A TRIBUTE TO THE FIRST DECADE – A NOVEL BY JON WONG
A few weeks ago, when I was at Queen’s for our three week break between first and second prac, I had a conversation with someone about girls. Or at least, we were having a conversation that eventually turned itself towards that particular topic. And me being me, I managed to bring up the fact that I am single at this junction in my life (I swear to God, I never intentionally draw attention to the fact that I’m single... it always just seems to happen; sometimes, more often than I’d like it to). So we talked about this fact for awhile and eventually, this friend of mine said something that I find that I hear all too often:
“Meh, don’t worry about it; there’s more to life than girls”
To which I instantly replied,
“But there’s nothing more to life than love!”
He thought about this for a moment before conceding, “I suppose that’s true.” And I’ve been thinking to myself for the longest time... why is that any different? Why is it acceptable for me to say “There’s nothing more to life than love,” but the instant I say, “There’s nothing more to life than girls,” people automatically assume that I’m referring to something crude like “getting laid” or “scoring tail”? How did we let ourselves get to a point where talking about “girls” ISN’T synonymous with talking about “love,” but is, instead, synonymous with talking about “lust”? It makes me sad every time I think about this.
People in our society like to talk about “the loss of innocence,” and frankly, most of us aren’t really sure about what we mean when we say this – it’s just something that makes you sound sensitive and reflexive – and when you demand that people explain themselves, they’ll say something about how we believed in all these ideals and dreams when we were young and we lose sight of them as grow up... as if this were something that should never happen if our society wasn’t the degenerate and corrupt wasteland that it currently is. These people will, of course, be the same ones who idealize this very same time period in the future when they rant about the then current youth and how things were better in their younger days (i.e. now). People are really bad with putting things in perspective that way. But really, the spirit – the essence – of what it means to “lose our innocence” doesn’t really have anything to do with the fact that we grow up and realize that some of our ideals and dreams are impractical and impossible. William Blake once wrote about this through his poems, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The world would not be some sort of ideal paradise if we existed in some perpetual state of youthful bliss and innocence. In a lot of ways, we NEED to be able to experience the good and the bad; we need to learn the difference between ideals and reality; we need to be able to understand that things aren’t always perfect; and we need to learn to let go of our dreams. To grow up is NOT a bad thing (to grow old... now that’s a different matter).
So what does it really mean when we lose our innocence? I believe it is far more closely tied to the distinction I drew about how we interpret the phrase “There’s nothing more to life than girls”. The fact that many people instantly assume/draw that connection to sex and the objectification of women instead of the far more pure (and in my case, true) connection to simple love is, in my opinion, an example of how we have lost our innocence. It has nothing to do with age or ignorance – it has to do with our tendency to choose the cruder and more distorted interpretation of how we see things, which is, in turn, born from the fact that it is, sadly, the more common of the two meanings.
But I digress. The whole point of this, originally (as you can tell, I don’t exactly plan these things out – my words tend to just unfold as they’re being written), was simply to point out the very central role girls have played in my life during this past decade. Grant and I were talking about the last 10 years and how they will probably turn out to be the most significant and influential decade of all our lives. I mean, just as people mark the 70s, 80s, and 90s due to the convenience of grouping years into decades, so too will the “00s” (2000-2009) stand on its own from a purely numerical viewpoint. But for Grant and I (especially for me), the 00s are far more significant than mere numerical convenience would originally indicate. To put it simply, these past 10 years have been the years of significant interpersonal relationships. To put things even more simply, I met Grant in 2000 and I will finish school exactly 10 years later. Grade 7 (i.e. year 2000) was the beginning of my foray into meaningful friendships, relationships and social life. And one could easily argue that graduating from university will mark the end of this time. I don’t, of course, mean that the end of university will mark the end of my social life; I merely refer to the fact that after I graduate, “school” will cease to be the predominant medium through which meaningful social interaction takes place or is initiated.
We talked about the elements that classified this decade. There were many of course. There was music of the decade, films of the decade, school years (if you see them as units of time like I do)... even friends (if you’re the type that likes to rank your friends...). There were literally dozens of topics upon which we could post if we wanted to work within the spirit of “The best (insert topic) of the 00s”. Best trips of the 00s, best teachers of the 00s, best films/songs/friends of the decade (as mentioned above). But ultimately – for Grant and I, at least – all these things were only as significant as they were in relation to the girls who were in our lives at the time. I know this may be hard for some of you to believe but as I have said before, including the opening passage to this post, there is nothing more to life than girls. This may not be true for you, but for Grant and I, this the absolute and unequivocal reality of our lives. It has, on many occasions, gotten us into trouble and we have often commiserated over this fact – it is a large reason why we were best friends – but it has also, on occasion, brought us up to the greatest highs of the decade. And so, while we originally considered posting about the “best films/songs/nights/classes/etc” of the decade in the form of every conceivable type of list known to man (as I am SURE many people on facebook are creating/filling out right now as I type this), we (or at least, I) decided that no list could do justice to the “spirit of the decade” unless it was a list of the girls who affected my life. Keep in mind as you read that this is not a ranking of girls in terms of “who I liked more” or “who has more worth as a human being,” or anything as crude and judgmental as that – it is exactly what I said it is: 10 girls who truly and deeply affected my life (for good or bad) from the year 2000 through to 2009. Hopefully, after you read this, you will understand why I always say, “There’s nothing more to life than girls... and love”.
10. Julia Snow Patrol – The Finish Line I was sitting in my room on a Thursday afternoon, re-stringing my guitar and listening to Snow Patrol when Julia knocked on my door (which I always kept open at least a crack). I said, “Hey, what’s up?” to which she answered, “Nothing much, just a little bored on a Thursday afternoon and I thought I’d drop by and hang out for a bit.” I always thought of that moment as the defining point of my relationship with Julia (at least, the parts of it that were good). I’ve always told people that I am very easy (or if not easy, at least uncomplicated) when it comes to what I require from people I’m close to – and that is that you simply spend time with me. Julia, being smart and in the first year (and hence was not known for spending all her time studying), always found opportunities to do this (it helped that she lived directly next door to me... we shared a wall in fact; this would become awkward later but at the time, it was great) and I think that is the reason why we bonded so quickly. She would always just stroll over whenever she was feeling bored and I would always drop whatever I was doing to hang out. I was never the kind of person who prioritized work over socializing.
But Julia is on this list for more reasons than simply the fact that we were next door neighbours. It even goes beyond the fact that she was the first girl to have ever formally rejected me in a way that would make things horrible and incredibly awkward between us for the rest of the year. She exemplified, I think, the gap between first year students and fourth year students. See, I had originally applied to live in an upper year residence after my house broke up in third year. But the upper year residences ended up being full and Res-Life offered me a place in one of the main campus residences, hence my return to the residence that I had lived in for first year. In a lot of ways, it was like coming full circle during my 4-year degree. Fourth year really was the best year of my university career. And living in a first year residence had a lot to do with shaping that experience, even if it was in the capacity of where I went at the end of the day. It was almost like I existed in a completely different capacity when I lived in residence. Outside, I was an upper-year student among other upper-year students. In residence, I was the upper-year student on a first year floor (my neighbour was also an upper year student but he was crotchety and I was probably the only person to ever see him). After things went sour with Julia, I really fully recognized that capacity. You see, when Julia and I were hanging out, I always felt that there was very little difference between us (she was smarter than your average first-year, not to mention incredibly culturally savvy). I didn’t have to “talk differently” to her like I did when I spoke to a lot of other first years. I mean, I didn’t do it in a condescending manner, it’s just that first years talk to you about different things when you’re an upper year and while that’s sometimes nice, it was also nice to be able to talk to Julia like she was my age.
