A Story from a Life - Part One

There are seminal moments in everyone's life.

Sometimes they go unappreciated as they happen, and even after; largely, strangely, ignored with no intense reflection given to their enormous impact on the person you become as a result of having lived them. Other times they lie in wait, quietly dormant before finally approaching the fore of your psyche like a Mack truck on steep descent with no brakes, daring you to fail to acknowledge their bit of space and time inside your destiny.

The story I'm about to translate from the pages of a memory steeped in the endless layers of a lifetime of years, qualifies. It occurred to me as it happened that my life was undergoing a swift and irrevocable change in direction; it didn’t occur to me to stop to think about it much. Lately, though, the events that took place then, the ones that sculpted my life into its current shape, have been tugging at the sleeve of my consciousness, asking to be acknowledged, understood, appreciated. Begging, even demanding, to be explored.

Given little choice in the matter, I’ve complied.

So, here, then, is the story of the genesis of My Unexpected Life, as remembered by me, in its entire fragmented bits and pieces splendor.

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One sunny afternoon during the spring of my senior year, my best friend and I went cruising in her mother's powder blue Chevy Capri, listening to Molly Hatchet cranked on 8-track tape, on the prowl for something interesting. We found it, soon enough, in the form of a picnic shelter replete with beer, boys, and rock and roll. As we made our fourth nonchalant drive-by, we recognized a few faces, and finally gathered up the nerve to park the car.

This, as it turned out, was a seminal moment in my life.

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I was never the kind of girl who had a lot of dates or steady boyfriends. I was, by personality, not the cliquish type. The whole idea of allegiance to a few was too confining, too limiting. Instead, I had friends that crossed every spectrum of the high school hierarchy, and no enemies to speak of. I dated some, messed around more, and generally had a relatively normal teenage social life. I was no angel by any definition, but I was - by the good grace of genetics - intelligent and athletic, two traits that served to offset, if not completely obscure, whatever trouble I might manage to find.

I trained myself at a formidably young age in the fine art of being a chameleon. I developed the ability to fit in whatever the circumstance, wherever the need. I was never the shining superstar at much of anything; but, more to the point, I was never the outcast, either.

The downside to this adaptive nature of mine showed itself often in my teen years. I had an intense internal life, where I served as my own personal judge, juror and self-destructive executioner. I knew myself as no one else could, if only because I wouldn’t let them. I befriended my demons, understood my limits, and built walls against my fears. I was vividly aware of my extremely dark side. At the same time, even as a very young child, I also knew enough to keep this private self in the shadows of my public persona. I took immeasurable pride in my ability to weather the severe storms; I believed I was extremely adept at dealing with the depression, self-doubt, and obsessive withering introspection that raged inside. This belief would prove dubious with distinction later on in my life.

Beneath the plethora of masks, the normal evolutionary aches and pains of being a teenager, and the outward displays of borderline indifference, there churned a driven and ferociously ambitious girl. I had grandly grandiose visions. I wanted to live the Big Life; to gain fame and acclaim through the power of my written word. My goal - in my mind, my ultimate Destiny - was to become the youngest ever Editor-in-Chief of Vanity Fair, with a flourishing literary career on the side. My girlfriends dreamed of prom dresses, romance, weddings, and babies. To my way of thinking, this kind of talk was silly and insignificant; in my own dreams, those things were superfluous afterthoughts. I could concede that they might someday be a part of my life...have a place in my life; but I vehemently refused to allow that they would ever be my life.

And so, while I partied hard, gave my parents more than their share of worry, conned my teachers into "letting" me skip class, and rarely denied the devil on my shoulder, I also worked hard to maintain a private course meant with full and deliberate intentionality to lead me straight to the mountain peaks of the future that was my Destiny.

It was no accident that by my senior year everything was in perfectly in line. I had the stellar grades, the financial means, the parents whose only wish for me was that I rise to my every potential, and the immense motivating desire to get as far away from home and small town life as physically possible. I could attend virtually any college I wanted, and was accepted by all four I applied to. My life was an open menu of choices, by virtue of designed intent and sheer will.

Then one sunny spring afternoon during my senior year of high school, when I was seventeen, I met a boy. He was cute. Adorable, in fact. Better still, he was older, already a junior in college. He was home on spring break, doing what college students tend to do, break or not, and so it happened that I met him at a keg party at a local park. 

We talked. We laughed. He poured me beer, I giggled like the schoolgirl that I was. We talked about music. We talked about sports. I discovered that he had a weakness for long, brown, wild curly hair, which I conveniently had a head full of at the time; he discovered that I had a weakness for a sense of humor, and kept me laughing until my face hurt. There were dozens of people at the party that day, and yet somehow, for most of it, there was only us.

I felt more than a little confused and surprised by how easily I’d leaped into crush at first sight, even as it was happening. It just wasn't my style; it didn't fit with the master plan. But within a few short hours, I blushed profusely when he asked me for my phone number, writing it on the back of his hand while my heart pounded wildly in my throat, hoping against hope that he’d actually call me.

He did.

Later that night, talking in the stops and starts of two strangers trying to get to know each other, he asked if he could call me from school. He told me he would be home for the summer in a few weeks. He said that he wanted to take me on a real date. I mumbled and stuttered my way through a "that would be great". We sat breathing in each other's ears, tongue tied, for what seemed like hours.

I remember the giddiness I felt as we hung up from that first phone call. It was a feeling that only grew in intensity as the summer wore on.

He was enrolled at WVU, way too close to home for my taste. A school I had sworn, publicly and with vigor, I would never attend.

But then a beautiful spring afternoon and a mindless cruise around town happened.

He was a boy. I was a girl.

He spent an entire summer paying attention to me, and I spent an entire summer wanting him to never stop.

I received my grant of late acceptance from WVU on a Tuesday. By Friday, my dad and I were in the family station wagon, crammed full with my clothes, stereo, books, and other bare essentials, driving down the highway on the three hour trip into the rest of my life.

Comments

[deb]

Count me in as "hooked", too!
I also had the "long, brown, wild curly hair". I wonder where it all went? lol!

[Jennifer]

Well, if I told you that would spoil all the fun, now wouldn't it? It's disappearing soon, though. You should know. ;-)

[meno]

Wow, seventeen is so young. This is a great story. I look forward to the rest.
By the way, i have RESISTED the allure of the red button. So what the hell is it?

[wordnerd]

Well I'm hooked! You do have a way with words, missy...

[Karen]

I love your beginning with your husband. It was meant to be, now wasn't it. Everything for a reason...

[Diane Mandy]

Not boring at all. I'll wait for part II.

[Jennifer]

Note: This is one of the first pieces I ever wrote for my original blog. It has two more parts. I'm reworking it for personal use/reasons/because I want to.

So, sorry. Boring, old news, and allathat. Bear with me, if you want. But it is what it is, and I'm reposting the reworked bits of this three part piece for my own benefit, amusement, and ease of self-editing. Changes certain; it's really rather bereft of development upon a re-reading. I just want to stare at it a while, and play.