Prom and bad 90s hair

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . November 6, 2009 . 10:57AM

Other events that were important to my life coincided with the break-up with green eyes. One of the miracles of my life happened right before my junior prom in the form of a teeny, tiny preemie. Livvy, my only sibling and 16 years my junior, came into the world with serious struggles. When I finally got to hold her, through an incubator, she fit into the palm of my medium-sized hands. Rarely have I loved a person so much in my life and they were taking her from me. Our small town was not equipped to handle preemies and she would have to go to a larger hospital. It would be her home, and that of my mother and step-father, for many months. I will always be thankful to the Ronald McDonald house for allowing my mother to be with my sister.

Livvy was born three weeks before my junior prom. As such, my mother didn’t have time to go dress hunting with me or even see me before my junior prom. Thankfully, my aunt stepped in and green eyes and I had a fine night. I think. I don’t remember much of it because there was so much emotional turmoil around that time, both with his absence and Livvy’s health.

Livvy eventually came home and green eyes eventually drifted away and a new normal came to me. It wasn’t without much resistence on my part, however. I lost 30 pounds simply because I wasn’t interested in eating. I was depressed and had lost interested in most everything and everyone around me. I was starting to finally feel like myself when I developed what felt like the worst cold ever. My nose started dripping like a faucet and I’d rubbed the thing raw. My best friend, at the time, was a boy we later determined was related to me somehow. He and I went to Wal-mart, where I worked (I have SO many stories about that place) and saw the new guy stocking the shelves. A cute new guy. One I’d only seen in passing while we were zoning the area at night. I’d been lucky enough to help him a couple of times.

I’d never been a forward kind of girl. I’m shy, especially where my looks are concerned and even with the weight loss, I was sure he wasn’t interested in me. Nevertheless, I went up to him with my dripping, peeling nose and started talking to him. He talked back and seemed amused by what I was saying. Eventually we made a date. One date turned into several and we dated on and off, though mainly on, throughout my senior year of high school. He was a few years older than I was and was very different from the guys I went to school with. He introduced me to “No diggity” (which is still one of my favorite songs) and was probably one of, if not THE nicest person I’ve ever dated. He also took me to Olive Garden for the first time in my 17 years.

I don’t know anyone that didn’t like Aaron. He made friends with all of my friends and the people at work adored him. The girls at work really adored him. He kept his eyes on me. I felt adored. His sister and brother felt like my family. I thought a lot of them and still do. I have no idea what my senior year would have been like if his kind spirit hadn’t been a part of my life. My family was dealing with a lot of issues, not just a new baby. He was there for me and I will always appreciate that about him.

He was also my prom date that year. Strangely enough, I remember most everything about that night. I remember sitting in the chair at my salon and watching my stylist place mini-flowers in my hair and wondering if they looked Asian enough. Would Aaron like them? Was it too much? Were my bangs too high? The answer to the bang question was YES, THEY WERE TOO HIGH.

I remember the moment he saw me and the smile he gave me. I remember that his hands are really strong and when he held mine to walk me into the convention center that I couldn’t stop smiling. We sat with our friends and there was much dancing and laughing. When prom was over, we went to a friend’s house and, in my typical party animal fashion, I promptly fell asleep on the couch.

I’m a winner.

Three weeks later, I broke up with him for a guy who truly believed that there is a dark side and he was a jedi knight. I still have a lot of guilt about this and I’m so, so sorry, Aaron. It was among the most stupid decisions I’ve ever made. I’m a firm believe that things turn out the way they should, though, and I’m really glad that we are still friends. You were the best prom date ever.

A fairytale: Green eyes and brown eyes Part I

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . October 22, 2009 . 11:41AM

Once upon a time, there was a young woman with dark brown hair and eyes. She’d been best friends with a boy with bright green eyes and dark hair for many months. They’d met through her first boyfriend (the same one that dumped her out of canoe) and had become fast friends. There was an instant connection between them, though they seemed opposites in many ways.

He was into alternative music and she loved mainstream pop. He embraced the baggy clothes style of the mid-90s and she was a prep through and through. He was quiet and sweet-natured and she was outgoing and acerbic, though, later, she would realize that her true self was also quiet, as well. What they had in common, however, was their ability to just be together and enjoy the company of each other.

