We Are Caught In A Haze, On These Lazy Summer Days, We're Spending All Of Our Nights Just, A-laughing And Kissing, Yeah
--"So Young", The Corrs
I've always held to the theory that going through life is like riding on the bus. Some people will come on and get off within a few short stops, while others will be with you for almost the entire journey. One cannot always tell where one will part company with these people. In fact, it's almost a certainty that the people one gets to know the quickest will almost always be the people who leave the soonest. Conversely, the people one has to warm up to are often the people with whom one establishes a long-running dialogue. It doesn't invalidate the short, but intense, encounters. It merely means that everyone in one's life stays as long they're meant to and that one must gain from these experiences for as long or as short as they last.
Tara was one of those short-timers. I knew her from a period lasting late in 1996 to just before I met DeAnn in July of 1998, during which we dated briefly. Sometimes it's difficult to capture her significance. She wasn't the first girl I ever went out with. She wasn't the great love of my life. She wasn't the girl who was destined to be in life until the end of time. Nope, I think her greatest legacy was the fact she is the first individual to have ever dumped me. That's a historical milestone that can never be ripped away from her. She beat everyone else to the punch.
Indeed, one could say that because of that fact, because she broke up with me succinctly after only a brief time going out, she's the only woman I've ever loved or claimed to love whom I've ever gotten complete closure from. There's nothing about my relationship with Tara that I still regret or still hold out for hope for. I cannot honestly say that about anyone else.
I think from the very beginning there was a sense that she and I wouldn't last. We were coming together at very different periods in our lives. I was about to graduate from USC while she was about to enter college. I was thinking about something long-term and she was toying with the idea of playing the field when she got to college. We both should have known better. The situation was rife with the potential for disappointment. That it came when it did shouldn't have been a surprise. We both should have embraced it for the inevitability it was. I've taken to the saying, "sometimes you just can't hold back the river," and that phrase has never been more apt than the situation she and I placed ourselves in.
Like Tara's famous saying goes, "life's a jigsaw puzzle and [she was] still working on the edges." She was still trying to figure out a few things and one of the things she was trying to puzzle through was where I fit into her life. Ultimately, we both discovered that maybe there wasn't a place for me. The crazy thing is I'm okay with that now. During the first few weeks after we broke up, I would have done anything to win her back. I thought she was incorrect and being immature for giving up, but now I see her decision for what it was. She was making the best call with the information she had at hand. All of the signs pointed to the fact that whatever we were sharing at the time was not built to last. It was all an ice sculpture, lovely to admire, but brief in its existence. Somehow she had come to that conclusion before me and I may have resented her for having the foresight to recognize our fate. I was jealous that I hadn't been the one making the call. I was resigned just to follow her lead.
For a time, I thought all I would remember was how she had dumped me over those days in April. I thought that would be her legacy.
However, honestly, what I remember most was taking her down to Santa Monica Pier, spreading out my blanket, and watching the waves roll in under the blackened sky. I hold onto the feeling of the cold, night air against the warmth of our bodies touched up against one another. I take that night with me whenever I go to the beach or whenever I take someone else to that pier at night.
She wasn't just the first girl who ever broke up with me.
She was the first girl and only girl who I think I was with at the right time for the right amount of time. My time with her isn't marred with any sign of fading or fatigue. It isn't cheapened by the experience of falling out of love with her. It came and went like a lovesong. You can't have the song play on forever. You can only enjoy it while it lasts.
I'm glad I enjoyed my time with her because that's all I have of her now.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
I've always held to the theory that going through life is like riding on the bus. Some people will come on and get off within a few short stops, while others will be with you for almost the entire journey. One cannot always tell where one will part company with these people. In fact, it's almost a certainty that the people one gets to know the quickest will almost always be the people who leave the soonest. Conversely, the people one has to warm up to are often the people with whom one establishes a long-running dialogue. It doesn't invalidate the short, but intense, encounters. It merely means that everyone in one's life stays as long they're meant to and that one must gain from these experiences for as long or as short as they last.Tara was one of those short-timers. I knew her from a period lasting late in 1996 to just before I met DeAnn in July of 1998, during which we dated briefly. Sometimes it's difficult to capture her significance. She wasn't the first girl I ever went out with. She wasn't the great love of my life. She wasn't the girl who was destined to be in life until the end of time. Nope, I think her greatest legacy was the fact she is the first individual to have ever dumped me. That's a historical milestone that can never be ripped away from her. She beat everyone else to the punch.
Indeed, one could say that because of that fact, because she broke up with me succinctly after only a brief time going out, she's the only woman I've ever loved or claimed to love whom I've ever gotten complete closure from. There's nothing about my relationship with Tara that I still regret or still hold out for hope for. I cannot honestly say that about anyone else.
I think from the very beginning there was a sense that she and I wouldn't last. We were coming together at very different periods in our lives. I was about to graduate from USC while she was about to enter college. I was thinking about something long-term and she was toying with the idea of playing the field when she got to college. We both should have known better. The situation was rife with the potential for disappointment. That it came when it did shouldn't have been a surprise. We both should have embraced it for the inevitability it was. I've taken to the saying, "sometimes you just can't hold back the river," and that phrase has never been more apt than the situation she and I placed ourselves in.
Like Tara's famous saying goes, "life's a jigsaw puzzle and [she was] still working on the edges." She was still trying to figure out a few things and one of the things she was trying to puzzle through was where I fit into her life. Ultimately, we both discovered that maybe there wasn't a place for me. The crazy thing is I'm okay with that now. During the first few weeks after we broke up, I would have done anything to win her back. I thought she was incorrect and being immature for giving up, but now I see her decision for what it was. She was making the best call with the information she had at hand. All of the signs pointed to the fact that whatever we were sharing at the time was not built to last. It was all an ice sculpture, lovely to admire, but brief in its existence. Somehow she had come to that conclusion before me and I may have resented her for having the foresight to recognize our fate. I was jealous that I hadn't been the one making the call. I was resigned just to follow her lead.
For a time, I thought all I would remember was how she had dumped me over those days in April. I thought that would be her legacy.
However, honestly, what I remember most was taking her down to Santa Monica Pier, spreading out my blanket, and watching the waves roll in under the blackened sky. I hold onto the feeling of the cold, night air against the warmth of our bodies touched up against one another. I take that night with me whenever I go to the beach or whenever I take someone else to that pier at night.
She wasn't just the first girl who ever broke up with me.
She was the first girl and only girl who I think I was with at the right time for the right amount of time. My time with her isn't marred with any sign of fading or fatigue. It isn't cheapened by the experience of falling out of love with her. It came and went like a lovesong. You can't have the song play on forever. You can only enjoy it while it lasts.
I'm glad I enjoyed my time with her because that's all I have of her now.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
posted by mojo shivers @ 11:55 PM
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