I still remember the day I asked her out. The night before, we had gone out to the lakefront in the freezing cold and pitch blackness and wrote letters into the air with sparklers. And I just remember thinking, “How cool is this? How often do you meet a girl who suggests ideas like using a camera to capture words you write in the air with sparklers?” That, I suppose, had a big effect on my decision to ask her out the next day. That next day was... not so good. I try not to regret the decisions I make about these things unless they are particularly ill-informed and ill-thought out – and believe me, it was not ill-thought out although the jury’s still out over whether it was ill-informed since my informant was non-existent beyond my own arguably poor judgment – but the ensuing rejection and shunning were enough to make even the most staunch believer of “live life with no regrets” wonder whether the whole thing had been a bad idea. As I alluded to earlier, living next door did not help matters.
When Julia started behaving strangely after that, I started to realize just how different it was to be a fourth year student. I mean, I’ve always said that I don’t understand why Julia acted so odd to me for the rest of the year – and indeed, I still don’t really know the formal reason – but I imagine it had something to do with her “first-year-ness” and how she understood the world. To a fourth year student like me, being rejected had become par for the course – but for her, perhaps the idea meant something different, and the widening chasm that appeared between us was what really drew me to the understanding that I was different and if I had any hopes of surviving my final year of undergrad, I would have to learn to embrace this role, which I quickly learned to do (if all the essays I spent the year editing are any kind of indication). So you see, Julia had a far larger effect on me than simply making me afraid of ever asking a girl out ever again... she made me realize that I, as a person, had grown and had come to understand relationships in a very different way. Back in first year, I probably never would have asked her out – or at the very least, I would have waited... probably at least one full semester, before doing so. But between first and fourth year, I changed in some ways – and a lot of it had to do with the girl at the top of this list (or bottom, I should say, since I’m going in reverse numerical order) – and I guess sometimes, you just can’t make up for that; you can’t make up for the time; you can’t make up for the experience of having gone through second and third year and what you learn during them. And I guess, that was a lesson I had to learn the hard way. But I did, in the end, learn from this experience, and in the end, it did change the way I understand myself and what it meant to be young and to age. And this, more than anything, is the reason why Julia is here.
9. Carin I was playing badminton with Carin one day when she volunteered to accompany me when I went to get a drink. Once we were alone, she told me she liked me. That was the first time anyone had ever done anything of the sort. I don’t remember very much about Carin – in fact, she goes so far back I don’t even have a song I associate with her because that was during a time when I lived in a cultural vacuum. This was way back in 2003, you see, and I was, at the time, just beginning to transition from the stoic, reticent, and socially-awkward Jon Wong of old, to the cool, confident, and socially-awkward Jon Wong of new. But like I was saying, I don’t remember very much about Carin – except for the fact that she was the first girl to ever confess that she liked me – but that was big, especially at the time. We were only kids, after all, and neither of us was really sure of what we were supposed to do once that revelation came out. I had a vague idea that I was either supposed to say something that ran along similar lines – that is, if I returned the sentiment... which I didn’t – or say something to diffuse the situation without upsetting her more than was necessary.
I don’t exactly remember what I said, but this speaks to something I have always told anyone who asked about what to say or do in similar situations. And that is that people will forget what you said; and people will forget what you did, too; but people will never forget how you made them feel. So while I don’t exactly remember what I said or did (nor do I really remember what she said or did), I remember feeling really good about the fact that someone liked me... and really bad that I didn’t return the sentiment. And considering this situation had never before occurred, I had no idea what I was supposed to do about it. One could argue that I remain clueless, even to this day, but back then, it really was a first experience like no other. In the end, we had a “relationship” of sorts – I figured there was always a possibility that I might grow to like her a lot more and everyone deserves a chance, after all.
In a lot of ways, Carin was a really good representation of that changing time in my life. Grant, more than anyone, understands how different of a person I used to be compared to the kind of person I am now, and one of those differences is the way I related to girls (as you may or may not have figured out by now, they began to play a far more significant role in my life as the years went on). Before Carin, I still saw girls as “desirable” in the sense of wanting to be with them, but she really did open up the idea of “being in a relationship” to me, even though my “relationship” with Carin was bizarre and probably not your “typical” relationship (but really, is there even such a thing as a “typical” relationship?). Before Carin, relationships were things that happened to other people. I wouldn’t even understand what it really meant to “be in a relationship” with someone. After Carin, I still didn’t fully understand what it meant – but I understood its appeal. And I understood how it could be simultaneously really warming and really sad at the same time. I understood that you didn’t necessarily have to like a girl to feel like you wanted to be with her – all that was necessary was for her to like you because sometimes, we fall in love with being loved; and that was dangerous because you weren’t really being fair to her, but there’s a selfish side of you that can’t bring yourself to let go of that feeling and sense of security.
I guess in the end, Carin was a big contributing factor as to why I was so careful about girls who liked me, who I wasn’t 100% sure that I liked in return. I still believed in giving someone a chance but I felt like I could never initiate anything unless I was the one who liked the girl rather than vice versa – it just didn’t seem fair to the girl. At least, that’s how I felt at the time.
8. Pearl Stars – Going, Going, Gone (Live) We were down at The Beach(es) and were sitting on an outcrop of rocks by the water. I remember at one point deciding to lie down because I simply got tired of sitting. As I began to lie down, I simultaneously realized in my head that this was probably a bad idea because even before I was fully laid down, I knew that the sun would be beating down on my face and I also knew that this would get really uncomfortable really fast. But there was nothing to be done! I was, after all, already in the process of lying down – the most I could do was enjoy my reclined position for 30 seconds before I would decide that I didn’t want to char my face to a crisp. All this passed through my head before I actually reached my final, fully reclined position on the rock. But just as I decided that I was an idiot, the sun mysteriously stopped beating down upon my face. Well, it wasn’t “mysterious” per se. I wasn’t really an idiot after all; I figured that Pearl had probably shifted her position and that she was now coincidentally blocking the sun out of my face. When I opened my eyes, I realized that it wasn’t a coincidence. Seeing that the sun was shining into my face, she had deliberately moved her head so that it was casting a shadow over said face. And as I looked up at her and realized that she was making a concerted effort not to move her head, I just remember thinking, “I am so glad to have met you.”