The girl liked the boy, but because he was friends with the boy she’d dated, she didn’t allow herself to feel everything she wanted to feel for him. One night, they drove around their small town and stopped by a store. There were beaded bracelets that came with the comment that if you made a wish on them and placed them around your wrist, when they fell off, your wish would come true. The boy, with a sparkle in his eye, suggested that the girl get the one in green. It matched his eyes exactly.

She shyly bought the bracelet and made a wish. Not for him, but that she would feel loved. There were many days in that time that she didn’t. She placed it around her wrist and waited. It was October.

A month came and went and the two remained friends. She showed him the places that she liked to go when she needed quiet and they did the things teenagers do. They went out and explored private property that had warnings like “If we catch you, we will shoot first and ask questions later.” They weren’t the smartest teenagers in the world. They explored places like cornfields and lay on their backs looking at the stars. He gave her piggyback rides through the rows and she laughed like a child.

One day, the two were at a school assembly and were, of course, sitting together as they always did. They were the best of friends and their other friends had noticed that they had become consumed by one another. In the middle of the assembly, she felt a tug on her wrist. The green bracelet fell off her wrist and she looked up into his bright green eyes. He smiled his easygoing grin and removed his hand from her wrist. “Now,” he said, “whatever you wished can come true.”

She blushed, because she was the shy sort at that time, and looked away. She may have mumbled something like, “We’ll see” and left it at that. He asked her to come over later that night and she replied that she would after her homework. When she got to his house, he was going down the hill on his makeshift snowboard with one of his friends. The powdery snow coated everything, like a wintery fairyland.

As she watched them go down the hill, she began to grow cold and couldn’t prevent her teeth from chattering. He walked up to her and softly moved the hair from her face and put his arms around her to pull her close. This wasn’t something new to her. He often held her close, as friends do. Something felt different about this time. He put his head into the small of her neck and told her that after the last run they would go inside and talk.

However, as anyone who has tried to snowboard realizes, the inexperienced often fall and he tumbled hard. As the wind was knocked out of him, she was already sliding down the slippery hill towards him, as was his friend. When she got to him, he laughed. She took his hand, helped him up and they went inside.

Get over it, it’s all in the past: Relationship changes and how we adapt

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . May 13, 2009 . 10:17PM

As adults, we want to believe that we are able to move beyond the things that happened in our past and we very much choose to believe that we are able to forget the people that we have tied ourselves to during that time. We let go of them and “get on with our lives” and heal as much as we can. Something I’m discovering, in my own time of self-awareness and discovery, is that we never really let go of those people completely.

Our feelings do change for people and I’m not questioning that notion. However, I think most people I know would agree that the feelings they have for their first love are very different than the feelings they have for that night in college where the pizza guy looked really good or the girl in the short skirt in the corner appealed to you in a way that you didn’t think was possible. Don’t for a second think you didn’t give those people an emotional piece of yourself, because you did, no matter how small, because you still remember them. And, yet, you may not look upon that period with any kind of empathy, compassion, or wistfulness for them or yourself at that time.

These are not the instances that I’m addressing. I’m addressing the first loves, the best friends, the close friends, the soul mates, the people that you meet on the street that do a kindness for you. These are the people that allow you to have a piece of their heart and with that you, in turn, share a piece of yours with them like a puzzle only the two of you have any hope of completing.

When we give this part of ourselves away, we do so at a large cost. There really isn’t any going back from that point. I remember my first love quite fondly, as he was a good friend before he was anything else to me. He was sweet, funny and shy. We talk online now and then, but what strikes me so much is that it has been so long and our feelings have healed to the point where I genuinely want his happiness in a way that I wish for what he wishes for himself. I think of old friends that I haven’t seen in years and wish the best for them.

I think this is where the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace come in. Of course there are people that want to “stick it” to the people that hurt them so long ago, but, overwhelmingly, the feeling I get about these sites is that it is more about healing and caring than anything else. We want to know how these people are doing and if they are well. Our reason for that is not always because of them: It’s because of us. It’s because they hold onto a string attached to our emotions that we haven’t quite clipped.

I can think back to my first real crush and smile fondly. I can think of my first best friend and laugh at some of the things we’ve done in our lives. I can think of the first time someone hurt me beyond repair. There are many spots that aren’t healed and there are many that will never heal. It’s up to me to decide whether I’m going to allow those strings to continue to move me like a puppeteer or clip them and free the strings up for new events in our lives.

The man who held the door for me the other day…the old woman who smiled at me when I was stressed out about finals…the way my dogs know when I’m sad and will just lay silently next to me…the way my sister hugs me when she hasn’t seen me in a while…