Last Thursday something happened out of nowhere that had me tripping hard. As I was dealing with the daily boredom of work, I was taking one of my many internet-browsing breaks and I saw that I had received a message from an old friend:
Ok so I'm kinda flippin out right now because I was totally just talking about you tonight and I randomly clicked on XXX's page who was my old roommate and I found your page! I miss you! We should be friends again and talk online all the time like we used to!! Um I hope you remember me and I'm not just blabbing on like a crazy person!
stephanie
This girl is a friend of an old ex-girlfriend of mine from my sophomore year of high school, and from the time I met her I've always had a huge thing for her. When I was with my ex at the time(it was a short, worthless relationship), I'd always look forward to hanging out with this Stephanie more than my actual girlfriend.
That may sound mean, in fact it probably sounds pretty messed up from any girl's point of view. But the fact is that my relationship with the other girl was purely physical. She was an overdramatic valleygirl who lived in Ventura, whose parents took care of her 110%, and who had no life ambition. She had blonde hair, but could never get it blonde enough, even with all the dying and bleaching she seemed to do on a weekly basis. All she wanted to do was have sex, I despised her attitude, and for the most part found her personality to be unbearable most of the time.
Steph was different. She was always spunky, she always had a huge beautiful smile on her face, she was always laughing and enjoying things, and when things got her down she rarely let them get to her. To top it off, she was as gorgeous as anyone I've ever seen. She hated drama, she just wanted to enjoy life and have a good time.
Since I had broken up with my ex, I haven't talked to anyone from that group. One thing I'd always missed, though, was Stephanie. We talked quite a bit during my relationship with the blonde, and for a tiny while afterwards online. Unfortunately the talking stopped one day.
From that point on I often wondered what she doing and how she was, remembering just how much a breath of fresh air she always was. She was cute and had a personality that could lift you off the ground if you ever felt tackled by life. There were quite a few days over the five years that I was pissed that I had let her out of my life completely because of that fact.
A few months ago I had run across herSpace but ended up not sending her a message. I was hesitant to approach her again, as it had been so long and I didn't really know quite how to go about it. On Thursday, I ended up getting the above message and was completely shocked.
I instantly messaged her back, and we talked back and forth through messages and IM's until early Friday morning (I know, technology...). I had told her how I felt about her back in the day, and she said that she had mirrored feelings, although I would have never known about it because when "one of my friends was dating someone," she said, "I turn the switch off."
That phrase made me laugh, and I was actually quite giddy at the fact that she had been interested all those years ago. We talked for a bit more the next morning before I decided to go see her that Friday night.
She let me know that her and "the girls" would be hanging out at a certain nightspot, so I headed out to Ventura to hang out with Mitch and Brando (Ventura Brando) for a little bit before I headed out. I was a bit nervous, as I'd know some of the people there but only as my ex-gf's friends, most of whom presumably would rather not see me after the extremely over-emotional (on her side ONLY) breakup. Not only that, but it was my first time being old enough to drink on Main St. in Ventura since I left after high school.
I eventually took off for downtown, found the place, and saw her standing with a few people on the back patio. I walked out and was greeted with a wide-eyed, freaked out stare from Steph, as well as a completely what-the-hell-do-I-do stutter from my ex.
"Uuuhhh....hi. What...are you...doing here?" She looked more dumbfounded than confused.
I shot a glance over at Stephanie again and she still had the same deer-in-the-headlights confusion in her eyes. "Just hangin' out. How you guys doin?"
"Good....so like. Uuuhhh....wow. So strange to see you here. Didn't you move?"
"Yeah I'm up in Santa Barbara now."
"So like, who are you here with?"
I paused for a second, laughing in my head at the idea that Steph had clearly "forgot" to mention anything to my ex, and was definitely not ready to deal with any questions at this point. I was about to find a really retarded and nonsensical response until the deer spoke up.
"Heeeeee's...with us!"
My ex snapped her head to the side towards Stephanie. "What?"
"I invited him..."
At that point it was clear that I needed to leave for a second. "I'm gonna head to the bar, I'll be right back."
I ordered a shot and a drink, pondering what was about to happen if I went back outside. I quickly downed my shot and briefly thought about going to hang back out with the guys before I finally took a breath and went outside to deal with the drama that was about to ensue. When I made it back outside, they had found a table and I took a seat next to Steph, abandoning the empty one next to my ex.
Throughout the rest of the night, things actually became less and less awkward. A few people recognized me and were taken back at first, but only for a few seconds. My ex seemed a bit frustrated at my interaction with my new found flirting partner, but I couldn't have cared less. A few people met me for the first time, and it ended up being a pretty fun time.
That night I ended up staying with Stephanie, and we ended up spending the night with each other Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. The weekend has given us a lot of time to get to know each other, yet the weird part is after five years we're even more comfortable with each other than we were before, and we're obviously much closer than ever. I asked her, and the switch from before was definitely turned on.
Even though it's only been a few days since we've been talking again, I couldn't be happier than when she's around. I'll never say that her eyes are "pretty", mainly because that means nothing nowadays, but when I look in her eyes there's more happening than I can describe. Her personality is as beautiful as she is on the outside, and that speaks volumes for a person, especially in the superficial world we live in.
On top of that, even though I have a pretty good life and a good family, I've always felt I was missing something, and even in past relationships I knew I was being naive when I said I felt whole. I didn't know what "whole" meant back then. Over the years I've dealt with being single, depression, work, giving up on school and all emotion involved with that, and overcoming my past in order to be happy with the now. Lately I've been doing great emotionally, and have felt happy with myself. But there's no doubt that since I've matured, I've still been missing that something. She makes me feel like I've found it.
If this seems a bit mushy towards the end, it's cuz what I'm feeling now IS mushy. But after quite some time of not knowing what I was looking for, I found it anyways thanks to the most unlikely situation.
I was gonna update Shortstacking Vegas Pt. III this weekend, but due to the described events, I didn't get around to it. I'm HOPING to have it up by tomorrow.
Also, over the past week and a half I've tripled my online "bankroll" by playing $1-2, and taking a couple shots at $2-4 and $3-6. If anything exciting happens with that, I might post about it, although it might be a while before I find anything poker worthy to write about.
Until next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment