IgnoredOne
Well-known member
[Ramble, autobiographical with an authorial flair. Mods, feel free to move this into the diary if it is more appropriate.]
I loved her...love her so, though I suppose that in a way, for all of the time together, we were never supposed to have been. And as I sense her presence again, dimly muse at her words to 'restore connections' and consider all who she is and consider all who she is no longer, I try to piece together my feelings and see the little girl where there may be none.
Call her E. We were, as I said, not supposed to be together at all. The daughter of a wealthy and as I would learn, rather controlling father who was intent on keeping her away from any distracting male influences, E nonetheless met me as a tutor during summer. I was quite a bit older than her but something of her maturity surprised me to the core. When she told me that she was sixteen, I thought she was lying.
The little redhead didn't sound sixteen, not with her passion to progress, her distinct disavowal of the stupidity of high school games, or the simple focused intellect that signified her. She was a consummate equestarian, with several blue ribbons to her credit from country fairs; I, who had ridden horses for my entire life, had something immediately in common.
We got close - far too quickly and obviously wrong for a teacher and a student. I think we both realized that, but neither of us did anything about it. We talked during our lessons, over the phone, in late-night MSN sessions and secret meetings in the hills of the vast ranch of her family's.
One night, as we watched the stars,she sleepily rambled about shooting stars. If for every one that we saw, the beauty of the fiery streak that knifed across the clear blackness - then think of all of the shooting stars that are not seen, of all of the beauty that surrounds us, that is missed in our haste and rush. And just as she drifted off upon my shoulder, she murmured those few words which are said so often hollowly and yet, mean so much when said in truth.
"I love you."
"I know," I answered. "I love you too."
It was summer again. She had just turned 17.
Time is not static, but fluid. In darkness and depression, it seems to stretch on and endlessly, and every plodding night forward is endless in its lonely terror. But in happiness, time flees and flights on gilt wings, golden in the sunshine and the whorl of the living world.
She asked me to describe her once, standing there, where the pink snapdragons splashed against the wheatgold of grasses and the blue buttony blossoms of the bluebonnets. I told her of the flickering flame of her hair, the glade of speckled green and wild honey brown of her eyes, of the pink tingled of scarlet of her lips and the cream rose of her cheeks. The cream rose blushed full crimson, and she called me her writer.
She called me knight, her knight. I called her sweetness, my sweetness against the dreariness of the world.
We challenged a hill once, not too long after. I remember the gale of the wind as I galloped Grant, the old quarterhorse, and leapt upward the rocky approach until we found ourselves on the summit, then I laughed and beckoned E to follow me from the base. She hugged her Star, that prancing and agile Arab; those wild angel eyes of hers flashed an answer to my challenge and upward ho did she urge Star to leap, but where the rider was dauntless, the mount was not. Star made a lazy ascending step, seemingly glanced sideways at E, and turned about neighingly. E giggled so much, and her laughter was as sweet as the sound of a fresh stream.
And yet, somehow, where I had accepted us, something felt missing. Her friends, if they ever knew of us, could never accept us in the least. E despised them almost actively, admitting she could never even communicate with anything 'her age' without liberally drowning herself in caffiene, but in retrospect, their approval meant something. And for all our love, our joy and the light, perhaps it never felt normal.
By fall, she seemed increasingly perturbed by the lack of normalcy, as she called it. I mocked it - how could anything extraordinary be ordinary? If we were not normal, did that not mean we were at least special? But the thought smouldered, agitated and finally exploded. As the leaves darkened and the branches bared, so she asked for us to end.
No more clandestine kisses behind coffee kiosks. No more laughter under the spectral skies. No more sweetness.
I was crestfallen, but I was not alone. She couldn't find her peace either, somehow, and perhaps foolishly, we stuck together again in some mockery of a relationship. I loved her so, but she did not, not in the same way, even if she needed me and even if she still came to me first and almost every night in phone or message or person. We were stormy and we fought - I tried to press in and she tried to push away, but never too far, and we were too desperate to have each other in our lives, for some reason - but really, we brought each other only pain. She said that we were a rollercoaster, and she asked why we could not stabilize.
