All Apologies
I should have been married by now. My adopted big sister, Mighty Mo, has discussed this with me a number of times. However, I'm not married; and the fact that I'm not married begs both a story, and an apology. This is more of a limb than I'd usually go out on, but part of attempting to do the right thing is correcting mistakes that were made in the past. So, this is that story, and through it, that apology.
I've spoken a number of times about the summer that I spent in England. Shortly after arriving there, one of my co-workers introduced me to his step-daughter, and we immediately began dating. Her name was Katherine, and although things weren't always perfect, we got on very well, enjoyed one another's company, and we enjoyed the two months that we spent together before I left to come back to the States and finish my final year at [Generic State University]. I arrived back in the States at the end of September in 2004, and started this blog in December of that year. Since I make a great effort to avoid using people's real names, I nicknamed her The Mirror, because she was my mirror overseas (a la the Cubans in A Few Good Men).
Once I was back in the States, the Mirror and I dated for several more months. She bought a plane ticket for the purpose of flying out for a visit during Spring of '05. I was very optimistic, but as time went on, I started feeling that she was less than interested in the relationship. When I asked her about this, she always insisted that she "missed me loads". However, in the time that we were dating from a distance, I sent her numerous letters, called her at least weekly, and sent occasional E-Mails as well. I got a total of about one phone call (right when I got home), a handful of E-Mails, and only a single letter for my trouble. I sent her a big package full of gifts for Christmas, and was assured that she'd gotten me something, but was saving it for when she came to visit. I assumed, incorrectly, that Valentine's Day wasn't the big deal in England that it was in the States. Somehow, I got in trouble with the girl who didn't reciprocate anything for Christmas for not having sent her anything for Valentine's Day; remember, folks, that the card I received from her was only the second piece of mail I'd received from her at all since I left England.
This was the last straw. The Saturday after Valentine's Day 2005, having been completely unable to reach her that week, I broke things off with her. She was devastated. I almost immediately thought better of it, and decided to try and get her back, but it was too late. About two months of begging, pleading, and gifts from thousands of miles away failed to get her to budge. During the Summer of '05, after having ignored an E-Mail from her a month or two before, terrorists attacked London (where she was living at the time) on 7th July. I sent the last E-Mail I would ever send her, just to make sure she was okay.
I resigned myself to the fact that all of my efforts (including about $100 for a dozen roses) had been in vain. I remember one night in particular, probably in October or November of that year, when I woke up and couldn't stop thinking of her. I don't know if I had some sort of psychic connection to something that had happened in her life or not, but there I was.
Unfortunately, the failure of my relationship with the Mirror went on to have an exceptionally negative impact on my life, particularly in my relationship with other young women - a big deal for a twenty-three year old guy. I screwed up several relationships between Autumn of '05 and Spring of '06. Between these failures, the end of my eighteen years as a student, and my inability to find anything more than a part-time job working for my dad, life was lousy, and I didn't handle it as well as I should have.
One of my saving graces during this time was one of the few exceptionally healthy relationships that I've ever had with a young woman. That young woman's name was April, and some of you may remember her from her occasional comments. We didn't always agree on everything, but I always felt good when I was around her. We didn't fight, I always respected her values and ideas, and I liked her enough to spend about four hours driving to Metropolis every other weekend in order to see her.
I suppose I should mention how April and I met. When she had just graduated from high school, I met one of her friends online when the two of us were paired up as a "Summer Fling" on a message board. So I met up with her (Meghan) a few times, and those times always had April and another girl named Sarah floating around in the background. Things never went anywhere with Meghan, which isn't really surprising. Through some weird chain of events, April and I got to be friends, partly because I shared my pictures from Italy with her after her camera was stolen during her own trip. We saw each other occasionally after that, and then more frequently once I'd finished college. When I finished school, and then when she went back to school at the end of 2005, we settled into this routine in which I would go up and visit her when she was visiting home. So, April and I spent a great deal of time together, spoke a great deal when we weren't spending time together in person, and that was the situation.
