2 March 2011
FD2
At first, I didn’t want to write this paper about a boy. I grow tired and frustrated with girls that wrap their whole lives around their disposable boyfriends that don’t last much longer than a year or two. I respect people that can talk about their lives past their significant other. However, there has been one person that has been with me, at my side, for a long time. Would it be cliché to say he is my best friend? Sometimes we don’t understand each other, but sometimes we can beyond words. [THESIS]I see him, and no one else can see beauty in me like Michael can.[/THESIS]
There was no defining magical moment. We created something out of nothing over a period of time. He doesn’t recall any special, defining moment either, and I have to remind him how we met sometimes. After a few months of friendship, I knew he was something really special to me. It was some kind of vague feeling. It was a feeling I could not pin point. But I knew that I needed to protect the bond I had made with him. I knew I had to protect these feelings that I had for him.
We met at his high school. Well, no, that’s not completely true. We met at my high school, but he doesn’t remember that. His girlfriend at the time flung his belt into the bushes where I happened to be sitting. I was sitting on the wall, waiting for my ride to come pick me up after marching band practice. It was hot, and I was enjoying the cool shade after a long day in the sun. I remember seeing the whole thing, from afar, an outsider, wishing to be part of that fun. He came up to me, asking if I’d seen his belt. I said that it was over in the bushes, and he went and grabbed it. He flashed me a smile and said thanks. That was the last I’d hear from him in a while.
Our next encounter was the meeting he does remember. I was at his high school cafeteria with my friend and her boyfriend after school. He was there, and my friend called him over. We exchanged pleasantries, and started making small talk. He was friendly and cordial and nice. He didn’t judge me, like all the other boys did, on first appearances. I was not a pretty girl. I was not a popular girl, and I was not a flirty girl. I was shy, and I was not expecting anything. But he saw something. And over the next few months, something was sparked in both of us. A light went on, and I realized that this was not something that I should let fall by the wayside.
We had different aspects of life at the time we fell in love. Michael was interested in living his life freely, going to college, finding other people to explore with. I was a hopeless wreck of tangled emotions, caught up in obsession to keep that thing we had alive. I wanted it. I craved his company. I felt stupid and desperate and lonely. I never forgot that spark. I never wanted it to go away. I was completely and unabashedly hooked onto Michael. I think he forgot that, but I never did. And then it happened one day. He remembered what I was like. He remembered how to trust me. He remembered me. It was then that I felt truth ripple off of him like waves of gas from an oven. I lit the match, and our relationship exploded in a surge of passion.
Michael has many different layers. On the very outer layer, he looks pretty tough. He’s a bulky dude, broad-shouldered, and stocky; Michael can scare people away with his demeanor. He wears a scowl sometimes, but I don’t know why. It’s like a joke, because he is amazingly friendly, nice, kind. He is smart, witty, and compassionate. He is helpful. As you peel that back, you find other things amongst those traits. He is emotional. He is charming. He is content. Layer after layer reveals something new. Layer after layer reveals something absent, too. Michael is not lonely. Michael is not nervous. Michael is not perfect. Michael is wonderful.
I was scared of these layers. I was afraid to pull back just one more layer to find something I didn’t like. I was afraid for him to pull back my layers, and find something he didn’t like. The neuroses I did find that I didn’t like, I grew to tolerate, and someday I know I’ll grow to love. Every year together symbolized something different in our relationship; Trust, honesty, truth, power, fear, love, life. We are still figuring it out as we go along. We are still finding our boundaries with each other, bending and flexing with and against each other, like long blades of wheat in the wind.
Michael has had an interesting life. His past has sculpted him into the person he is now, and then decided to share that with me. We are both the sculptors of each other, sculpting the dreams that we have for the other into our future. I want things for him. I want him to grow. I want him to become the person he wants to be. I have such hope for him, because I can see and feel the beauty in him. He also has found me, like no one else knows. He knows how to get to me. He knows the secret code, to bypass what I show to other people. He has been the only person in the world to see the beauty I offer. He is the only person in the world to really see me, in my essence. His eyes pick up my light, and that’s something I hope will never fade away.
Life can be loud and full and amazing. Life can also be fragile and simple and small. Some of us choose to spend our lives alone, finding out who we are, what we have to offer. Some of us choose to spend it with someone else, finding out how we are affected by love and everything they have to bring. But the third option is not about choosing at all. We didn’t choose to put ourselves in this situation. Something pushed us together, and through our actions, we found ourselves in the right place at the right time. Life will never be the same because of Michael’s influence on me. I will never be the same because of what he sees in me.
Log of Completed Activities
_X_ Feb. 4 – Intro to paper #2: Portraits
_X_ Feb. 7- Complete readings – all of chap. 13. Optional: “Cucarachas” by Madeline Sonik.
_X_ Feb. 10- Laulima Discussion: Portraits by Lee and Simic.
_X_ Feb. 14- Laulima Discussion: Portraits by Steinbach and Toth.
_ _ Feb. 18- Laulima Posting: Sample from Your Portrait.
_L_ Feb. 25- RD2 due [50 pts] Review the guidelines.
_X_ Feb. 28- Submit three RD2 evaluations. [50 pts] Review the guidelines.
_X_ Mar. 2- FD2 due [125 pts] Review the guidelines.
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