An Epiphany (may be a little PG-13)

I had an epiphany today while talking to my Bear (Sarah's nickname since she was wee) about love and boyfriends. I heard "Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones on the radio and it took me back. I just knew the moment I said it that i'd have to get it down on (virtual) paper right away. What follows is a story of my youth and my first "real" boyfriend and the first guy who really broke my heart. As always feel free to skip it if it's not your cup o' tea. As a disclaimer, it may be a bit revealing in places, and most of this I did NOT share with my 15 year old... =)

I met Steve when I was 17, barely out of high school. My best friend, Tonya, was crushing on his best friend, Jason. Steve and Jason were "men", both in their 20's and they belonged to the "Seductive" truck club (which is how my bf had met them, she was dating some other truck club guy). Remember those early 90's truck clubs? Ridiculously low trucks you couldn't drive into a driveway without scraping, windows you couldn't see out of, Easter egg colored paint jobs, LOUD stereo systems with the mandatory bass boost button...Geesh. LOL. But I'm getting off track.

Steve was 21 or 22, if I remember correctly, and had married his high school sweetheart when she got pregnant. He had a three year old daughter named Amanda and was recently divorced. He was a carpenter by trade, and was working for a cabinet maker (the smell of wood still reminds me of him, weird how that happens huh?) He drove a burgundy Ford Ranger that was all tricked out and splattered with black paint graphics. He loved going 4x4ing in that thing and his truck club friends called him "Mr. Banzai". He loved Harley Davidsons (they still make me a little weak in the knees) and the Pacific Northwest, especially Tacoma (I always thought it was my love of Queensryche that made me start wanting to live there, but now that I think about it I was planning to live there and make a life with Steve way before I even got into them). He was not good looking. He was tall, and skinny, and pale, and freckled. He had bright blue eyes and curly (yes, curly) red hair. He occasionally wore those bright, obnoxious surfer pants with the elastic waist band. It is not sour grapes, I loved that goofy looking bastard with every fiber of my being.

I think the most significant thing about that relationship was that it was the first time a guy ever pursued me. I wasn't just picking up Tonya's leftovers for a change, or hooking up with a guy who would later tell his friends that he had been so drunk he thought he had been with someone else (as pathetic as it is, that had happened to me TWICE). The four of us had hung out quite a bit right after Tonya and I had graduated and then Steve went on vacation to WA. While he was gone Tonya told me he had asked her all about me and was totally interested, but I was only 17. While he was away, I turned 18. He wrote me a letter from WA-the first, and last, time a guy ever wrote me a letter. He basically said that he was having a blast, but that he missed hanging out with me and wanted to get together when he got back to Cali. Be still my heart, that did it for me and I could not WAIT for him to get home.

I wish I could remember our first kiss. After all that waiting, I am sure it was really something. There are so many other things I remember though. He actually took me out on dates. I know that may sound lame, but I had not really EVER been on an actual date in my life. I'd get dressed up, he'd pick me up, and we would go out. Unreal, right? I remember that we went and saw the 3-D Nightmare on Elm Street and Terminator 2 several times ha ha ha. We (ahem)parked....alot! It was the first time in my life I had ever experienced anything like that...being with a guy who wanted to be with me and not feeling used. My gosh I was so in love with him. And I loved everything about being in love. I pictured us moving to Washington together, raising his little daughter together. But I was only 18...I was supposed to be fun for him, not another potential wife, and definitely not in the running for stepmom. It helped not at all that my mother could not stand him. She said I should not trust a guy who would not come over until after he was sure she was in bed or who expected me to wait up all night just in case he decided to show up.

After a month or so, he started realizing that I was far more into him and the "relationship" than he was and said that we should take it slower. I wasn't having that. I may have been a chubby girl with low self-esteem but I worked every angle I could to keep that boy hooked and coming back. I was so blind that I was in denial about him having this whole other life away from me-work, his ex, his daughter, other friends...he broke up with me in the fall and I still wouldn't give up. We had decided to still be friends and I got invited to his birthday party. I showed up looking fierce and pretty much told him that I was his, no strings attached, whenever he wanted. This was quite a few years before the phrase "booty call" entered the vernacular. Yet there I was, so desperate to be near him that I was willing to sacrifice my own feelings. Of course he took advantage of that, what guy wouldn't?

So that whole fall I went to school (community college) and I lived in denial, and he strung me along, but I saw less and less of him. As much as I remember of him-the smell of his detergent, the feeling of being in the cab of his truck parked in the desert late at night, listening to Jesus Jones, Marky Mark and Warrant, I most vividly remember the day he broke up with me...for good. See, while I was pretending it was okay to be with him, he was falling in love with someone else. A girl he had graduated with, someone he had known for years, someone his own age.

I think her name was Shonna, or Shawna, or whatever. I had never even heard her name before that day. He and I were hanging out in my bedroom (okay it was a little more TV-MA than just hanging out) and Tonya showed up at my place. Having been interrupted, Steve decided to take off and she whispered to me "just watch yourself, there's something going on you don't know about". I had no idea what she even meant, I mean after all, I was quite happy in my little la la land, thinking he'd eventually come around and decide he loved me. Later that evening he called me and we were talking about how we'd been interrupted and I invited him back over. He said he didn't think it would be a good idea. Out of nowhere he starts talking about how he had spent the rest of the day with this girl, Shawna, and how awesome she was and how she was coaching the girl's flag team at their old high school and blah blah blah. I am not sure at what point I figured out that he was ending it, but once I hung up that phone, I knew that he had moved on and that it was over...

I stayed friends with Jason though and he eventually fell for my beautiful cousin Yvette so we actually hung out a lot. He and Tonya had never really worked out... I heard alot about Steve second hand from Jason. The worst thing was when he told me that Steve and Shawna were going to be married. I don't think I had ever cried so hard in my life. You know that part of New Moon, when Bella describes the hole in her chest? How it festered and ached and burned around the edges? The reason I cry every time I read that part is because of this memory. I felt sorrow to the very depths of my 18 year old soul. I remember laying on my mother's bed, sobbing, and realizing that he HAD wanted to be married, he just didn't want to be married to ME. I was really destroyed. I don't think I honestly, truly, loved anyone like that again until I met Aaron-and by then I was a totally different person.

So what I realized was that there was nothing wrong with him wanting to move on and get married or even wanting just to be with a woman his own age. I was only 18 for pete's sake and barely that! He had a kid and a job and a million responsibilities. Would I not have been just another person to take care of? I completely lost myself in him and relied on him totally and that must have really been frightening to him. So I have come to a place in my life where I have been able to accept that though Steve truly broke my heart, I gave him my heart to break. I was just as responsible for it if not more because I gave him everything. So from the bottom of my once broken heart, I forgive Steve and will try to only remember the fun times we had and those nights when he looked at me like I was the only person in the room and stayed up all night talking to me. I am the person I am today because of my experiences and I wouldn't want to give them up.

If I could go back I would only wish that I had had an understanding of my value as a daughter of God. I hope that with that knowledge I would have made better choices for myself...been stronger and expected better. I hope that the knowledge I've gained from these experiences will help me to advise my own children when the time comes. If you've stayed with this rant this long I truly appreciate it! Hope my bit of cathartic blogging has inspired or entertained you in some way!