Then, in late February of 2006, I applied for a job. And then I interviewed, and was hired, and packed up to move to California. I was exceptionally mercenary about it - it was a sacrifice that I was more than willing to make in order to achieve my ultimate life goals. Part of the overall sacrifice was that I walked away from my relationship with April without any pause. We continued to communicate once I'd reached California, but that communication got less frequent.
During my initial weeks in California, I couldn't stop thinking about the Mirror. It had been nearly a year since we'd had any contact with one another, but I couldn't help but believe that we were somehow meant to be together. With an excellent job, the capability to save significant money, and the discipline to put all of the pieces together, I contacted her out of the blue. I asked her to consider letting me fly her out for a week - yes, from London - to see if we could put it back together. I was convinced that being together once again was all it would take to repair the rift between me and the only woman I thought I had ever loved.
The Mirror's visit was scheduled for the end of August, 2006. At the end of June, I took my first trip home upon having moved to California. As conflicted as I felt about the situation, it turned out that my meeting with April was inevitable, although it didn't happen until it was time to head to the airport. During the course of our time together, I said some things to April that I immediately regretted, but I'm not sure how else I could have handled the situation. We parted company, April's feelings were hurt, and I flew back to California.
April had made it clear at one point that she wasn't really in a phase in her life in which being in a relationship was an option. Shortly after I'd arrived back in California, I received an E-Mail from April informing me that this had changed, and that she was now ready. I responded directly - probably too directly - by saying that I was no longer in a place in my life in which that was feasible, and that it wasn't realistic for us to expect that we could carry on with the kind of relationship that we'd been on the track to arrive at before, given the circumstances of both her life and mine. I didn't tell April about the Mirror, and that's one of the few decisions in the course of this story that I stand by.
The Mirror arrived for the last week of August. It was on the first day of a week-long trip that she uttered the words that every man dreads after he's spent a grand to fly her ass out from across the Atlantic Ocean: "I'm terrified of marriage, and I don't think that I'll ever get married." Wonderful. Like a man in the desert (which I actually was at that moment), the worse things went, the more I gripped, and the more I gripped, the more the proverbial sand slipped through my fingers. I took the Mirror to Disneyland, to Las Vegas, we went shopping, there were nice meals, and I even bought furniture to turn my habitat into something a bit less spartan. In the end, she was an absolute brat for the entirety of the week, and save for a single phone message that she left when she knew that I wouldn't be at my place to receive it, I've never heard from her since. In addition, I learned that while we had been dating, she had cheated on me once I'd left England. In fact, she had changed a great deal, and London had made her far more selfish and cold by 2006 than I remembered her being in 2004. It was expensive closure, and although I have a hard time regretting it, part of me - well, all of me - wishes that I could recover what I sacrificed to make the whole thing happen.
Also, I wish that the Mirror would get hit by a bus. A double-decker bus, because they have those in England. Because of this loathing, and other specific revelations that came about as a result of her visit, I changed her nickname from "The Mirror" to "The Whore".
Mighty Mo and I have discussed, and agree with one another, that I probably should have married April, and that if I'd stayed near home, I probably would have. Of course, that's not what happened; I made the decisions that I made, some of them good, many of them poor in retrospect. Not only did moving to California all but eliminate my relationship with April, but I made the same decision in a less serious way about another young woman when I moved to Virginia for my current job. I have a set of ambitious objectives that I'm unwilling to compromise on, and unfortunately, that means so far that it's lonely at the top.
So, I admit to and acknowledge these events, not in some hope that April and I will now reunite, marry, and live happily ever after; after all, I'm two thousand additional miles away from where I was to begin with, I have no idea what April's current aspirations are, and we've scarcely spoken in the last two years. However, given the amount of time that's passed, and given the mistakes that I made, and the things that I said, April deserves an apology. April, if you read this, please know that you're one of the people who I respect most in this world; and whether our lives intersect in some way, at some point in the future or not, I wish you nothing but the best things in life. I screwed up, and for that I apologize. You were the shining star during one of the bleakest times in my life, and I'll be forever grateful for the role you've played in making me who I am today.
