I fuckin' hate Jason Mraz

I awoke this morning. This is the best part of the high school years, when you awake and its already day. Despite the fact that you’re getting up at the same time it appears as though you’ve slept in. Nature is already lit up, the trees are ripe with dew and there is a comfortable humidity in the air making your cut-offs perfectly temperate.

I awoke this morning. I began the search again. It was a few days before my birthday last week. I woke up and saw the morning like this again and it reminded me of a Crosby, Stills, and Nash song I was playing two years ago towards the end of my sophomore year. I had the big collection or whatever and really got into the first album, but had exhausted it by that point and was attempting to move through the eighties with acceptance but hidden weary speculation. “49 Bye Byes” There’s a long stringy guitar solo in the beginning, but its sustains and upbeat mood.
She was coming over it was my sixteenth birthday, finally. I could get my permit start driving, soon enough not having to have my girlfriend drive me everywhere (there’s a burst to your ego).
It’s always in slow motion. Picture a morning when you woke up, regardless of when you went to bed, or that you awoke at 6:30, you’re well rested. This day to follow is cake. Its the last week of school and as long as your grades aren’t in the toilet you’ve got a few insignificant finals to occupy yourself with.
I was sitting in my kitchen. My family was still a family. She said something about arriving at seven maybe? She texted she was here.
This is bittersweet.
 Bitter because we were to break up in less than a week or so. She had huge problem which I ignored until I watched it slap me in the face. I didn’t realize that what she was rapped up into was so deeply enveloped in her character, her being. In a flash of loss and searching she did what she thought was right, made her Father proud. What’s more important, right?

Sweet because she pulled up, approached the door, there was a mutual smile, a sweet kiss, and breakfast in this unbridled summer morning. We walked to her car got in, a casual drive with a destination and arrival time assigned.  Sweet because, this kid, who’s girl friend had to drive him, who made friends through business cards, and spoke with an accent reminiscent of Cagney, had felt love.

“To Be Sixteen in July”

Well, it was June. We were done, so to speak. I still needed a ride to the going away party, and not Mom. I sad in the passengers seat with a fury of wonder.”
 Do you realize what you believe in? Do you realize that you’ve let this person take complete advantage of you? This is horrific.”

That night I said good bye to an old friend. My friend was as she had always been and I realized that I cared more about her than this other girl, but such are the things of man.
I stood in the park with her, I kissed her, said “, This is real [a kiss] you’re letting yourself get trapped. You can’t give your life up to a stranger like this.”
She went home. I sat in  fury of curiosity. My Dad said that he didn’t want me staying out that late habitually. She called me in tears.
“It just doesn’t feel good.”
“You had to do it though. You have to end this, regardless of me or anyone other than your self, for your sake.”

It ended without conclusion, and I was too young to take power and action. I realized that it was going to take me over. I may have been sixteen, but hell if I was going to let that happen.
I’m not saying I ended the relationship there and then, I’m not denying the back and forth conversation, the get - back - together walks, sharing stories:
“ I was folding clothes with this girl at work and she said ‘, have you ever heard of Barry Rowen?’ I said ‘why yes I have.’ She said ‘, He’s got these videos on YouTube and Emily Christman just loves them!”
Some where the conversation moved her being asked about her opinion on me. Her response provoke my mind, maybe she still like me. The conversation rolled on, that summer in its thoughtful solitude, ultimately moved us farther and farther apart.
I became a man, I separated myself from someone who was going to strangle the life out of me, she had already done it to herself.

The story ends, the girl is still around and as far as I know trapped in a relationship with a suicidal online boy friend. No seriously. I laugh now. I laughed before in disbelief, I was horrified in the middle because I was watching him take his toll on her, I laughed afterward to become normal again, distance myself, and return to  more realistic situations. Not conformity, i walked out on that plank and swam for a good while, in the end realizing the value of dry land.

So I think of that morning, because I figured out the song this morning, because I’m still living in that house (part-time), and because this setting will finally be gone in nearly a month.
I do not attend Ryle High School anymore. True Story.