Pearl is just one of those girls who does the small things that you would never expect anyone to do. And regular readers of this blog probably already know why she’s on this list. Aside from being strangely attracted to her (and yes, it is rather strange when you think about the circumstances), Pearl is one of those girls who really did (and still does) have a great (not just in magnitude, but in an overall positive way) effect on the way I see the world. You see, for a period of time during the years I spent at Queen’s, I had begun to question whether the beliefs I held regarding the “reciprocation of friendship” were actually legitimate. From having a group of awesome friends in elementary school and high school, I had been led to believe that if you behaved like a good friend, did your part in maintaining these bonds, and kept faith in these people, those people who truly valued you as a person would likewise do their part in keeping your relationship healthy and equal. Back then, I had never really come across “flaky” friends, you see. Or rather, the demands of being in a small building on a daily basis negated the tendency for these flaky characteristics to rear their ugly heads. Residence, as I came to realize, had the same effect. You were never required to “make time” for people because you were pretty much forced to make time for them every day, simply by virtue of living together in such close quarters.
But I digress. During the middling years of university, I would quickly realize that either my beliefs regarding “friendships” had been severely inaccurate/ill-thought-out/ill-informed (not unlike the decision to reveal my feelings to a certain next-door neighbour), or else those people who I considered my friends didn’t really care about me and weren’t really my friends at all. Not exactly appealing choices though I hoped it was the former, rather than the latter.
I did eventually come to learn that there are friends who just suck at being friends. That might sound incredibly odd but it was true! There were people who seemed to legitimately care about me without being shining examples of friends who were willing to put forth the time and effort to maintain said friendship. And for the longest time, I could never understand it (I still don’t understand it, as evidenced by my post on flaky people) but at the very least, I came to accept it. I accepted the fact that, aside from Grant and a few other people in my life whom I had known from elementary school and days of yore, I would just never meet anyone ever again who would value my time and company as much as I valued hers (or his, but let’s be honest, I don’t make very many male friends… though I do have an odd tendency to keep the ones I make).
And then came Pearl. In a lot of ways, I was really attracted to her, not only because she bucked the trend of people taking days to reply or not returning phone calls/text messages or making plans and cancelling last minute, but also because she made me realize just how much my expectations of people have changed over these past years. I remember another time when I had called her during a time when she was horrifically sick and had lost her voice. She whispered into the phone that she was in a beaten state and that she would talk to me later. Fair enough. But then I got a text message from her literally 2 minutes after I put down the phone, telling me that she appreciated the call and that it made her feel better about her day. And I realized that this was something that, once upon a time, I could conceivably have seen myself doing – but somewhere along the line, I (and many others – thanks Neil Strauss) had gotten used to the idea that such displays of appreciation were over-the-top; that letting people know that you appreciate their attention meant that you were needy; and that the surest way to seem cool was to make it seem like you were the one who was always doing the other person a favour by giving them the time of the day. And while I had never fully bought into these philosophies, I realized that I had given into them to the extent that I thought that that was how everyone wanted the world to be like when really, no one wanted this at all – we were just too scared of losing our mojo by admitting that we could occasionally be on the receiving end of personal favours and attention.
7. Jessica Jack’s Mannequin – Dark Blue It was 3:30 in the morning. I was walking through the halls of residence, on my way back to my room, when I happened to walk by Jessica room. Turns out the other Jon had stumbled into her room in a drunken stupor and puked all over her bed and desk (how he managed to hit 2 articles of furniture on opposite ends of the room I’ll never understand but then again, I have seen too many cases of “How did you manage to get puke on the window/ceiling/under the mattress” to doubt that it’s possible). I remember helping her clean her room and get her stuff into the laundry, and as we waited for the washer and/or dryer, we began to get to know each other. I should perhaps mention that this was the first time we met. And there was this moment when she said, “You know, I was really upset when this happened originally, but I guess since I met you through it… it’s not so bad.”
Jessica is a good example of someone who was only in my life for a short period of time, yet had such a profound effect on me that I feel like no summation of the decade would be complete without her. I found myself hanging out with Jess a lot in first year – to the point where she almost became the first person I thought to see whenever I had a problem about anything. Part of that, I’m sure, had to do with the fact that she was second year so she really did have a lot more answers than anyone I knew from my own year. Another part, I am equally sure, had to do with the fact that she could charm the pants off me. But the third and most important reason why I ended up spending a lot of time with Jess in first year was because she made me feel safe. That is always the word I associated with how I felt when we hung out in her room (affectionately known as “The Submarine”). And where so much of being in first year was about going out and experiencing new things and understanding the world in new ways, I always found a sense of relief in being able to just hang out with someone who already knew the ropes.
From time to time, either Grant or I will attempt to tell people about how we sometimes depend upon a particular girl to keep our lives in balance. And this is something we have a hard time explaining to people because it sounds like we count on this girl for happiness and then everyone flies off the handle about how you shouldn’t depend on someone else for your happiness and so on. And in a lot of ways, this is true. But it’s not like we necessarily need someone in the sense that we need a girlfriend (although having a girlfriend makes this 10x less complicated while being 10x more awesome) – we just need someone to tell us when we’re being stupid, seem happy to see/hear from us, and makes us feel like we would be missed if we died. In a sense, one could say that we just need a girl friend, not necessarily a girlfriend. And while I don’t disagree with this sentiment, I might also mention that this kind of bond we seek is rare.
For a good portion of my first year, Jess was as good of a girl friend as anyone could ask. Again, this goes back to what I said the Julia segment – residence makes this kind of thing much easier because Jessica and I were not obliged to set time aside for each other (when she was called upon to do this, everything pretty much fell apart – which is why she really only had any sort of profound impact on my first year at Queen’s). But within the context of my very first year at Queen’s, I can’t even begin to imagine what it would have been like if it weren’t for the fact that I had happened to be skulking around at 3:30 in the morning and if the other Jon had not happened to have stumbled into her room, drunk as a dingbat, and puked on her, well, everything. She was the closest thing I had to a “safe haven” during first year – someone to whom I could just talk freely and with whom I could be made to feel like I matter – and something tells me that if that had continued beyond our time together on Gord 5, she would be much higher upon this list. But then again, I guess I could say the same thing for a lot of girls in my life (and on this list). Ultimately, that’s the one danger of allowing the flux of your life to be dictated by the bonds you share with girls – unless you’re very lucky, you’ll be forced to let them go and build them up again (including that very depressing and unhappy period in between when you’re doing neither). And I mean, we all know this; it’s the main reason why people always say it’s a bad idea to build your life around girls. What a lot of people have problems understanding is why Grant and I are prepared to accept that. And I guess that’s what this entire post (if you’ve made it through to this point, congratulations, you’re almost halfway through!) is really about. It really boils down to one simple idea: the girls in our lives are the only reasons why we have ever felt infinite.
6. Rachel Rockapella – Brown Eyed Girl Speaking of feeling infinite, there was this one time in first year when Courtney, Jessica (not the Jessica from above (1979)), Tanya, and Rachel (collectively, affectionately known as The Doorbell Room) threw a giant party. This was nothing new. It was the first weekend back from the winter break, after all. What I do remember was that it was a great party. I mean, there were many great parties that took place there but this one was really good. But the moment I felt infinite actually took place after the party. Tanya was mysteriously absent that weekend and Rachel and I just started talking in their (hers and Tanya’s) room as the party began to wind down. Courtney and Jessica decided to go to bed somewhere around the vicinity of 2 AM. Four hours later, Rachel and I made the same decision. I don’t remember what we talked about during those four hours. But I definitely remember feeling infinite. And like I once said (in the voice of a fictional character), I wasn’t sure what I was doing or why I was doing it; all I was sure of was that I wouldn’t have done it for any other girl. I always tell people nowadays that it was the longest night of my life – and it really was. Not only because I stayed up so godawfully late, but also because when I got back to my room, the sun had not yet risen (it was January) and by the time I woke up, the sun had already set. I slept through the entire “day” portion of that next day (<-- ha!)… and I was completely ok with it. Because of her.
