that, and went on for about twenty minutes on that subject alone. "Stevie, this is amazing. How are they doing this? How are they flying, Stevie? O my God, this is amazing!"
It may not seem significant to others, but Jacqueline is a smart, logical girl. She's got a very playful, fun-loving side to her that dominates a lot of her traits, which is something I love about her, but she's still got that backing of intelligence. So, to hear her so incredibly confused and amazed by this simple thing was what hit everything home for me. I was sad like I'd been that first time we'd parted, when I moved from Missouri, because Jacqueline didn't sound like my Jacqueline anymore. She sounded like a lost child.
After the first three days, they put her on medication. It made her drowsy, but the sadness started to leave. She began returning to normal thought, and thus started realizing where she was. She hated being there. She loves the outdoors, loves the sensations the wind and sun provide, and she was stuck in a confined area for an undetermined amount of time. She kept telling me that it was like prison. They weren't allowed certain things (anything they thought you could kill yourself with), could only eat certain meals given to them, were constantly watched by cameras, even in their bedrooms. They had an enforced bedtime, were constantly under monitor, and had to go through the same monotonous routines daily.
In a way, I'm glad she had her break. Though she went through hell for that week and though pills are handed out like candy for little regard by some doctors, things have only gotten better since then. She still has those sad times, but they are neither as intense or nearly as often as before. She lives something close to a normal life, which is better than she'd had before.
That concludes the hard times. After that, there isn't much to tell that I will tell. I've changed, am still changing, becoming better in my own view. I feel happier. Jacqueline is changing, does not struggle daily with empty sadness. She feels happier. We talk every day, do things for eachother constantly, and with eachother when we can. Hell, she's even played StarCraft with me and is at this very moment arranging a tourney for me.
I asked her to marry me last year. She said yes instantly, and told me later that she knew it was coming, was just waiting for the day.
We have a promised life ahead, filled with happiness that will be mutually shared. We've had bad times and will have more still, I've no doubt, but we're still going. We're getting tattoo's on our wrists where we used to draw hearts on eachother with pen; the tattoo to represent the constant love we always feel and the pen heart to represent the happiness we share when together. We've plans to go to the Peace Corp after college, and then travel the world. Do it all while we're young. We're happier than we've ever been, and it's only going to get better. We're in love, and while distance still hurts now, time will close the gap. We're lifebuddies.Seven years strong.
Countless years to go.