But rollercoasters end. The tickets are paid, the ride slows and the passengers depart. And so, in the end, did us, finally. One night, she abruptly offered herself to me, but I felt suspicious and she confessed that she had given her virginity to someone else. We fought. It was my right, I felt, after all the time that I had waited for her. We exchanged bitter words. We did not speak again.
Until two years later.
She came to me, crying for love had wounded her - her boyfriend then had abandoned her, evidently, having been cheating on her with some other woman. She was angry, lost, and more than that...she had lost something of herself, something of that passionate sweetness that she had. Something of her seemed to want us to try again, but I could not forgive her, still, for what I felt was her betrayal and she could not quite stabilize on whether she even wanted me. Again, we ended. This time, she said, it was on better terms, for the both of us. I thanked her for being in my life. She did the same for me. And so it was.
Or not.
Again, today, she came to be at least tangentially in my life. Its online now, and so, I have only pieces of the girl that I once knew. I see a photo, I see those green eyes and the auburn hair, I see a purpose in her life that I knew nothing about. Some part of me almost feels a yearning, thinking of those lost giggles and gentle smiles. But, in the end, I don't think there is anything left of my sweetness, my E. There is a woman where once was a girl, better, I hope, but...never the same again. She's a photographer now, I understand. She looks more worn, sadder, and lost. That was once the spirited fire, now, I see only the anger and bitterness. Somewhere, I still love her. Somehow.
But not enough to risk talking to her again.
I wanted to be there for her. To be her teacher in all things, and safeguard her from all pains in life. I loved her so, but not all dreams are meant to be and the fantasies of flight find truth in prose but not in life. In the distant annals of memory, a sweet girl once frolicked amongst the hills with her knight in a magical summer. We lived, we loved and are lost in time. Let that be our epitaph.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
I loved her...love her so, though I suppose that in a way, for all of the time together, we were never supposed to have been. And as I sense her presence again, dimly muse at her words to 'restore connections' and consider all who she is and consider all who she is no longer, I try to piece together my feelings and see the little girl where there may be none.
Call her E. We were, as I said, not supposed to be together at all. The daughter of a wealthy and as I would learn, rather controlling father who was intent on keeping her away from any distracting male influences, E nonetheless met me as a tutor during summer. I was quite a bit older than her but something of her maturity surprised me to the core. When she told me that she was sixteen, I thought she was lying.
The little redhead didn't sound sixteen, not with her passion to progress, her distinct disavowal of the stupidity of high school games, or the simple focused intellect that signified her. She was a consummate equestarian, with several blue ribbons to her credit from country fairs; I, who had ridden horses for my entire life, had something immediately in common.
We got close - far too quickly and obviously wrong for a teacher and a student. I think we both realized that, but neither of us did anything about it. We talked during our lessons, over the phone, in late-night MSN sessions and secret meetings in the hills of the vast ranch of her family's.
One night, as we watched the stars,she sleepily rambled about shooting stars. If for every one that we saw, the beauty of the fiery streak that knifed across the clear blackness - then think of all of the shooting stars that are not seen, of all of the beauty that surrounds us, that is missed in our haste and rush. And just as she drifted off upon my shoulder, she murmured those few words which are said so often hollowly and yet, mean so much when said in truth.
"I love you."
"I know," I answered. "I love you too."
It was summer again. She had just turned 17.
Time is not static, but fluid. In darkness and depression, it seems to stretch on and endlessly, and every plodding night forward is endless in its lonely terror. But in happiness, time flees and flights on gilt wings, golden in the sunshine and the whorl of the living world.