I had a bit of a pash for Rachel back then. She was a bit of an oddball but really was adorable at the same time. I also remember going through a rough patch during the later November/December of 2005 and I’m pretty sure that the only thing that prevented me from becoming horribly depressed was the fact that Rachel pretty much cheered me up single-handedly. You always remember those who were around during times when you were euphorically happy and manically depressed – something about those times enhances your susceptibility to be deeply affected by something or someone. And I do remember going down to the Doorbell Room looking for Courtney and finding only Rachel, who proceeded to invite me to hang out for awhile before charming the pants off me with all her talk about druids and conjoined twins.
It was hard to read Rachel. It really was. You see, I eventually realized that she basically had 2 moods: content and tired. In other words, if she wasn’t tired, she was content. And even when she was tired, she was tired in a content sort of way. I’m probably doing her a massive injustice but that’s what I personally felt every time I was around her. I had no idea whether she ever got depressed; I don’t know if she was ever unhappy; all I ever knew of Rachel was that she was content. In a lot of ways, this worried me. Because ever since we stayed up all night, I realized that I did have a pash for this girl. And not only that, but everyone around me seemed cognizant of it. And yet, it was impossible to tell if Rachel reciprocated the feelings. This was not only because I only saw one side of her personality (as if this didn’t make reading her hard enough), but also because she, as I found out, was naturally inclined towards using physical contact in a friendly sort of way.
You see, for most people, I tell them, “If a girl or guy starts touching you, they’re probably attracted to you at some innate level”. And for most people, this is true. I mean, it was true for Rachel as well. But what makes this significant for most people is that most people don’t touch other people unless they’re attracted to them. For Rachel, physical contact seemed par for the course – she didn’t need to be attracted to you to touch you, she just needed to like you, even if it was only in a friendly capacity. So I never really knew if Rachel ever liked me as much as I liked her. But more than that – I eventually realized that while I did really like Rachel, I also could never grow close to her. I could never tell her about my problems because she never seemed to have any. I could never tell her how I felt because I wasn’t sure she’d understand what it meant to feel (<-- this is almost certainly untrue but I’ve never seen any proof of it; I just think it’s untrue because I find it hard to believe that you could be human and not feel). I remember talking to Courtney about this once and realizing how odd and idiotic it would sound to anyone who hadn’t met Rachel. I mean, imagine if you overheard a conversation where someone asked someone else, “Does Rachel feel?” Like, that’s just outrageous. Of course she feels; everyone feels! Before Rachel, I would have frowned and had that exact reaction. But anyone who’s hung around Rachel on a regular basis will understand that this was not a silly question; perhaps an unfair question, but hardly a silly one.
Like Jessica, Rachel didn’t really have too much of an effect on my life beyond first year. Unlike Jessica, I actually saw Rachel on a fairly consistent basis throughout the remainder of undergrad but by that time, I had pretty much figured out that I couldn’t talk to her about anything personal. And for someone like me, it’s really hard to feel genuinely connected to someone with whom I couldn’t share anything personal. I guess I was always afraid that Rachel would have some common sense/unemotional response to anything I might have to say about anything personal. And I realize, now, that I was perhaps not giving her enough credit. But then again, I never said I was perfect. What I do know is that for a period of time during first year, I remember being happy. Not just content; not just ok; happy. And genuine happiness means so much, even if it’s only for a short time… and it was because of Rachel.
5. Elaine blink 182 – Going Away To College On a Saturday in and around February/March of 2004, Elaine was supposed to come over to my house to practice for the talent show. She, Grant, and I had formed a band that year and being the drummer, everyone had to come to me for practice. Elaine was never very consistent with keeping appointments – it was one of those flaws about her that I always just accepted. And I remember the phone ringing and me thinking “Ugh, that’s probably Elaine calling to say that last minute, her mom told her she couldn’t come” – to be fair to Elaine, most of the time, she was forced to cancel on things last minute because of her crazy mother. But much to my surprise, she had called to ask if she could come earlier than the original time to which we had agreed. That was fine with me. I’ll always remember that afternoon, waiting for Grant to arrive, hanging out on the couch, just laughing and talking and – for me – feeling infinite.
For much of my high school years, Elaine was my best friend. I mean, Grant was my best friend too but I’ve always held that you’re allowed to have a best friend from both genders because the dynamics between a guy and a girl are so different from the dynamics between a guy and another guy that they’re not really comparable. At any rate, Elaine really was my best friend. But at the same time, Elaine also repeatedly found herself in relationships because she liked dating. It helped that almost every guy at our school found her attractive. It also helped that there weren’t very many attractive girls at our school. I never really had a problem with this. Some of you might find this hard to believe but I really didn’t. All that mattered to me was that at the end of the day, Elaine would happily make time for me if I wanted it and oftentimes, even if I didn’t ask for it, and I would do the same for her. She’s probably the only girl on this list who wasn’t madly in love with me who cared about me as much as I cared about her.
That period in 2004, when we were practicing for the talent show, was one of the greatest times of my life. People like Grant, Brett, Andrew, and Kristina had a lot to do with this too but Elaine was really at the center of everything. You see, this was the one short period during the entire time I knew her that she didn’t have a boyfriend. And while it’s not like she didn’t give me my fair share of the time pie when she was dating (in fact, oftentimes, she would give me more than my fair share, which sometimes irked her significant others) the fact that she was single meant that she suddenly had this big wedge of her time pie that she had perpetually set aside for her boyfriends. I got almost all of it. And it was amazing. If there was ever a time in my life when I loved this girl, that was probably it.
As I said, that time in my life – January to April of 2004 – was one of the best segment of my high school career (and indeed, of this decade). Life was just so good. Elaine and I were closer than ever; Grant was Grant; my grades were soaring; Andrew was fast become a hilarious and integral part of my life; David, Rosanne, and Hisham kept me in touch with people in my own grade and were great friends; the badminton team, of which I was captain, was going full swing; the talent show was giving me a goal to work towards; it just seemed like life couldn’t get any better at the time. I didn’t even think about the fact that I was single because Elaine practically eliminated any desire for a girlfriend. For the record, I think that this last thing axed my ability to recognize that apparently, both Rosanne AND Kristina were madly attracted to me at this time (ergh…).
Aside from that delicious segment of my grade 11 year, Elaine was just… always prepared to be everything I ask for in a best friend. Even when you take romantic feelings completely out of the picture, there’s just something about being around a girl who likes you that’s different from being around a guy who likes you. And Elaine was a HUGE influence on just about everything in my life that was positive. Aside from badminton, I joined a lot of sports teams. Why? Because Elaine tried out for them and encouraged me to join her. From there, I turned into a pretty damn good athlete. I joined the talent show. Why? Because Elaine thought it would be fun for us to perform on stage. From there, I learned to play the guitar and drums, and in the end, LOVED being a part of it. I took on leadership roles at school because Elaine encouraged me and told me I’d be good at them. Long story short, Elaine was at the bottom of almost everything GOOD that I experienced at TCMS. Oh yeah, I also only met Andrew Kott because she dated him for awhile.
