A Piece of My Heart

The following is the prelude to my novel. I began writing this when I was 19 years old. Please feel free to comment and like. With enough feedback, I’ll continue sharing excerpts.

(June, 2006)

I have a history of bad relationships. I’m nineteen. Nineteen days, twenty-three hours and forty minutes, nineteen. I grew up watching Disney® movies, dieting, trying to fit in and – most of all – looking for true love. Why? I wish I knew.

I have friends in happy relationships – ‘true love’ type relationships. I have an older brother who, I’m pretty sure, is dating the girl he’s going to marry directly after college. I know family members and members of the community who are also involved in ‘true love’ marriages and relationships. Why is this of any importance? Because not one of them looked for true love – in fact I’m sure they didn’t even wish for it. They didn’t hope for it, didn’t wait for it – I wonder if they even thought about it. Yet here I am – nineteen days, twenty-three hours and forty minutes – nineteen, and I’ve based my life on one thing; finding (as in looking for) true love. Not just any love – not puppy love, lust, love at first sight, lost love or love that’s there for a portion of your life and just wasn’t meant to be. I‘m talking about one-of-a-kind love, the real thing – TRUE love.

Actually, I might be lying about my friends, my brother and the people in my family and community; I don’t really know whether or not it just came to them. I do know one thing – true love has not come to me. In fact, I think it’s avoiding me. It might be because I look, hope, dream, wish and wait so hard for it. Either way, it’s not here. Like I’ve already said, repeatedly, I’m – nineteen days and now about twenty three hours and fifty one minutes – nineteen. True love shouldn’t be the most important, only-focused-on aspect of a 19-year-old college girl’s life. But it is – always has been, always will be – and I wish it weren’t anymore.

You’re obviously wondering about my past because what sort of life have I lived to have cultivated such an obsession with the idea of true love – ‘TRUE love’? Well to give you a quick summary of the last nineteen years, twenty days and four minutes – my life hasn’t exactly been typical, normal, hard or extravagant. I’m actually really unsure of what one word I would use to describe my life besides, well, mine. I don’t have many childhood memories. I’m not sure why. It might be because I was molested as a child. I tell myself it’s because God doesn’t want me to remember all the bad times, but I wish he would let me remember the good.

My biological father and my mother divorced when I was three. I guess they just weren’t in ‘true love’. He wasn’t a part of my life much longer after the divorce. Now that I think about things, I’ve seen a lot of failed marriages and relationships. Seeing those failures should have kept me from believing in love, not obsessing over it. Yet here I am.

Anyways, back to the quick summary that’s not so quick. My mom and the biological father divorced when I was three. My mom became a struggling single mother who worked her ass off to give her kids the basics all while going to college for her Associates Degree. I remember when she used to date. One day, when I was around five years old, a bald man knocked on the door (I say I ‘remember’ this because it’s become a bit of a family joke that I’ve heard numerous times). At the ripe age of five-ish, after answering the door, I asked my mom what this man was doing at our house. She said they were going on a date, to which I dramatically exclaimed, “My moms going out with a bald guy?!” – and it’s been apparent ever since: I’d never have a filter.

My mother and the bald man proceeded to date. He became my dad, and I love him. He is better than any father I could have ever hoped for. He is my real dad – regardless of what any documents, medical records or last names claim. My mom and my dad love each other. It’s ‘true love’. It’s what I’m looking for.

It was your eyes. They caught my attention. I got to know them well. You have three distinct looks, I ~~know~~ knew them. I knew them because they made up the way you looked at me.

1. The Excited Look.

This look is a toss between the way a little boy’s eyes light up when he sees a fast car for the first time and the intensity you see in the eyes of a reckless daredevil who’s about to break a world record – or the law. The look of excitement, your look of excitement, is was completely intoxicating.

When you get this look in your eyes there’s no stopping you, this is where the risk lives. The young, wild, reckless, free and – of course – extremely happy being single version of you lives in this look. The look of excitement indicates you’re not willing to compromise for anyone.

