I’ve looked at love from both sides now. From give and take and still somehow.
It’s love’s illusions I recall. I really don’t know love at all
He was in college and although he was not my first love, he was my first serious relationship. It should have never have lasted more than a year, thinking back but hindsight is always 20/20. For the first 6 months, he still had pictures of his ex girlfriend, on his bedroom wall.
I remember attending a college evening with him and his tutors were ‘glad to see me up and about’. I was a little confused but it turned out, he had been using my medical history, to bunk off college. His tutors thought his vigil-at-my-bedside story was so touching.
Months turned into years. So much of the relationship worked like a dream. We had movie love. Holidays, weekends away, roof tops and sunsets. Laying in fields, looking at the clouds, talking for hours. Walking along the beach hand in hand. He loved me. He repaired my heart and showed me that there were people, who could see past the tough stuff. We spent our remaining teenage years together. There was so much promise…
His mum, made no secret of the fact, I wasn’t quite what she was hoping for. Behind the photos of our young love, the cracks started to show. He mocked my friends and family and over the course of our relationship, my circle of friends vanished. He corrected my conduct, grammar and started to tell me what to wear. He would make comments about my bad skin. He would dance around me, when I would grab a snack, singing ‘you’re the one for me fatty!’. We may have been growing up but we were also growing apart.
Over our time, he became someone else. Our 5 years together was coming to a close
I could no longer see my happy ending. I could just see my confidence and self-esteem, running out the door, after my friends. After months of soul-searching, I ended it. It was one of the hardest decisions to make. It’s hard to end a relationship with someone you love. In the end, the love was not enough, to shield me from his ego. I broke his heart. He broke mine.
Within a year, he was back with his ex girlfriend and engaged to be married. As painful as that was, I’m glad I didn’t stand in the way, of what was clearly meant to be. Was our relationship the prep school he attended to be a better man for his ex? Who knows. Some while after their reconciliation, he told me that his grandmother had reached a milestone birthday. As luck would have it, they were able to use a family photo from 1994 that had him and his fiancée in already. No need to re-shoot ‘Funny how things work out’…yes…hilarious.
Running alongside my adolescent love life was the relationship I had with my family. My Mum and Grandfather dented my confidence for life as a teenager. My Grandfather would ridicule my hair and makeup weekly. He would also look at me and shake his head before asking ‘how come you can’t look as pretty as your friends? Shame that.’.
The best comment was from my mum. She said ‘I must admit, I was relieved when my second child was a boy. I was worried how you would handle, growing up with a pretty sister’.
Nice.
After my last surgery at 12 years old, I was coming round from the anesthetic. I opened my eyes, only to see my mum, take one look at me and run. Now I know that there is that saying, about having a face only a mother could love – but in that moment – I didn’t even have that.
My mum was very keen to be seen as cool. During my secondary school years, she took all my friends under her wing. You could talk to my mum, about sex, smoking, pregnancy…anything. She was unshockable. Eventually people would call round my house, pass me in the doorway, and chill with my mother. I remember one occasion, when my mum intervened in an argument, I had with a girlfriend. She called me downstairs, encouraged me to vent my anger at the situation. I went to town on my girlfriend, I was so annoyed. Even more so when my mum then revealed, she had conspired with my girlfriend and hidden her behind the sofa. My girlfriend heard everything. I was then forced to apologise to my friend for being so nasty. Screwed right?
It was during secondary school, my parents experienced financial difficulties. We lost our house and were homeless for a year. Sofa surfing as a teenager isn’t fun. Some months we stayed together with family. Some months we lived apart, on various airbeds, dotted around the area. This time in my life was truly awful. On a positive – learning how quickly you can lose everything, made me much less materialistic, as an adult. I’m skipping over some things again during this period but you get the gist.
My parents eventually got a rented property and we could all be together as a family again. Just in time for me to knuckle down, for my final two years of school and pull some decent grades out of my ass!
I finished school and started college. I picked all the wrong courses and I quit after 6 weeks. Not exactly the most auspicious start. With no idea of what I really wanted to do, I started to look for a job. It was time to achieve my full adult status. The office life beckoned. I was going to be judged on my excellent grades and ability. No more bullying as adults don’t do that. This was going to be my time to shine…