Young Love

I was in a sorority in college. A no-name local sorority (perhaps three other chapters existed at other SUNY schools), that wasn't exactly filled with all the "popular", skinny, beautiful girls in expensive jeans. (I had thought popular ended in high school, but it sadly did not.) But we knew how to have fun. And we would rather hang out with the derelict fraternity down the block than the other ones anyway. With them, the feeling was mutual. We were a bunch of misfits, getting drunk, hooking up, having fun. From that imperfect union came a few marriages, a few babies and definitely more than a few one-night-stands. It was through that fraternity that I met my first real boyfriend.

I wasn't lucky in love in high school and that didn't change much in college. Except that during those four years of wildly finding myself, I found my first true love and we had 3 years together, which extended into life after college. I look back and wonder what happened to him, even though I know. But I wonder whether or not he remembers some of the things we did, whether he thinks ever about the good times or if the thought of me gives him a bad, acidic taste in his mouth. See, he broke up with me. I used to hate him for it, but now after so many years gone by, I don't.

I see people who look like him on the street, and wonder how we would react if we really did run into each other. It's not unreasonable to wonder; he doesn't live that far away and probably still works in the city, too. I think I would blush. I think he would avert his eyes and scurry away. I wonder why. He was an unemotional man/boy involved with an overly emotional woman/girl. He would often say "why can't you just be happy?" and I would think "how can you!?"

We drank too much together. When I drink too much, I cry. I cried too much for him. He was too constrained for me. But I loved him anyway. His stiffness and desire to be older than we were. To wear bow-ties and read Paul Bowles literary critiques while sipping some port and smoking a pipe. His first shitty apartment, the one in which he slept in the living room behind a Japanese screen. The walls of that apartment upon which had hoped to display artwork with little lights illuminating each piece, museum-style. I wanted to go to a Dead show. He wanted to go to the opera. We were mismatched, but yet, for a while, it worked. Until it didn't anymore and then it got bad. Really bad. For an emotional girl like me, mending from something like that takes time. It took me a lot of time. Not him. He moved on quickly and found somebody better suited to him, then.

The lesson I have learned is that sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't. And if they are working, don't question why. Don't read too much into your differences or why it shouldn't be. Instead, go with it. Love is not meant to be understood. You many not be able to just be happy, but you can just be in love.