Déjà Vu
Five years ago, at the age of sixteen, my world was thrown into upheaval. I was confused about everything and everyone. It was a stupid and awkward stage especially for someone like me who has lived all her life within the walls of an exclusive educational institution run by penguins...alright nuns. When I say confusion, I'm talking about what every perverted male brain fantasizes at some point in his life. By that time, I had went through 10 years studying with nothing but girls, girls, and yes, girls and not once---not ever---did I fall into the trap of lesbianism as is common with other environments such as it was. But for one single school year... that's 305 days, that was the only time in my life that I ever questioned my sexuality. And the only time I ever looked at a girl differently.
It was confusing. Man, I deliberated with myself to mental exhaustion. And that was because of one girl. This weird loner girl who wrote words so intricate and insightful with the obvious passion for the art of writing, who played the guitar while I pounded on my keyboard, who would sit with me in one corner to marvel at Billy Corgan and Kurt Cobain, who would make me laugh my ass off, who put up such a strong challenge in my debate class, who could quote the poems of tortured souls verbatim, who read books as if there was no tomorrow to read them. I've only had few moments in my life wherein I allowed myself to conjure images of what the perfect guy would be, and there it was...everything I had envisioned...only it was a girl. It scared me shitless when I started to really...like...her. This shouldn't be a surprise now --- I immediately shut down on her --- always a constant. Gone was the comfortable feeling, gone was the closeness. She was just a casual friend, a classmate, an acquaintance. It was good enough to convince myself that I never did once liked her as more than just a friend. This drawing back was logical though. This girl made me question my preference. I was a full blooded hetero who was suddenly presented with a very significant conundrum :
"Would I be open to the fact that if there is such a thing as that 'special connection' with one person...would I be open with the idea that I can find it not only with the opposite sex, but with the same sex as well?"
I was clandestinely smitten up to the very end. It was really tough (and I have to say this with a notion of disgust) as well as heartwrenching to act aloof when all I wanted was to delve deeper into that mind that was so reflective of mine. I'm sounding like a narcissist right now, but it is an infallible theory : we are attracted to other people because of that homogenous qualities that you share.
In the end, I gave myself a mental kick on the ass.
Smart and intelligent as she was, Algebra it seems was her Waterloo and she didn't graduate in time that year. During the first day of graduation practice, and the last time I would have seen her for not until 3 years afterwards, I dropped the pretense. In our mutual hate of our school's tendency to condition us into acting in an organized way of what they think is appropriate, we found ourselves sitting in one corner just like we did for what seemed like a hundred days ago...and talked about the usual stuff, the books we've read, the works we've written, the music that rocked, the movies we've seen, the world we hate, the few things we loved.
And as the day deteriorated to hours, to minutes, to mere seconds before we would say goodbye and she would wish me good luck...I coldn't help but think--- I missed out on that...that bond that could have stood the test of time. Granted that I'm certain now I wouldn't have let it get past friendship, but still. It's not everyday that you get to meet a kindred, a being that marched to your own rhythm which you have always thought only you can hear.
I didn't meet anbody that was in any degree comparable to what I saw in her for the next couple of years. And that disturbed me. We are an endengered specie, but surely somehow in some considerable propinquity one of us exists.
Such a waste. And it was my fault. My paranoia. My habit of killing any emotion inside me before it started. My fear of being rejected. My fear of being let down. My inhibitions. Serious loads of shit baggage that I still carry around up to this living breathing day...
Five years after...and I fear it's starting all over again...
and this time the problem of lesbianism is out of the picture...
IT inhabits the appropriate sex.
It's scaring me that I'm starting to back away...that I'm tumbling into the same downward spiral that I found myself in Five years ago. It is my nature. And as evidence that I have learned from the past, I am trying hard to go against it.
When I start to see myself in that bleak position, an open wound, an open target, hit me where it hurts right now and I will no doubt break down...
FUCK, IT'S CRAMPING MY STYLE.
It was confusing. Man, I deliberated with myself to mental exhaustion. And that was because of one girl. This weird loner girl who wrote words so intricate and insightful with the obvious passion for the art of writing, who played the guitar while I pounded on my keyboard, who would sit with me in one corner to marvel at Billy Corgan and Kurt Cobain, who would make me laugh my ass off, who put up such a strong challenge in my debate class, who could quote the poems of tortured souls verbatim, who read books as if there was no tomorrow to read them. I've only had few moments in my life wherein I allowed myself to conjure images of what the perfect guy would be, and there it was...everything I had envisioned...only it was a girl. It scared me shitless when I started to really...like...her. This shouldn't be a surprise now --- I immediately shut down on her --- always a constant. Gone was the comfortable feeling, gone was the closeness. She was just a casual friend, a classmate, an acquaintance. It was good enough to convince myself that I never did once liked her as more than just a friend. This drawing back was logical though. This girl made me question my preference. I was a full blooded hetero who was suddenly presented with a very significant conundrum :
"Would I be open to the fact that if there is such a thing as that 'special connection' with one person...would I be open with the idea that I can find it not only with the opposite sex, but with the same sex as well?"
I was clandestinely smitten up to the very end. It was really tough (and I have to say this with a notion of disgust) as well as heartwrenching to act aloof when all I wanted was to delve deeper into that mind that was so reflective of mine. I'm sounding like a narcissist right now, but it is an infallible theory : we are attracted to other people because of that homogenous qualities that you share.
In the end, I gave myself a mental kick on the ass.
Smart and intelligent as she was, Algebra it seems was her Waterloo and she didn't graduate in time that year. During the first day of graduation practice, and the last time I would have seen her for not until 3 years afterwards, I dropped the pretense. In our mutual hate of our school's tendency to condition us into acting in an organized way of what they think is appropriate, we found ourselves sitting in one corner just like we did for what seemed like a hundred days ago...and talked about the usual stuff, the books we've read, the works we've written, the music that rocked, the movies we've seen, the world we hate, the few things we loved.
And as the day deteriorated to hours, to minutes, to mere seconds before we would say goodbye and she would wish me good luck...I coldn't help but think--- I missed out on that...that bond that could have stood the test of time. Granted that I'm certain now I wouldn't have let it get past friendship, but still. It's not everyday that you get to meet a kindred, a being that marched to your own rhythm which you have always thought only you can hear.
I didn't meet anbody that was in any degree comparable to what I saw in her for the next couple of years. And that disturbed me. We are an endengered specie, but surely somehow in some considerable propinquity one of us exists.
Such a waste. And it was my fault. My paranoia. My habit of killing any emotion inside me before it started. My fear of being rejected. My fear of being let down. My inhibitions. Serious loads of shit baggage that I still carry around up to this living breathing day...
Five years after...and I fear it's starting all over again...
and this time the problem of lesbianism is out of the picture...
IT inhabits the appropriate sex.
It's scaring me that I'm starting to back away...that I'm tumbling into the same downward spiral that I found myself in Five years ago. It is my nature. And as evidence that I have learned from the past, I am trying hard to go against it.
When I start to see myself in that bleak position, an open wound, an open target, hit me where it hurts right now and I will no doubt break down...
FUCK, IT'S CRAMPING MY STYLE.
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