I've spoken a number of times about the summer that I spent in England. Shortly after arriving there, one of my co-workers introduced me to his step-daughter, and we immediately began dating. Her name was Katherine, and although things weren't always perfect, we got on very well, enjoyed one another's company, and we enjoyed the two months that we spent together before I left to come back to the States and finish my final year at [Generic State University]. I arrived back in the States at the end of September in 2004, and started this blog in December of that year. Since I make a great effort to avoid using people's real names, I nicknamed her The Mirror, because she was my mirror overseas (a la the Cubans in A Few Good Men).
Once I was back in the States, the Mirror and I dated for several more months. She bought a plane ticket for the purpose of flying out for a visit during Spring of '05. I was very optimistic, but as time went on, I started feeling that she was less than interested in the relationship. When I asked her about this, she always insisted that she "missed me loads". However, in the time that we were dating from a distance, I sent her numerous letters, called her at least weekly, and sent occasional E-Mails as well. I got a total of about one phone call (right when I got home), a handful of E-Mails, and only a single letter for my trouble. I sent her a big package full of gifts for Christmas, and was assured that she'd gotten me something, but was saving it for when she came to visit. I assumed, incorrectly, that Valentine's Day wasn't the big deal in England that it was in the States. Somehow, I got in trouble with the girl who didn't reciprocate anything for Christmas for not having sent her anything for Valentine's Day; remember, folks, that the card I received from her was only the second piece of mail I'd received from her at all since I left England.
This was the last straw. The Saturday after Valentine's Day 2005, having been completely unable to reach her that week, I broke things off with her. She was devastated. I almost immediately thought better of it, and decided to try and get her back, but it was too late. About two months of begging, pleading, and gifts from thousands of miles away failed to get her to budge. During the Summer of '05, after having ignored an E-Mail from her a month or two before, terrorists attacked London (where she was living at the time) on 7th July. I sent the last E-Mail I would ever send her, just to make sure she was okay.
I resigned myself to the fact that all of my efforts (including about $100 for a dozen roses) had been in vain. I remember one night in particular, probably in October or November of that year, when I woke up and couldn't stop thinking of her. I don't know if I had some sort of psychic connection to something that had happened in her life or not, but there I was.
Unfortunately, the failure of my relationship with the Mirror went on to have an exceptionally negative impact on my life, particularly in my relationship with other young women - a big deal for a twenty-three year old guy. I screwed up several relationships between Autumn of '05 and Spring of '06. Between these failures, the end of my eighteen years as a student, and my inability to find anything more than a part-time job working for my dad, life was lousy, and I didn't handle it as well as I should have.
One of my saving graces during this time was one of the few exceptionally healthy relationships that I've ever had with a young woman. That young woman's name was April, and some of you may remember her from her occasional comments. We didn't always agree on everything, but I always felt good when I was around her. We didn't fight, I always respected her values and ideas, and I liked her enough to spend about four hours driving to Metropolis every other weekend in order to see her.
I suppose I should mention how April and I met. When she had just graduated from high school, I met one of her friends online when the two of us were paired up as a "Summer Fling" on a message board. So I met up with her (Meghan) a few times, and those times always had April and another girl named Sarah floating around in the background. Things never went anywhere with Meghan, which isn't really surprising. Through some weird chain of events, April and I got to be friends, partly because I shared my pictures from Italy with her after her camera was stolen during her own trip. We saw each other occasionally after that, and then more frequently once I'd finished college. When I finished school, and then when she went back to school at the end of 2005, we settled into this routine in which I would go up and visit her when she was visiting home. So, April and I spent a great deal of time together, spoke a great deal when we weren't spending time together in person, and that was the situation.