4. Kristina Evanescence – My Immortal I was at my computer night in grade 11 when Kristina messaged me on MSN. When I asked her how things were going, she informed that she was thinking of buying a sword. I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t think of anything to say except, “What?!” She followed this message by sending me a slew of pictures that depicted medieval swords and she said had narrowed down her choices to those select few. And I just remember laughing at that whole scene. It was just so cute and so ridiculous and as I would eventually learn... so Kristina.
There were many moments I cherish with Kristina. Looking back on this decade, I’m a little surprised to realize that of all the girls I have known, she and I have known each other longer than anyone else on this list. I guess it’s surprising because Kristina sort of came and went throughout the decade and there was never a period of time that I could peg as a time that was defined solely, and wholly, by her. Elaine (see above) had a lot to do with this. I mentioned about how Elaine’s sudden wave of attention during grade 11 made me blind to the fact that other girls at the time liked me. For Rosanne, that was definitely true. I remember being informed of this fact and actually being completely blindsided by the knowledge. Kristina I guess not so much. And in a lot of ways, I feel like I never treated Kristina very fairly. To her credit, she says she never felt that way, even when I spoke to her recently about it.
Kristina’s time in this decade really should be split into two. The first was my grade 11/12 year and the second was this past year. But about the first part… I admit, I wasn’t completely shocked to find out that Kristina really liked me. For the longest time, though, I couldn’t figure out why. You only had to look at Kristina to realize what I meant. Let’s not mince words. Kristina is BEAUTIFUL. Not merely cute, or pretty, or charming, or magnetic, but full on beautiful. I wouldn’t be able to understand it now, let alone back when I was 16 and was a lot less confident about my own self worth. It’s not so much that I thought she was too good for me or anything as clichéd as that; I just… it seemed to strange to me that someone that good looking could like me as much as she did.
You see where I’m going with this? At that point in my life, I wasn’t really thinking/concerned about being single. Elaine saw to that. I suppose if I had REALLY liked Kristina back then, that wouldn’t have mattered either way. But – and I’m being honest here – I didn’t like Kristina that much back then. Actually, that sounds really bad. I don’t mean that I disliked Kristina in any way. I mean I didn’t really have any romantic feelings for her. I loved Kristina as a girl; I just didn’t like her “in that way” as we were so fond of saying. I guess it had a lot to do with the fact that she was in grade 9 and I was in grade 11. Obviously now, 2 years is practically nothing. Back then, though, she and I were rather different in that sense. I was already pretty mature for my age (that, I’m sure, had something to do with the fact that I hung out with Elaine, who was a year my senior, and Grant, who was 2 years older than me). And while not immature, Kristina was right about where most girls are when they’re 14 and in grade 9. So the first thing was that I did not fall in love with Kristina at first sight. Then, the second thing was that I didn’t really give myself a chance to love Kristina because at the time, dating wasn’t exactly at the forefront of my mind.
And I guess that speaks to something I sorta learned about relationships. Even if you’re single, being busy can, in some way, kill off your desire to be in a relationship. It’s not so much that you don’t want to be in one; it’s just that when you’re busy (especially if you’re busy doing stuff you genuinely liked), you don’t experience those moments of loneliness or moments when you have nothing else to think about so your mind turns to companionship. That, I guess, can sometimes be good or bad. Hypothetically speaking, if I had met Kristina now (and she was single), I probably would ask her out. And that has to do a lot with the fact that I find myself less busy now than I was in high school. As silly as this might seem, I didn’t have TIME in high school to feel lonely and wish for companionship. My life in grade 11 wasn’t the kind of life that would make you think about having a girlfriend all the time the way my life now does. Obviously, if a girl came in and blew me away, I don’t think I would have declined the chance. But Kristina didn’t. And I think the surest sign of this was that I don’t REGRET not having asked her out. And that’s not to say that it wouldn’t have worked out if I had tried; it just means I didn’t give myself a chance to love Kristina. That’s something very important I learned from her: you can fall in love, and you can learn to love.
Make no mistake though, Kristina was a lovely girl and really did shape my grade 11/12 years in ways I only now appreciate. Like I said, I found out recently that back then, she really liked me. I did not know this. I thought she had a pash for me, yes, but I apparently, she liked me a little more than that. So I’m still not sure whether or not I accidentally did things to lead her on in high school. She denies I did. I hope she’s not just lying for my sake. I honestly can’t remember. After I graduated, we saw each other sporadically from time to time. For some reason, though, we started hanging out again this past summer. That’s how I found out just how much of an effect I had on her life. Basically, I had the same effect on her that Elaine had on me… except that Kristina was a lot more nervous around me than I was around Elaine (she explained that when I used to comment about the fact that her hands were occasionally damp, it was only because she broke out into a nervous sweat around me… yeah I know, I’m an idiot). Kristina, I am happy to say, is happily dating (and will likely soon be engaged to) a guy named Tom. I guess she just wanted to let me know that I affected her life. I wish I could show her this. She deserves to know that she affected mine as well.
Kristina also reaffirmed my belief that sometimes, girls actually mean it when they say they’re looking for someone who’s smart, funny, and “talented” (whatever the hell that means). I’m not trying to be cynical but seriously, sometimes I wondered if girls meant this. I know that girls do (although I can’t say with what frequency without generalizing) turn down smart, funny, and talented guys right? So sometimes I don’t know. But I asked Kristina, since she seemed to be in the mood to be completely honest, why she liked me so much and she said, “Well, you were at a pretty high standard in education, music and sports… I always went for talent and brains over anything else… and you were definitely talented and smart… and another important thing for me is that a guy makes me laugh.” Now, I’m not just posting this to toot my own horn, I’m just pointing out that Kristina apparently went by these ideals wholeheartedly. She said that being in the modelling industry made her realize that beauty is common or something of the sort. Ack, what a girl…
3. Courtney Something Corporate – Konstantine I was sitting on my porch at Camp Kennybrook one evening with my kids asleep in the cabin and Paul off gallivanting about with some German waitress. In my hands, I held a CD player and a list of songs that were on the CD I was about to listen to. As I hit play, I read the “instructions” in the note, which informed me that I was supposed to “lay back and let it [the song] wash over me”. So I did. And as I lay there, listening to Jump Little Children’s Mexico for the first time, I felt at peace with myself for the first time during my stay with that summer camp.
Courtney’s mixtape is only one of the many things she did throughout the latter half of this decade that made me feel good about myself and life. Trying to encapsulate the effect she’s had on my life would be like trying to encapsulate all my years at Queen’s into a few choice paragraphs.
