Brittany Beaupre
October 1st, 2009
2nd Period Creative Writing
Mr. Benoit
For many years proceeding today, romantic relationships have always led me to give up on a lot of things, including friendships. There was always the prominent high school drama with your boyfriend and his friends and the commotion your friends would give you because you never had the time for them. You were usually too busy doing something with the person you always believed you shared the most feelings with and whom you thought cared for you the most. But you find that these things change over time, and these relationships are harder to keep up with. You begin to find that you have to sacrifice a lot of things because immaturity takes over each other’s attitudes, forcing each other to quit speaking to someone you aren’t comfortable with, or quit doing something because the significant other felt as if they were being left out. And you realize these things are not needed and you find ways to overcome these obstacles but the partner is reluctant and unwilling to make any changes. And because of this, you make a decision that changes your life and everything you’ve most recently experienced or known, and you are hopelessly left with nothing.
The longest relationship I’ve ever been blessed to have was a decent, yet long, two-year ‘friendship’ as I would prefer to describe it. It gave me insight and taught me very valuable lessons toward future relationships and how to handle certain issues that may arise. Jealousy happens to be a huge topic amongst men and women, where both sexes are brought together on a whole new level of…disagreement. Because of jealousy, I had to abide by rules set by a past significant other, forcing me to give up things and feel things that I not only did not want to feel, but also didn’t want him to be feeling either. In the end, it only taught me to act the same way and you find that you can’t stop acting this way. I was drawn into a web of jealousy and issues that were never conquered, problems that weren’t dealt with, and tears that seemed to never end. I can’t give you detailed information on a two year relationship with a guy who obviously isn’t around anymore, but I will tell you this: Even the lowest moments of your life will pick back up and lead to better, greater moments that are worth remembering.
I happened to give up on wanting new relationships after previous ones died out, and decided to leave ‘love’ alone for awhile. This was a semi-lonely fraction of my life. Of course I had my friends there to help me through it and I had a lot of fun times hanging out with these people, but it didn’t change the fact that my heart was lonely. Eventually, I started hating guys but it happened to be very hypocritical of me when the majority of my friends were men. Females often started the drama before so I stopped making friends with women, and I avoided a lot of conversations or running into girls I knew who started problems for no good reason. This happened to be a good decision to make, despite what most people would think.
Fully believing that I was done with guys for awhile, someone stepped into my life before I knew it had even happened; before I had even wanted it to happen. I remember it perfectly too. It was a regular weekend spent at my father’s house with my two younger sisters, a place I was forced to visit every weekend, every other weekend, and now a place I don’t even visit at all. I was spending a weekend there, suffering from my allergies because my step-mom ‘needed’ to have a cat. It was later in the evening and dinner was cooking, I was sitting at their desktop computer where I was frequently caught on MySpace and Facebook, conversing with my friends. There weren’t many people online that night, but before I was about to give up and log out of my websites, I received a few picture comments from someone I had never had a full conversation with before, let alone even met. They were comments that almost made me want to block him; I almost felt he was ‘creeping’ on me because we didn’t even know each other at all. They weren’t inappropriate, they just happened to say I was very pretty, good looking, etc. So I did what the norms of MySpace do and made comments on his pictures in return. I made my way to his profile, searching for his name… Jason. I was very shocked that this was the guy that I had friend requested on a whim a few months back, who lives in North Carolina and knows a girl I happened to be best friends with years before. I had never looked at his pictures before, but I did find that his default picture was deceiving. It looked nothing like him. I figured it was an older picture, and he had just failed to replace it with an updated picture. Making my way through his photo albums, I agreed with myself that this guy was actually very good looking. I didn’t know if I should strike up a conversation, but before I knew it, he already did. As I returned to my home page, a link in red stated I had a new message. I read the message and replied. We had a very decent conversation after this, sharing each other’s background and even got on topic of a private part of each other’s lives—relationships. We had so much in common it struck me odd and almost seemed unreal. It seemed more like a friendship then it did anything else, but it felt really good to know there was someone out there who had the desire in talking to me, even if it meant ignoring anything past a friendship. But a friendship was hard to avoid, because it soon hit me that I didn’t want to stop talking to this guy, and I didn’t want a friendship. It was enjoyable and made me feel less lonely and more wanted. We talked more and more and opened up to each other and eventually felt comfortable enough to exchange phone numbers. We texted each other all night, and before I knew it, I was tired, and I fell asleep. Day one and something had already happened; something that I didn’t exactly want happening for a long time. I started falling for someone I hadn’t met before; someone I didn’t know was even real or not. He had sent a picture showing his true southern self and I immediately knew this guy had caught my interest.