Then, in late February of 2006, I applied for a job. And then I interviewed, and was hired, and packed up to move to California. I was exceptionally mercenary about it - it was a sacrifice that I was more than willing to make in order to achieve my ultimate life goals. Part of the overall sacrifice was that I walked away from my relationship with April without any pause. We continued to communicate once I'd reached California, but that communication got less frequent.
During my initial weeks in California, I couldn't stop thinking about the Mirror. It had been nearly a year since we'd had any contact with one another, but I couldn't help but believe that we were somehow meant to be together. With an excellent job, the capability to save significant money, and the discipline to put all of the pieces together, I contacted her out of the blue. I asked her to consider letting me fly her out for a week - yes, from London - to see if we could put it back together. I was convinced that being together once again was all it would take to repair the rift between me and the only woman I thought I had ever loved.
The Mirror's visit was scheduled for the end of August, 2006. At the end of June, I took my first trip home upon having moved to California. As conflicted as I felt about the situation, it turned out that my meeting with April was inevitable, although it didn't happen until it was time to head to the airport. During the course of our time together, I said some things to April that I immediately regretted, but I'm not sure how else I could have handled the situation. We parted company, April's feelings were hurt, and I flew back to California.
April had made it clear at one point that she wasn't really in a phase in her life in which being in a relationship was an option. Shortly after I'd arrived back in California, I received an E-Mail from April informing me that this had changed, and that she was now ready. I responded directly - probably too directly - by saying that I was no longer in a place in my life in which that was feasible, and that it wasn't realistic for us to expect that we could carry on with the kind of relationship that we'd been on the track to arrive at before, given the circumstances of both her life and mine. I didn't tell April about the Mirror, and that's one of the few decisions in the course of this story that I stand by.
The Mirror arrived for the last week of August. It was on the first day of a week-long trip that she uttered the words that every man dreads after he's spent a grand to fly her ass out from across the Atlantic Ocean: "I'm terrified of marriage, and I don't think that I'll ever get married." Wonderful. Like a man in the desert (which I actually was at that moment), the worse things went, the more I gripped, and the more I gripped, the more the proverbial sand slipped through my fingers. I took the Mirror to Disneyland, to Las Vegas, we went shopping, there were nice meals, and I even bought furniture to turn my habitat into something a bit less spartan. In the end, she was an absolute brat for the entirety of the week, and save for a single phone message that she left when she knew that I wouldn't be at my place to receive it, I've never heard from her since. In addition, I learned that while we had been dating, she had cheated on me once I'd left England. In fact, she had changed a great deal, and London had made her far more selfish and cold by 2006 than I remembered her being in 2004. It was expensive closure, and although I have a hard time regretting it, part of me - well, all of me - wishes that I could recover what I sacrificed to make the whole thing happen.
Also, I wish that the Mirror would get hit by a bus. A double-decker bus, because they have those in England. Because of this loathing, and other specific revelations that came about as a result of her visit, I changed her nickname from "The Mirror" to "The Whore".
Mighty Mo and I have discussed, and agree with one another, that I probably should have married April, and that if I'd stayed near home, I probably would have. Of course, that's not what happened; I made the decisions that I made, some of them good, many of them poor in retrospect. Not only did moving to California all but eliminate my relationship with April, but I made the same decision in a less serious way about another young woman when I moved to Virginia for my current job. I have a set of ambitious objectives that I'm unwilling to compromise on, and unfortunately, that means so far that it's lonely at the top.
So, I admit to and acknowledge these events, not in some hope that April and I will now reunite, marry, and live happily ever after; after all, I'm two thousand additional miles away from where I was to begin with, I have no idea what April's current aspirations are, and we've scarcely spoken in the last two years. However, given the amount of time that's passed, and given the mistakes that I made, and the things that I said, April deserves an apology. April, if you read this, please know that you're one of the people who I respect most in this world; and whether our lives intersect in some way, at some point in the future or not, I wish you nothing but the best things in life. I screwed up, and for that I apologize. You were the shining star during one of the bleakest times in my life, and I'll be forever grateful for the role you've played in making me who I am today.
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