The Lost Boys...

Cedric, Rob, Chris, Neill … They were the ones that ended certain periods in my life. Each a catalyst for change, albeit unintentionally. None of it was love, but mostly adoration, worship, devotion and dogged determination.

When I was 16, I used lay in bed at night fantasizing about Cedric and our life together. Granted at 16, most of the fantasy consisted of kissing and holding hands while walking down the halls of my high school. Cedric had black hair and dark skin and a smile like a Cheshire cat. We were the same age, our birthdays a mere 5 days apart. My girlfriends would joke about how he wore too much cologne and always looked sweaty, but I didn’t really care. I’d live for the last period of the day, typing class, where he’d push his chair over to mine and ask me to print out 2 of typing assignment so he wouldn’t have to do his. I’d hope and pray that we’d have an earthquake drill so we could pile under the desk and I could pretend he was crowding me. He tortured me for most of the time that he went to Pacific. I loved it. He’d pull my hair, leave gross things in my locker… And eventually he called me at home a few times. Nothing ever came of it. He spent most of the time dating this girl with tits the size of watermelons. I heard he moved to Watsonville or something like that. He was my first loser, my first reason to loathe myself and wish that everything about me was different so that he’d love me.

When I was 19, I met Rob. Or rather, he met me. I was stranded at some horrible party and called my friend Joel to rescue me. Rob was riding shotgun. He was short, inflammatory, all gangsta’d out and pretty much obnoxious. I instantly liked him. He had dark hair and skin, and a smile that glowed in his dark face. When he’d laugh you could see a glimpse of a silver cap on one of his back teeth. I memorized that smile and was in search of it for 2 ½ years. We took turns torturing each other by dragging out sick plays for the other’s affection… I’d chase him and he’d tell me he only liked Puerto Rican girls. He’d come to my room and I’d refuse to answer the door. I told his other girlfriends what a horrible man he was. He told my boyfriends that I was a bitch. My 21st birthday I spent confessing my love, he left town the next day. He knew better than I, in the end that it never would have worked. I couldn’t grow up and become who I needed to be if we stayed together. Even later on, the drama fell away and he moved to Denver after I’d been here a few months. We became friends, we joked about getting married… But in the end, he went away and I moved on.

When I was 20 (in between all the Rob business) I met Chris. Dark hair and skin (are we seeing a pattern here?) and the biggest brown eyes ever. I watched him play guitar on stage with his band and was mesmerized. He was so different from the other boys I met in Montana. Intriguing differences… Beyond his talent and intelligence, he was quiet, and he never gave anything away. He had some serious walls. I thought maybe at one point I might have been able to get through or over them somehow, but he kept distance between us and I was too young and insecure to have the kind of fortitude to see it through. Later on though, almost two years later, we met in the middle again. It’s hard not to believe in fate when things like that happen. I was petrified about my life and the direction it was taking. But we spent some time together and he made some observations that gave me a little courage. He made me hate myself less.

Neill was my project. We met and starting dating right away. A few weeks into it, I was pulling my typical 2 month “gotta get out” thing and told my Mom about it. She told me that I had “commitment issues”. I guess it had occurred to me that I had a problem committing to relationships, but I assumed it was because the guys were all wrong for me. I convinced myself to dig my heels and stick with Neill. I did all the girlfriend things, I convinced myself that this is what love felt like. It wasn’t passionate or exciting, but it wasn’t horrible either. He wasn’t a bad guy, to be fair, but he was all wrong for me. So, six months into this relationship, he dumped me. HE dumped ME. I was back to loathing myself. I obsessed for months about what I had done wrong and why hadn’t I been able to fix it. My good friend Monica pointed out that I wasn’t wrong, he wasn’t wrong… We were just wrong together. It makes it easier to accept that as the truth now that I am with someone who is right.

It makes sense now… It shouldn’t ever have to be that hard. Life is hard, marriage is hard, but the loving part is easy. And loving someone else makes it so much easier to love yourself. I think now about my relationship with Tim and how I came to be what I am today. I wouldn’t ever change the past. None of the drama or the discovery was so horrible that it overshadowed the lessons I learned about myself. I can’t blame them for my lack of self-worth. I have to thank them really for giving me those little bits of education. They might not ever know, and I guess it’s a shame really. I wonder sometimes if I helped any of them with their lessons…

~e