Waking up the next morning, I had a text message telling me he was thinking about me after I had already fallen asleep. It blew my mind away how love can quickly take over two people, even in a matter of a days’ time. This made me fall the rest of the way. I never had the chance to meet someone like this, someone who made the effort to let you know how he is feeling because he knows it’ll make you feel good too. Someone who just knows what they’re doing. I loved this. We continued to talk day after day and he never seemed uninterested with me. We began a long-distance relationship, and gave each other the titles of ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’. Things were so easy in the beginning, we talked every day and we got to know each other more and more, unable to recognize flaws yet. I only try my hardest in one area anymore—jealousy. Everything else was easy, my only concern being that a long distance relationship can lead to one or the other getting sidetracked very easily, whether they mean to or not. I was afraid of things happening; things that could only break my heart even more and push me away from guys forever. But I can tell you that it takes a lot of trust to put into something like this, and you have to have a lot of trust for that special someone. I was able to do both, despite my past.
Looking back a few years, I can recall two long-distance relationships I put myself through that failed terribly. I can only laugh now because the two people I was in a relationship with then, I am still friends with to this day. But what makes me laugh even more is that the distance between us was roughly thirty minutes. The only thing that kept us from seeing each other was the fact that none of us had cars. Looking back, and still laughing, I think of how the relationship I am blessed with now is far worse but in much better shape. We are separated by six hundred and thirty-eight miles and still doing perfectly. We managed to get him to Illinois twice over the summer, and my trip is set to take place in November. Money is tight, but we worked things out and helped each other with the expenses and it was very worthwhile.
When Jason called me as soon as he got into Bourbonnais for the first time in June, I was very scared for the fact that this was it!—I would finally meet him in person. Scared as I was, I couldn’t help but let the thought linger on my mind; What if he isn’t who he says he is? I listened to my heart on this one and told him where I lived and how to get there. He pulled into my driveway in a white Alero, stepped out of his car, and I almost had a conniption. I was overwhelmed that it really was him, and that everything was real and our feelings were true. He drove over six hundred miles to see me! Of all people! He stayed for a week, and it was very heartbreaking when he had to leave…but we knew it had to happen whether we wanted it to or not. Things have been wonderful since. He made a second trip in August was lucky enough to stay for two weeks. We took trips to Chicago and went to dinners and he even met my family for the first time. I can honestly say that my family ADORES him. They are completely in love with him and want the best for us both. My mom even asked me awhile after he had left the second time if we were going to plan things after college and get married. Married!
My parents all wish him to stay in my life for a long time, and I do believe he will. We’ve made the unthinkable happen, and is still happening. Currently, we’ve been together 5.5 months. We’re still young as a relationship but we grow each and every day in so many ways. There are difficult moments in which the distance puts more and more weight on my shoulders and I feel lonelier then I ever have in my life. But I am told by him that once we pass this test, as he likes to call it, the greatest thing will come from it, that being a greater and stronger us.
I plan on moving back down to North Carolina in January 2010. I have had this planned for quite some time, and yes, I had this planned before Jason. I had lived there previously, about seven years ago, after my mother had gone through her divorce with my father. We moved into my grandfathers’ motel that he owns, and stayed there for about a year and a half until my brother decided he wanted to move back to Illinois. I do plan on moving back. My family loved being down there, even if it was best that we moved back and stay in Illinois for school.
Ever since April, when I first ‘met’ Jason, things in life have been more than amazing. I got to have the most amazing summer because someone made my dreams happen. I couldn’t ask for a better person to have in my life. In the end, I was proved wrong about guys. Meeting Jason and all the times spent with him will forever be my favorite collection of memories.
