2003-12-26 - 8:01 p.m.
When we first met, our freshman year, the first thing Barbara said to me was, "I would never go out with a guy named kenny because I couldn't deal with the whole ken and barbie thing."
For the next couple years we sort of knew each other- all the same classes, all the same friends, most of the same activities, blah blah blah.
We sat next to each other in Calculus junior year, and one day she was freaking out with worry over a test we were getting back that day. i unsuccessfully tried to reassure her that A) it didnt' matter, and B) she got an A anyway, cause that was all she ever got. Finally I shut her up with a wager- If she did in fact get an A, she had to buy me dinner. If she got anything else, I was the one who had to buy. You might think this was a rather bold, or worse, typical tactical move on my part, but I was not then the person that I am now (i.e., I did not in fact have an ulterior motive here. I just wanted dinner and to shut her up.)
She got the A, and i made her buy me dinner at my favorite teriyaki joint. It was the first time we'd ever spent more than 10 minutes together without other friends of ours around. And it was a good night. We wound up hanging out and talking till way late, or at least what is considered way late for lame high school kids. Dinner led to movies, more dinners, long phone conversations, exchanging christmas presents, and general best-friendness.
Looking back on it, I realize we were dating, except for two things- we never so much as held hands with each other, and two, we werent' dating. Not in any kind of official, we discussed it capacity. Everyone in school either thought we were or thought we should, though. We constituted one of those perfect couples. Two of the super-brilliant, geeky hippy kids, and even their names matched up perfectly.
Of course, I was oblivious to all this (as i said, i've changed a lot since then, as you'll see.) I thought we were just good friends.
The end of the year rolls around, and she writes a long entry in my yearbook, calling me her romantic ideal because I would appreciate Allie's baseball glove poetry, just like Holden (read Catcher in the Rye) I was stunned, naturally. (see, back then my self-deprecating "girls don't like me" act wasn't just an act- that's how it was)
As soon as summer began, I took off for two weeks for...Boys State! (as if being captain of the chess team didn't make me enough of a loser) while i was there, naturally, Barbara was weighing rather heavily on my mind. I missed her. I liked her.I liked that she liked me. So I wrote her a letter while I was in Portales and told her so.
But then as the time for me to return to Albuquerque began to loom, I started to panic. This meant I would have to be dating someone. Holding hands in public, and kissing, and actual dates, and her parents liked me and mine liked her, but now that might change, and all sorts of generally neurotic immature garbage that someday i hope to grow up enough to be rid of.
So I did the only thing I could think of. The best course of action in this situation. I stopped talking to her. Screened my phone calls, never returned hers, and generally dodged any and all contact with her till summer ended. For those of you who wonder if I've always been a bastard, there you go.
We returned to school, and she was pissed, naturally, but we kind of patched things up by christmas and we were friends again.
Then my friend Alan died in a fire, and I started getting pretty depressed.
Then our friend, her best friend Mary Karen, died of a brain aneurysm about a month later.
I got more depressed. Typical senior depression coupled with all the painful events of a short time combined with my bipolar personality (Hey, i admit it), and I hit rock bottom. I'm amazed that anyone who knew me then talks to me now. Take how bad I was after the Tammy affair and cube it. This was around the time I ODed and came very close to failing every class I was in.
The night of our ska band's first performance, she told me she still had feelings for me. I told her I didnt' care. We didnt' really talk or hang out much after that. She found someone else and started seeing him, but I didnt' even know because we were out of touch.
After we left for college, she told me on IM one night. I was pretty upset. I didnt' talk to her the rest of the semester.
Then we mended fences. I came back home, and we were good again, even flirting a bit. On New Year's Eve, we kissed for the first time in my room after a party. Two years late, but the feeling was still there. And for awhile, everything was good. We were finally doing what we should have been doing all along. Amazingly, she had forgiven me, and I had grown up just enough to at least try to love her properly.
Then the one year anniversary of Mary Karen's death came around, and this time she was the one to get depressed and dump me over email. I was pissed. We had a massive fight that went on till summer. Drama all over the place. Once again, we eventually made apologies, and though we decided a relationship couldn't work, we settled on something in the middle ground. I always had an idea in the back of my mind that one day we'd have an opportunity again to try to do things right once and for all.
Then she met Andy. They've been together for about a year and a half now, and live together in Houston.
I haven't talked to her in months.
Jharick, my friend, you make me sad. I'm pouring one out for you tonight.
Ken
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