I remember, at some point in first year, overhearing Dave Griese mention something how Courtney was in our frosh group, at which point I burst in and said, “Wait, what? Courtney was in our frosh group?” to which he frowned and answered, “Well how else did you think you met her?” You see, Courtney, at some point, early on in first year, had ceased to be known as “Courtney, the girl from my frosh group,” and had become, “Courtney, the girl from The Doorbell Room.” This Doorbell Room was probably the most significant location of first year because it became the place I went to when I left my floor. When I lived in residence during fourth year, I heard about first years going out to Legendball Z (the equivalent of the Kokomo back in my day), or going to keggars and weird, sketchy, house-parties, and realized that this was a side of being underage and in first year that I (thankfully) never had to experience because The Doorbell Room pretty much became a safe, easily accessible, and popular place to be on the weekends.
There was something wonderful about being around Courtney in first year. I remember Grant being surprised that I had taken up social drinking at Queen’s when I had steadfastly refused to partake in alcohol consumption with him at Mac. And I told him that the difference was that I never felt pressured to drink at Queen’s the way I felt pressured to do so at Mac. In the same way, I never felt pressured to be cool or socially outgoing at Queen’s because people like Courtney never looked down on you if your presence didn’t somehow enhance their social status (again, something that would frequently happen at Mac). If it weren’t for Courtney, I honestly don’t know what my first year at Queen’s would have been like – all I know is that it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good and fulfilling without her.
Courtney always had a funny knack for understanding me. I guess that shouldn’t really be surprising since I’ve always felt that there was this… link, I should say, between her and Grant. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s not like they were the same person; it just seemed like their minds worked very similarly. And since Grant always seems to understand me perfectly, it’s not really a stretch to understand that Courtney is pretty good at this too. When I was Queen’s, it always felt like I could talk to Courtney without worrying that she might misinterpret what I had to say.
Misinterpretation has always been a big issue for me. In some ways, I almost think of it like the root of every problem I’ve ever encountered. I’ve always held the belief that deep down, there are very few people who are inherently bad. However, one of the most common flaws about human nature is our inability to think beyond ourselves. People have a very hard time understanding that just because other people don’t see things the same way they do, that doesn’t necessarily make them wrong. We’re always so inclined to think “We’ll, I don’t see it that way. And since my way of seeing things is so obviously and clearly the right way of seeing things, they must be seeing it wrong” that it’s hard for us to understand that we don’t have to be wrong in order for someone else with a different opinion to be right. This is something that people preach about all the time but always forget when it really boils down to an occasion where someone disagrees with them on something.
But disagreements aside, I always feel like if you take the time and effort to truly understand someone else’s viewpoint without trying to shove your bias down their throat, you will come to understand that they’re not as unreasonable or illogical as you might think. With this understanding in mind, I always try to turn this around whenever I explain things to people, i.e. I try to do so in a way that’s very clear, laid out step by step, and logical so that by the end of it, they’ll have understood exactly how I’ve reached my conclusion. It’s like the difference between simply saying, “There’s nothing more to life than girls” vs. explaining, step-by-step, everything that contributes to the reason why I say this, because I worry that people won’t understand exactly what I mean by it.
Tying this all back to Courtney, I’ve always felt like she was someone who didn’t require the lengthy, detailed, explanations I had become accustomed to always doling out in an effort to substantiate some of my more vague or generalized statements. It’s like somehow, she’s able to interpret what I say exactly the way I want to be interpreted – and to feel like someone’s “got it” is just… such a comforting and satisfying feeling. Courtney “gets it” a lot. I always think back to all times I talk about what it means to be a “nice guy” – something I’ve always had a hard time explaining to people who aren’t nice guys – and I remember getting tired of the fact that people only ever had 2 kinds of responses to this: a. “Nice guys aren’t really disadvantaged; they’re just using their niceness as an excuse,” and b. “Well maybe you’d be better off if you were less of a nice guy.”
Facepalm. But then, I brought this topic up twice with Courtney: once regarding Julia and once regarding Pearl. And both times, I remember Courtney’s responses being… just so understanding and bang on that it prompted me to say: “Do you know what I consider to be one of your best traits ever? It’s that no matter how often I talk about ‘nice guys’ in whatever context, you somehow find a way to acknowledge the faults and shortcomings of being a nice guy without ever implying that I would be better off if I was less of one.” Courtney just seems to understand all the grey areas in ways that people not named Grant sometimes have a hard time seeing. Like the nice guy issue. I mean, that’s such a huge and integral part of my life (this idea of what it means to be a nice guy) and Courtney, so far, is the only girl I’ve ever known who’s actually understood why it’s so personal to me. There are downsides to being a nice guy (once again… thanks Neil Strauss…); sometimes, it is a shortcoming; it’s just one of those flaws in our society. But at the same time, it’s important to be nice; there is far more moral worth in being a nice guy. It’s just that being a nice guy comes with a price. And just because I’m willing to pay this price doesn’t mean that I’ve given up my right to point out the injustice of the price I pay.
I might also mention that Courtney has always had great faith in me, both as an aspiring teacher, and as an aspiring writer. You all know that before I started my informal writing project, I’d been toying around with the idea for sometime. But do you know what made me decide, once and for all, to actually start writing it? It was this very simple, but very adamant and clear message from Courtney: “YOU NEED TO WRITE BOOKS!” Sometimes, all you need is for someone to kick you in the butt. I owe you for that one, Courtney (on top of everything else I owe you).
2. Stephanie Story of the Year – Sidewalks We were running through the dress rehearsal in 2005 and I was working through some housekeeping details with Mr. Campo and Ms. Brooke when I heard Stephanie call my name. I held up my hand to indicate that I needed a minute. A minute later, I heard her call my name again; this time, from the stage. “What?!” I demanded, as I turned to her with feigned irritation (back then, it was hard for me to get irritated at Steph but I didn’t want her to know this). “I want to sing you a song!” she said. And I remember looking up at the stage and watching/listening to Stephanie sing Feels Like Home to me and just… taking in the fact that this was happening to me. After she was done, she winked at me, then walked off the stage.
Stephanie holds the distinction of being the source of more moments where I felt infinite than any other person I’ve known. I mean, there was this one time I was at my locker during homeroom when she walked by and asked if I had any food. I gave her a cereal bar I happened to have brought that day and without warning, she threw herself into my arms and screamed, “I love you, I love you, I love you!” On the one hand, it was horrifically embarrassing (my English teacher happened to oversee this and laughed at me for the rest of the school year). On the other hand, it was also hilarious, charming, and actually pretty amazing. I mean, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s this: nothing can ever really be all that embarrassing if you end up with a pretty girl in your arms. Just ask any guy who’s held someone. Third Eye Blind said it best in their classic song, Semi-Charmed Life: “When I’m with you, I feel like I could die and that would be alright… alright.” And I remember feeling this way with Stephanie oh so many times.
You see, when Elaine and Grant both graduated, I prepared myself for a less than stellar grade 12 year. And in some ways, grade 12 really was less stellar than grade 11. I guess that’s what happens when your two best friends graduate before you. In fact, for a lot of that year, Grant wasn’t even in the country (he'd gone off gallivanting about the States and London). Elaine was miles away at the University of Western Ontario. Now, that’s not to say that I wasn’t having a great time at school. It was still a lot of fun and I remember how great it was to have a spare period (oh man, were those periods AWESOME or what?). On top of that, I was still doing the sports teams and the talent show and the Model UN (which would also turn out to be loads of fun). I was still busy, but there’s just something different about not having a girl in my life. And then came Stephanie.