She asked me to describe her once, standing there, where the pink snapdragons splashed against the wheatgold of grasses and the blue buttony blossoms of the bluebonnets. I told her of the flickering flame of her hair, the glade of speckled green and wild honey brown of her eyes, of the pink tingled of scarlet of her lips and the cream rose of her cheeks. The cream rose blushed full crimson, and she called me her writer.
She called me knight, her knight. I called her sweetness, my sweetness against the dreariness of the world.
We challenged a hill once, not too long after. I remember the gale of the wind as I galloped Grant, the old quarterhorse, and leapt upward the rocky approach until we found ourselves on the summit, then I laughed and beckoned E to follow me from the base. She hugged her Star, that prancing and agile Arab; those wild angel eyes of hers flashed an answer to my challenge and upward ho did she urge Star to leap, but where the rider was dauntless, the mount was not. Star made a lazy ascending step, seemingly glanced sideways at E, and turned about neighingly. E giggled so much, and her laughter was as sweet as the sound of a fresh stream.
And yet, somehow, where I had accepted us, something felt missing. Her friends, if they ever knew of us, could never accept us in the least. E despised them almost actively, admitting she could never even communicate with anything 'her age' without liberally drowning herself in caffiene, but in retrospect, their approval meant something. And for all our love, our joy and the light, perhaps it never felt normal.
By fall, she seemed increasingly perturbed by the lack of normalcy, as she called it. I mocked it - how could anything extraordinary be ordinary? If we were not normal, did that not mean we were at least special? But the thought smouldered, agitated and finally exploded. As the leaves darkened and the branches bared, so she asked for us to end.
No more clandestine kisses behind coffee kiosks. No more laughter under the spectral skies. No more sweetness.
I was crestfallen, but I was not alone. She couldn't find her peace either, somehow, and perhaps foolishly, we stuck together again in some mockery of a relationship. I loved her so, but she did not, not in the same way, even if she needed me and even if she still came to me first and almost every night in phone or message or person. We were stormy and we fought - I tried to press in and she tried to push away, but never too far, and we were too desperate to have each other in our lives, for some reason - but really, we brought each other only pain. She said that we were a rollercoaster, and she asked why we could not stabilize.
But rollercoasters end. The tickets are paid, the ride slows and the passengers depart. And so, in the end, did us, finally. One night, she abruptly offered herself to me, but I felt suspicious and she confessed that she had given her virginity to someone else. We fought. It was my right, I felt, after all the time that I had waited for her. We exchanged bitter words. We did not speak again.
Until two years later.
She came to me, crying for love had wounded her - her boyfriend then had abandoned her, evidently, having been cheating on her with some other woman. She was angry, lost, and more than that...she had lost something of herself, something of that passionate sweetness that she had. Something of her seemed to want us to try again, but I could not forgive her, still, for what I felt was her betrayal and she could not quite stabilize on whether she even wanted me. Again, we ended. This time, she said, it was on better terms, for the both of us. I thanked her for being in my life. She did the same for me. And so it was.
Or not.
Again, today, she came to be at least tangentially in my life. Its online now, and so, I have only pieces of the girl that I once knew. I see a photo, I see those green eyes and the auburn hair, I see a purpose in her life that I knew nothing about. Some part of me almost feels a yearning, thinking of those lost giggles and gentle smiles. But, in the end, I don't think there is anything left of my sweetness, my E. There is a woman where once was a girl, better, I hope, but...never the same again. She's a photographer now, I understand. She looks more worn, sadder, and lost. That was once the spirited fire, now, I see only the anger and bitterness. Somewhere, I still love her. Somehow.
But not enough to risk talking to her again.
I wanted to be there for her. To be her teacher in all things, and safeguard her from all pains in life. I loved her so, but not all dreams are meant to be and the fantasies of flight find truth in prose but not in life. In the distant annals of memory, a sweet girl once frolicked amongst the hills with her knight in a magical summer. We lived, we loved and are lost in time. Let that be our epitaph.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
.
