My First Real Relationship

This wasn’t the plan you know? There never was a plan I guess. Nothing is ever really set in stone, especially when it comes to me. I never sat down and said what my life would be like. I just sort of guessed it would be “normal.” What is that anyway? NORMAL… well I guess that everyone should have known when I took my first breath that I wasn’t going to be normal and nothing I would ever do was normal. So why would this situation be any different?

I guess this would be considered normalcy: (or what I was told anyway)

1. Graduate from high school
2. Go to college
3. Get a degree
4. Find a nice guy that my mother liked
5. Date a long time
6. Marry him
7. FINALLY… have kids.

But reality always steps in the most absurd times when it is not welcome. And I guess that is what you can say happened to me. Reality stepped in and ruined my normalcy that I didn’t have going on in the first place. So the plan that was never planned… changed. I never planned on having two kids by the age of 22. But those are the cards I was dealt. I hate those cards. I wish I could put them back into the pile, shuffle, and be dealt again. But this isn’t poker or go fish. Don’t get me wrong, I love them both… in very different ways because of the different situations; I love them. They are my life, and I am sure I will feel the same if and when I have more. Whenever that may be…

I always wanted to be a journalist. As far back as I can remember that is the certain job I had chosen. That was in seventh grade that I decided that. Before that, I don’t know what it was running through my mind. I do know that when I was little, I wanted to be whatever my mom did. Whether she was working at the A & P, or Kmart, that was what I was going to do. I wish it was that easy. Saying… “I am going to be ____________.” And poof, that is your job profession.

I wish that concept worked for many things. Especially guys! I happen to choose the wrong guys; not only for dating, but for friends too. I have had them all! Ones that were annoying, abusive, distinct, stalkers, smothering, difficult… the list does go on, but I would rather not bore you. Now that I think about it, in my eyes, I did have my perfect man before. That was many, many years ago. So far back, it seems like that life and my current one are separated by galaxies. I would need a space shuttle made by NASA to get back to that life. This guy was perfect… for me anyway.

I never really understood the importance of it, and some would say I still don’t. But the meaning of love was what was really mind-boggling to me. I could never understand the word. Maybe it’s because it was used so much that the definition just slipped my mind. Or maybe all my life, the word “love” has been used out of context. “I love you” just seems silly to say. I don’t think it is in the words that someone knows you love them; I think it is in the way you act, the way you touch or look at them… maybe there is no such thing as love after you felt it once. Maybe you only get one chance at it and then that is it… the word is useless after that.

I was in love once. I was... {Thinking}… 14? I don’t know it was 1999, and I am 22 in 2007, so… {Calculating}… yeah, 14. Hmmm, I am never good at math and very rarely remember ages. Anyway, he was short. I am not going to sugar-coat this; I am not going to say he was tall with brown eyes and handsome. He wasn’t tall… he was short. He didn’t have brown eyes, he had blue. And well, he wasn’t handsome… we were 14, so he was cute. He grew up to be handsome, but back then, he was just cute. Yup, that was Zachary.

He was my type I guess, whatever that phrase means. A person that isn’t my type is someone who is, in jail, a gang, homeless… or… dead. He wasn’t any of those. He was dating one of my friends when we met though. Luckily that only lasted a week, and there were no hard feelings between them. I asked her, Courtney, if she could “hook us up.” And she did.

I first met Zach at church when we were 13. We both worked down with the 3 year old kids. I had been in transition from Johnson City school to Windsor. To my surprise, I never knew he went there. When I went to Windsor and he walked down the hall, SURPRISE SURPRISE! There he was.

We went 3 years dating on and off. What do you expect? We were 14 when we first got together… dating was nothing more than a game back then. One of us would break the others heart, we would have a good cry, it would last about a day or two, then we would get back together, fall “in love”, and do it all over again.

What would a relationship be without kissing? There was plenty of that. That was how we knew to show affection. He was a great kisser. I don’t remember the first time we “pecked” kissed, but I do remember my first REAL kiss. We were on our way up to the 5th floor. It was a youth group that we attended every Wednesday night at our church. We always took the elevator… I don’t know why. Was it because we hated walking the 5 stories of stairs or was it that 1 minute we were alone in the elevator? I don’t know. Every time we would get into that elevator, the door would close, and it would be like… for that 1 minute, we would be in another world, our own world. And he would kiss me. But this certain day, it was a different kind of kiss. He slipped his tongue in my mouth. Caught me off guard, but I thought it was great. I was getting a kiss that I have seen happen only in the movies or on TV. I was so happy that someone wanted to kiss me like that. From then on, I think that is the only kind of kissing we ever did.

               I decided that every relationship needed a song. You know, something that when people hear it, they think, “hey that is just like Ashley and Zach.” Well I loved the song “Meet in the Middle” by Diamond Rio. “It was seven hundred fence posts from your place to ours, neither one of us were old enough to drive a car.” How true was that! I even went as far as trying to count the fence posts between his house and mine, but I don’t remember what conclusion I came to. Eventually he and I agreed our song “Swear It Again” by Westlife. Back then, like I said, we were 14, everyone was jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend, girlfriend to girlfriend, so when Zach and I found each other and we had this “love” that we swore no one else had, this became our perfect song: “Just look around- And all of the people that we used to know, have just given up, they wanna let it go… But we're still trying.”

We had some great times together. I remember I used to go to my dad’s every summer to visit. And one night before I was supposed to leave, we laid on my trampoline under the stars, and talked all night. That was it. And it was all sorts of romantic… even though we weren’t really sure what romance was… but now that I think about it… it was romantic.

Every Christmas Eve, we would spend together. His parents and him, my mom and I, would all go to church for the evening service, then to his house to do the exchanging of gifts. He got me a red wool sweater once. It was beautiful, but I remember I hated to wear it because it was itchy. I should have worn it more, but I was stubborn to itchiness.

I don’t remember what it was for, but one time, he got me a necklace; the 7-ring-I love you-necklace, a ring for each day of the week. Each ring represents each day that he loves me. I still have it to this day. I loved that necklace.

He and I would have so much fun together. We were childish at times, but we were “in love.” We were in our version of love. And looking back now, he was the love of my life, probably always will be. Why aren’t we together now? That’s an easy answer… in 2002, I messed it up. He went with his grandparents to Paris, France for the summer. I was in a place called Upward Bound for the summer at Binghamton University. (A place where students who are failing classes, go to make them up. I guess it was really a summer school, just with a twist.) Anyway, I met a guy named Shane there. He was nice. I don’t know what attracted me to him. For heaven’s sake, I had a great guy, who was across the Atlantic Ocean in another country, but no matter where Zachary was, he was great. While Zach was away, I ended up dating Shane as well. Yeah! My first experience cheating… and my definite last. I didn’t find it so hard. I mean, hello… Zach was in FRANCE. It didn’t occur to me how painful this cheating thing would turn out to be. I didn’t even consider it “cheating.” But by the Webster’s Dictionary definition, that is what I was doing, cheating. Anyway, long story short, Zachary obviously came back home, and found out that I was dating someone else. I had to make the grueling choice between the love of my life and this random guy. You’d think that decision would have been the easiest one ever. Not for me, I knew I wanted to be with Zach. I always wanted to be with him. But I guess since I had already hurt him, I couldn’t be with him anymore, and deal with the guilt on my shoulders that I did that to him. So instead of making the right decision, I made the easy one… and I chose Shane.