I had actually met Stephanie the year before. She and Kristina were best friends so I got to know them both at the same time. Kristina had always been far more inclined to attach herself to me (for reasons I now understand) but I do remember hanging out with Steph from time to time when I was in grade 11 and thinking she was a cute and fun (if somewhat alarming) girl to be around. Now, I’ve never understood how or why this happened but at some point during the early days of second semester, Stephanie decided that I wasn’t getting enough attention from her. That was probably true in a way that didn’t concern me in the least. I wasn’t getting very much attention from her because I never asked for it. While Steph and I had always enjoyed each other’s company, it never occurred to me that we should hang out more often than we already did. But like I said, it was as if she decided that my life needing spicing up and that she was going to affect this change. And boy did she ever…
It wasn’t until I started hanging out with Stephanie on a much more frequent basis that I realized that I really liked her. She just had this way of appealing to me that charmed the pants off me if she tried. She just never tried until I was halfway through grade 12. Like I said, I don’t understand why she just suddenly made this decision. But it’s not as if I was about to stop her. I mean, she still alarmed me (she was a volatile person – rattling her was like shaking a beaker of some unstable compound) but for some reason, that just added to her charm; love works in mysterious ways sometimes…
Over the course of my last semester in high school, Stephanie became a big reason behind why I enjoyed it as much as I did. It’s like what I said in my introduction to this whole thing – life just becomes so much more interesting and rich when there’s a girl in my life who colors and affects everything I do during a time period. I can’t even think “Grade 12 second semester” without thinking “Stephanie”. It’s one of those things where she just happened to be at the right place at the right time. The fact that it was my last ever semester in high school heightened my sensitivity to everything that was happening to me at the time and Stephanie was right in the middle of it. And when a girl is the source behind so many moments where you felt infinite… I guess that’s really why she’s up so high on this list.
Somehow, I feel like I wouldn’t be doing justice to Stephanie’s place in this decade without explaining why I no longer talk to her. I mean, she’s not the only girl on this list with whom I’ve lost touch. But I guess there’s something really sad about this story and unlike every other girl here, the reason why she’s no longer in my life is almost as significant as the fact that she was a part of it at all.
Grant was telling me about a girl he once knew named Heidi. She went to our high school and according to Grant, she originally started off as a really sweet but insecure girl who just wanted to fit in. And over time, she started drifting further and further from who she was when he first met her, towards a lifestyle and personality that just was so different from her original self that it caused him to just think to himself, “How did this happen?” Grant will most likely give much further details about this in his own version of this list (if he ever gets around to posting it), but I realized, when he was telling me about Heidi, that I knew this story. Because in a lot of ways, that’s how I felt about Stephanie.
To be fair to her, I think Stephanie’s happy with who she is now; just like how Heidi’s probably happy with who she is now too. You’ll have to remember that this is probably a very biased opinion, coming from me, but I personally loved the Stephanie of old…
You see, when Stephanie first arrived at our high school, she was a little unsure of who she was. She was never really shy but she was going through a time where things were different… and then she started dating someone and… ugh, let me just quote a song:
‘Cause when you’re fifteen and somebody tells they love you You’re gonna believe it And when you’re fifteen feeling like there’s nothing to figure out Well, count to ten, take it in This is life before you know who you’re gonna be Fifteen
Taylor Swift. Back then, Stephanie was a girl who had never worn a spot of makeup in her life. She didn’t really need to; she was naturally pretty. I know this for a fact because she didn’t start wearing makeup until the next year. Her self-confidence wasn’t exactly at its peak (particularly true after her break-up) and I guess… deep down, Stephanie was afraid of not being accepted. In fact, to anyone who got to knew her, Stephanie must have seemed like a mass of contradictions. She was, by nature, sensitive and down-to-earth, but she also covered a lot of that up by being loud (and I’m sure some people found it to be of the obnoxious variety), out-going, and fun-loving. And when I first met her, all these contradictions were, in a lot of ways, really adorable. She was throwing all her fears and insecurities to the wind and daring the world to exploit them.
Back then, despite being pretty, Stephanie was an oddball in a lot of ways and, like I said, somewhat alarming and prone to causing a scene. And to people like Andrew Kott, Grant, or I, these were things about her that we loved; her quirks made her unique and we saw her struggle to come to terms with herself as something to be respected.
By that time next year, things were beginning to change. It was almost like everyone in the school suddenly awoke to the fact that Stephanie was pretty and unique and charming. And just like that, almost everything about her became attractive. While people used to look askance at the fact that Steph sang at the top of her lungs in the halls, they now looked at it like just another one of those quirks that made her stand out among her peers. Stephanie, very quickly, became one of the most popular girls in school. With that rise in social status came a change in her personality that I almost didn’t notice because it was just so in-line with what she always used to do. And what I mean by that is this:
When I first met her, Stephanie would always be prepared to do something embarrassing in public. But back then, it was an act of defiance. It was like a dare to see if anyone would give her a dirty look… but you knew that if someone did say something, it would hurt her. And that’s true for a lot of the embarrassing things we do, isn’t it? We count on the fact that people will respect the fact that we risked our pride; and it’s that risk, more than the actual act itself, that people respect. Fast forward 2 years (by this time I was in first year university) and while Stephanie was still prepared to do something embarrassing in public, it was no longer an act of defiance. She was no longer afraid of what other people thought of her because she was confident enough of herself to not be bothered by this.
That, in itself, wasn’t a bad thing. On the contrary, it was good that Stephanie had gained a sort of self-confidence that she lacked when I first met her. But you see she had also, as I mentioned, risen in social status. And somehow, she started to become all those things that she had once only tried to be. Like I said, it was adorable when she wanted to be accepted and thus flirted with boys because she was afraid of leaving the decision in their hands. It wasn’t quite so adorable when she became someone who just liked flirting with boys. Even though she was probably doing it for fun either way, it came from a Stephanie that began to seem alien to me.
But all that was merely a lead up to the thing that really caused the rift between us. Like I said, she’s probably happy with who she is now and probably likes her current self far more than the girl she used to be. Even though I liked the old Stephanie, it’s not like she had to answer to me or take what I wanted into account. Up until this point, I’m not condemning who she became or what she did. I’m merely pointing out how she was changing. And maybe I would have been ok with this and learned to love the new Stephanie. But before I could find out, something happened to Stephanie that I do condemn: she became far more superficial and self-centered. She started to worry about how things would affect her social status. She forgot about what it was like to want to be accepted. She became a lot flakier (there’s that word again) and while these were things that saddened me immensely, I knew that she no longer cared enough about my opinion to change for my sake. Eventually, I just slowly stopped making the effort to contact her… and she didn’t care enough to ask why.
