Right before college began, I was driving this 86 Camaro. It was a nice car. I really liked it. I had gotten it about a month before I left the Army. Anyway, about a week or two before the semester started, I was driving back to Allison's house with the troll in tow in the dark, and we hit a log in the middle of the road. The car went airborne for a moment before crashing back to the ground since the log was about the size of the car's wheel and we were going about 55mph. No one was hurt, but the car was totaled. The hit cracked the frame, and I was left carless with a 45 mile drive ahead of me for college.
My parents stepped in and helped me get a car that served me until 2004, I think. It was a red 1993 Probe with a manual transmission and not a lot of frills at all -- not as many as the Camaro, anyway. But it was a good car, and I liked it pretty well. So I loaded it up and made the drive to Claremore where Rogers State College (which was renamed sometime during that year or shortly thereafter to Rogers University, so I'm not really sure what it was at the time).
During my time there, I met some interesting people and had some interesting experiences. Some of it is worth going into in full, but maybe I'll do that in subsequent posts, since they all have their own individual tales and like so many other experiences in my life, I'm surprised it all went down in such a short span of time. But for this part, I'll hit the Allison/Juliet side of the tale, since that's what I wanted to focus on for now. All the other stuff was very short term, and really none of it impacted my life to any real significance. I did work for a grocery store as a cashier for a bit, proving once again that I have no gift for face to face customer service as evidenced by the following conversation.
Customer: Hey be careful with that apple. It hit the wall [at the end of the bagging part of the register -- it had rolled down there and smacked the end]
Me: Hey, I didn't put the wall there.
Yeah, he complained. I actually lasted the entire semester before they fired me.
It was during this time that two significant things happened in my relationship world. First, Allison was unable to maintain the college life, and she and Hedy dropped out during that semester. No surprise there, but there was also very minimal contact with me during that time, leaving me free to actually not only concentrate on school, but I also got back in touch with Juliet, and by some miracle, she was willing to not only talk to me, but see me again.
It will come as no surprise, though, that this still didn't end well. I mean, I'm happily married to the Queen, so this can't end well.
Anyway, it was in November 96 that I made a trip to Colorado to see her at a cheeleading competition and go out with her to a movie. It was our only real date, and it's hard to say how it went. We went to see Space Jam, of all things, and yeah, we made out during the movie. I know we went somewhere after the movie, but I don't remember where, and in the end, I dropped her off at her school where she'd left her car, and that was the last time I saw her. I know I loved her at the time, but you'll have to keep in mind that since Camelot in 94, we'd seen each other a total of five times. 95% of our relationship was wrapped up in our communication, and most of that was letters. Emails and IMs would have made that a whole lot easier, but we didn't have them then.
There are few things I regret more in my life than what happened next. Thinking about it now just makes me sick, and if I could change anything, I would have done anything different back then. I know at this point, I am very happy, and I also know she is in a far better place than I could have given her at this point in my life, so everything worked out for the best. I know that, but it doesn't change the regretful situation that occurred.
You see, I was ever susceptible to Allison's influence, and that made me do some really dumb things after this. Allison was not exactly happy about my rekindling of that particular flame, especially since she was aware that she would never, ever measure up in my mind to Juliet, so she brought the hammer down about as hard as she could, and...well... She insisted that I break it off with Juliet as permanently as possible, and she invented some rather vicious things about her that I stupidly believed.
Long story short, since I would prefer it short since I don't like it, I ended up burning the letters I'd gotten from Juliet and sent her pictures and trinkets back to her (the trinkets tore through the envelope and were lost). It was all gone. Not a trace of her left anywhere, since I had been holding on to every piece of her that I had up till then. Allison lasted about 3 more months before she broke it off with me, and I was alone again.
I spoke to Juliet only once more in 97, and I told her what I had done. She was broken hearted and had every right to be. That's when I learned the trinkets had never made it back to her with the pictures. But that bridge was burned with the letters detailing our entire relationship. You see, that was all we had to keep us together. It was our memories. It was her feelings. And I destroyed them.
Now having three daughters of my own (fate is funny that way), I consider whether I would allow one of them at the age of fifteen to go out with a nineteen year old Army guy. What would I do? The kneejerk reaction is a resounding no, which is exactly what her father did (no hard feelings, Ed, I promise). But at the same time, I was not the average Army guy. Unlike most of them, I had very little relationship experience. Emotionally, I was probably at her level or even less, inexperienced as I was. Would that change anything? I don't know. I would probably still give the same answer her father did, not because of the maturity, but because of the different places in life each is in.
It's been a long time since I've pondered any of this, and while it could have ended better, the ending was an inevitability. I remained broke in Oklahoma, and she went to Virginia. Still long distance. She needed to be able to live a little without being tied to some guy miles and miles away. I needed to be able to try and make something of the life I'd screwed up to that point.
While I did get a couple of emails from Juliet since then that I did respond to, I haven't heard from her in a long time, and that's fine. My hope for her is that she is happy where she is now. You never forget your first love, and without a doubt, depite all the odds we were up against, she was the first person that I actually loved. I know that I came out of the experience (via both Juliet and Allison) a little older and a little wiser for it all because I learned what I really wanted and how to be more assertive when it comes to how I want to get it.
As a result of this experience that spanned nearly three years of my life, I was a different person when I met the Queen and really much better for it. The Queen reaped the benefits that forced to me to grow from someone who'd never been in a relationship to someone who had figured out how to handle himself and deal with others. I don't know what Juliet saw in me that day in September of 94, but whatever it was is buried under a layer of wisdom that I gained through my stupidity.
More happened during my "Silent Years," but I thought I should put this to rest, since I felt the need to do so. The Queen doesn't much like these stories and would prefer I stick to ours. But for the sake of completing my life story, I thought I should include this unfortunate tale of love lost because thorough these experiences, we grow and become the people we were meant to be and end up with the people we're meant to end up with.
Where are they now? I know Allison finally figured out that Hedy was in love with her (yes, in "that way"), and she left Hedy high and dry after reading her diary. Could be another story, but that was her email several years ago when she apologized for her actions. I spotted her in Wal-Mart once, and she had another girl traveling with her. Who knows?
As for Juliet, she got a degree in engineering, found herself a frenchman and was married in 2006. She now lives in France.
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