On journaling ...

I've always been drawn to journaling.
I used to keep one as a child. Mostly started in junior high. And then in high school.
And in my journals I was honest - blatently honest. And at one point (okay, more than one time, but this particular time) I was in love. It was true love. True love of the most deepest kind ever. Of course, the problem with all of this love is that it was unreciprocated love. The love was walking a one-way street.
It was painful. I was in love with my then best friend Mark. My world revolved around him at the time. I am actually blushing as I write this now remembering all of this. We were connected, bound to be tied to each other for life ....
I met him in 8th grade. I loved his hair, his eyes, oh, well, I loved just about everything. Except for the fact that he was dating one of my friends. He advised me to get a boyfriend so we could doubledate. I did. A loser. I didnt' really like him, but how could I let my true love down? and maybe if we did something together, like a double date, he would "dump" his then girlfriend and discover I was his true love just waiting to be ...
I did eventually dump my guy, he broke up with his girl. And I hoped upon hope upon hope. Until I was sidetracked by guy B ... eh, what can I say ... I was young, free, wild - okay,s o I wasn't, but Homecoming was coming up and I didn't want to be dateless! LOL!
But I felt so badly for B that we didn't last long. I never even kissed him. I was on my second boyfriend, 14 year old and still had not been kissed.
And then I got brave ... very brave. I told best friend that I didn't want to be friends anymore. Just like that. Told him. He wasn't shocked. He knew. He said he liked me, as friends, and that was that. So to spite him I started to date a kind of bad boy/popular/jock at school. Well, that didn't work out too well. Bad boy/popular/jock, whom we will rename as jerk, and I broke up, and my friendship was on the rocks. But that was it. I was done with guys. Recently turned 16 and jaded. I had only had a few boyfriends, all 3 of which weren't exactly the nicest guys on the block and the guy I was madly in love with wasn't talking to me all of a sudden.
Fine. Then. I was done. with. boys. forever. Except, I really wasn't!
My friendship with love of my life got good again. I did manage to stay away from the whole dating scene for almost a year. When in walks another loser - we'll call him stalker boy. Well, it's not like I knew he was a stalker when we first started dating. I was soon to be 17 and apparently dumb still.
Anyway, things with him didn't work out so well. We broke up. And at the same time the love of my life and I had a HUGE fight. I mean BIG fight. The problem was I didn't know what it was about. I tried to hard to figure it out and to no avail. I managed to find out later, through the grapevine, stalker boy was extremely jealous of friendship with love of my life and did things to sabbotage our friendship so he could have me all to his self. I suppose, in some wierd twisted way that should be a compliment, but I'm glad I didn't think so back then and knew it only meant to stay even farther away from him than I had already planned to!
So love of my life and I became friends again once it was apparent I really wasn't the mean, back-stabbing friend he thought I had been. And that's when it started to get tricky. Prom was coming up, our friendship was back on track. I was still in love with him. Life was good in that "I am stuck only being friends with the guy I totally love" sense. And prom came and went. And ym hopes of hooking up with him were dashed again. Until he told me that he really did want to ask me to the prom but was too nervous. He decided he was in love with me too, and we should have dated, but he changed his mind and dated someone else. I was livid. Just livid. So done with him, it wasn't funny. I moved on, and dated the next loser - we'll call him wimpy boy. Of course at the time, wimpy boy was the love of my life and we were going to get married, but get this .... the whole time he was telling me how much he loved me, he was cheating on me with the girl my real true love of my life was dating! How dare she, steal one guy from me and now two?! Not to mention, how could she cheat on the real love of my life! He was a gem, a jewel, an amazing guy! The nerve! And then to top it all off, the love of my life admitted he was deeply in love with me, but now far away at college and so it was meant to be the love that never was ...
Yes, high school drama can be so fun when you look back on it! But it all exploded a few weeks after I left for college. So there I was, my second month at college, boyfriendless, friendless, feeling sad.
And that's when I met my now dh - as my mother has said "The first non-loser Brandie ever dated!" Now, if that aint' a compliment, I don't know what is!
But I have to admit, in the back of my mind I still wonder about my friend. What is he doing? (he's in med school somewhere in the US right now) Is he dating anyone? (Last I heard, no he is not) Does he think of me?
I know I shouldn't, but I think of him. I'm sad I never got to kiss him just once. But I'm glad I never got to kiss, not even one time did we cross that line.
I imagine if we met today, things would feel awkward at first, but after a few moments, I have no doubt we would be laughing, remembering all the silly, funny, stupid, crazy things we did during our teen years. I imagine my dh would like him, think he was an okay guy. I have to picture if he is with anyone right now, she is a nice girl.
I think of him and I smile. I do. I'm glad I'm here now though. I'm glad he was the great love that was never meant to be. I'm glad our friendship survived high school, that he was always there for me to call or go hang out with. As a matter of fact, I should even go e-mail him now and see where life has taken him. [We do typically exchange e-mails about once a year when something big happens i.e. I'm getting married, I got into med school, I just had my third baby]
It is getting close to what should be a ten year high school reunion, I have to wonder if he will be there ... if I will be there ... and then my dh can meet him. I'd like them to meet. I'd like my dh to know who this person was who was so important to me back then.

Okay ....
that is honestly not the direction I had planned to take tonight at all ... but it was a fun trip down memory lane for me.
Tomorrow I shall write what I originally planned to write tonight! LOL!