1. Katie Mae – The Everglow It was 2008. I was walking through Mackintosh-Corry Hall the week after reading week when, from afar, I spotted Katie walking towards my general direction (a long narrow hall has that advantage – everyone’s either walking with you or towards your general direction). We had never really said very much to each other before besides the occasion “Hi” and a wave – although this was something we had been doing for pretty much the entire year (ever since she held the door open for me in late September and greeted me by name). During reading week, however, I had talked to Grant about Katie and literally awoke to the realization that she was cute, interesting, and friendly. So I made the decision to actually talk to her for once, which brings us back to the original story. I had figured that because we had never formally spoken to each other before, I would have to prevent her from walking past me like we had done on literally every other occasion throughout the year. I also figured that this would be awkward but I was prepared to accept this. However, whether it was my body language or the way I greeted her, she must have instinctively sensed that I felt inclined to linger and talk for a bit because she slowed down even before I got to her. In that moment, I had one thought: “Oh man, what have I gotten myself into?” And it wasn’t in the sense of realizing that it was a bad idea, it was an appreciation of the knowledge that I had no idea what I was doing, why I was doing it, or what I wanted to happen.
You see, I never really knew Katie all that well. It wasn’t like Julia or Stephanie or Rachel or Pearl, where I had gotten to know them and realized that I was highly attracted to them or what I knew of them. This is going to sound outrageous and schmaltzy but I fell in love with Katie. Literally. For all I knew, she might have been completely wrong for me; she might have hated everything I cherished; she might have loved Will Ferrellian comedies! But if she did, I wanted to find out. As insane as this sounds (and I am aware that it does) I was willing to risk everything – the time, the energy, the pride – not for the perfect girl, but for the possibility that she might be. That was the interesting thing about Katie. I don’t know why she had the effect of reducing me to an incoherent, babbling fool every time I spoke to her. She wasn’t the most attractive girl I had ever met so I wasn’t intimidated by her beauty (knowing Kristina had pretty much ixnayed the likelihood of my being “blown away” by beauty at any rate), she wasn’t the loudest, quietest, cleverest, or most talented girl I had ever met (or if she was, I didn’t know it). There was really no “logical” reason she should have had the effect on me that she that she did; there was just something about Katie that reduced “logic” to the realm of the irrelevant. I didn’t fall in love with her intelligence (though she displayed plenty of it in class), her charm, or any specific trait, I fell in love with Katie – the girl – and nothing else really seemed to matter.
I wrote a letter to Katie before she left for Japan, and over the summer, I wrote her a second one. Some of you might remember that second one. It was a hypothetical epistle that ran like so:
Dear (Katie)
They say that you need to give things time in order to put them in perspective. I figured one year was enough. In fact, I think 6 months was enough but I waited the extra 6 just to make sure. I always told myself that if I ever got a chance to talk to you ever again, I'd thank you for making the kind of difference you did to my life.
You see, when we first started talking to each other, I was in a bad place in my life. I mean, it wasn't a terrible place in any practical or economic sense; I was going to school, getting decent grades, eating well and exercising, and fairly sure that teacher's college was the right place for me. So it wasn't bad in that sense. But you see, I felt like I was... emotionally frigid, I guess is as good of a term as any other. I remember watching A LOT of films during those months, mostly because I felt like I couldn't feel (<-- ha!) and watching a particularly affective film was my way of making sure that my heart was capable of doing more than just pump blood through my arteries. As you can probably guess, I wasn't DOING a whole lot with my life either besides the basic necessities. Part of that had to do with laziness and part of it had to do with... apathy, I guess is the right word. I could never convince myself that making the effort to do things was worth it; or rather, I didn't run into/create any situations/opportunities that I cared enough about to actually risk or expend the energy/time/pride required to see it through...
And then I met you. Formally met you at least (formally meeting you = us talking about Thomas De Quincey between classes in the middle of Mac-Corry). And to this day, I still don't know why this happened or what it was about you that made this happen (probably a culmination of a lot of small things), but for some reason or another, I felt instinctively that you were worth it. You were worth the time; the energy; the pride. For the first time in a long time, I found something... someone about whom I cared enough, to actually risk an all-or-nothing-type situation. And not only that, I realized that I was prepared to see it through all the way, even if it turned out to be nothing.
You were always conscious of my feelings. I know that, now, a year later. And perhaps this is the thing I wanted to thank you for the most. Not only for pulling me out of my funk and helping me realize that I could still care enough about someone to risk my feelings/pride for her. But for turning me down in such a way that didn't kill my belief in sacrificing the safe for a chance at something better. And since then, not only have I regained my ability to feel for all the things and all the people who deserve compassion, empathy, and consideration, but I have also developed a new appreciation for deciding what's important to you and trying, for all the world is worth, to prove that you care. This is why they tell you that you never know whose life you've affected. You've certainly touched mine and made one helluva difference. I guess that's why I still think about you from time to time. Even a year later.
I remember thinking about Katie after the situation with Julia burst into flames. And I just remember realizing that what happened with Julia could easily have happened between Katie and me if she had wanted it to. Katie could have chosen to make things really awkward between us; she could have decided to not speak to me for the rest of the year; she could have really killed my belief in taking chances for things that were important to you. And she could have done so with ten times the potency that Julia did because Katie was ten times more important to me than Julia. Instead, everything that happened between Katie and I turned into a learning experience. In fact, Katie inspired a lot of ideas I eventually used in my informal writing project; ideas that I only realized through having gone through this irrational and thankfully not emotionally scarring period of my life. Here’s a snippet (hey look, it’s Jon Wong sharing some more of his informal writing piece):
“You know how people say that we shouldn’t have regrets because no one knows the future so we can only make decisions based on what we know at the time?”
“Yeah. And I admit that.”
“Right. But you know how even though we don’t ‘regret’ in that sense, we still sometimes ask ourselves, ‘If I had known that things would turn out the way they did, would I have done it?’? As in, even though we know we couldn’t have known the future, we ask the hypothetical question: if we could, by some miracle, have seen the future, would we have done it anyway, knowing we would fail?”
“Yeah. And with a lot of things, most people would probably say that they wouldn’t have done it if they knew they were going to fail. And well, that’s not so unreasonable is it?”
“Of course not. But when it comes to love, I learned that sometimes, I look back on an unrequited love affair and realize that I would have done it all again in a heartbeat; even if I knew it would fail. And I think that that’s how you know whether or not you simply got… caught up in the situation, you know.
“And I think… if you look back on an unrequited love and say to yourself, ‘If I had known it wouldn’t have worked out, I never would have made the effort,’ then what you had wasn’t… real. Maybe you were just in love with the feeling of being in love. But if you really were in love with the girl – that’s real. And you don’t regret the love you felt for her, even if she didn’t return your love. And you don’t regret the things you did for the sake of it, even if they didn’t work out, because you recognize that you did them for a reason: you found something – someone – that was worth the time, emotion, or pride. That’s when you know that, even though things didn’t work out between you and this girl, something good happened, despite the fact that you failed.
“It’s like when people say that something’s worth dying for. You can’t know that something is worth dying for, if you live. It has to be worth dying for, as you lay dying. And I’m not saying you have to die for something just to prove that it’s worth dying for. I’m just saying that if you do end up dying in the process, that’s when you really know, for sure.”
That’s how I knew.
Closing Words Well, congratulations for making it through all of that. I hope that by this point, you’ve gained a better understanding for what I mean when I say “There’s nothing more to life than girls”. Because if you’re a heterosexual male, you’ll understand that girls really should always be synonymous with love. And there’s nothing in life that’s more important than that.