2. The Look Of Frustration.

The look you get in your eyes when you’re frustrated has a twinge of sadness and a hint of desperation, indicating a thirst for knowledge – determination. It’s the look you get when you’re trying to finish a project but you’re forgetting a part or a step. This look is intimidating – it tells those around you to back off because your short temper is about to come out to play.

Your frustrated look can turn into a very silent but quite deadly look. A look so cold and dark no one in their right mind would want to approach you. After a minute or two, depending on the situation, this look is sealed with a hint of a smile. A mischievous smile pulling a little bit of the excitement out from behind those cold, dark walls. Then your eyes get their twinkle back.

3. The eye roll.

The eye roll is the exit sign, your way out of a conversation or a way to change the topic. It’s your hallway to safety, your way of not being taken too seriously. Your ‘get out of jail free’ card. You do the eye roll when you’ve said something that might offend someone or when you realize you’ve been too inappropriate in a situation or conversation.

The eye roll is used the most by you when you’re recklessly flirting. When ~~the victim~~ she starts to look at you with hope and excitement, with a twinkle in her eye, you use the eye roll to show her you’re not interested. You use it to tell her you were just joking around. The eye roll is your safety vest; it’s the way you stay calm, cool and collected in every challenging situation.

After your eye roll exit, you always revert back to your look of excitement. Then – my favorite part – when you get that twinkle back.

Kind of like the twinkle you would have when you looked at me.

The way you looked at me was what made me stay, made me hold on. The way you looked at me was a contradiction to the things you said – making me feel the way I felt.

The Way You Looked At Me.

Part I. A mix of your excited and frustrated looks. At first glance, your eyes would portray you weren’t sure if you should let me know what was behind them – you didn’t want me to know what was next. Then came the intensity, the intoxicating part, the most dangerous part. The intense look hinted to the twinge of the excitement you ~~have~~ had for me; excitement about what we could’ve been. It was the look that lead me on. It was the look that made me want to open my heart to you.

Part II. Then your stare turned into a look of intensity, frustration and danger, mixed with excitement. The look that made me melt into your arms. The look you gave me with a mischievous hint of a smile kept me lingering. It was the look that gave me hope. The look that made me think one day, somehow, I might have been the reason behind your smile – the only woman you would give that smile to.

Part III. But then, all those looks; the intoxicatingly dangerous excitement, the frustration, the intensity – the hope – faded away. You completed the way you looked at me with the eye roll. The open door implying you might have let me walk through, into your heart, would close. No matter how hard I tried to walk through, no matter how fast I’d walk or how far open that door would be, you always met me before I entered. You’d always stop me. The way you looked at me would always, in the hallway to your heart, end in an eye roll leading to the exit sign – and you’d escort me out.

When you did this my heart would stop. The butterflies would subside, and I’d be left feeling like the air was just knocked out of my lungs. The eye roll was your way of telling me you meant what you said; we were what we were and we wouldn’t be anything more. You meant what you said when you said you didn’t feel a thing. It indicated you didn’t take me seriously when I said I wouldn’t hurt you. You didn’t believe me.

The Way You Look At Me Now.

I’m no longer familiar with the way you used to look at me – I only know the way you look at me now. Our eyes have become strangers, your gaze moves past me – I’m not even sure you see me anymore. Because now, the way you look at me says you don’t feel anything for me. You don’t take me seriously when I say I won’t hurt you.It says, no matter how many glances you send in my direction, I’m not the only woman to receive them. I’m not, I wasn’t and won’t be, the reason behind your mischievous smile.

But me? I still get caught in your eyes. I get caught in the hope of getting lost in them, caught in the hope that you might get lost in mine. When you see my eyes twinkle, when you see my lingering gaze in your direction, I see your eyes roll, reminding me –

Each and every time you find me, you’ll walk me out.

The Dalema. September, 2015

The Dalema

Finding The Woman I'm Meant To Be

Category

Prelude

A Note To The Wounded

The Way You Look Tonight

To The Someone I Used To Know

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are

The Dalema

Finding The Woman I'm Meant To Be

Category