CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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A 3rd Grade Valentine's Story For You...

Sunday, February 25, 2007

this entry brought to you by css, "music is my hot hot sex"


Valentine's day is well over a week behind us, but I wasn't updating the page at the time, so I thought I would share this with you now, though the timing is off.

There was a girl I knew in elementary school named Meredith Hartley. I knew her from first through third grades. She was tallish for a girl her age, very swedish looking, large, sleepy blue eyes, blonde hair, wide, Julia-Roberts style lips. She was the kind of little girl constantly chatting, spoke a mile a minute, a loud, boisterous voice, always giggling. She was quite annoying, really, but I liked having her around despite that she irritated me. It didn't take long before she started professing her love for me. I was her first crush. Maybe not first, but she wouldn't stop talking about how much she loved me.

This, of course, annoyed the shit out of me. The reality is that I enjoyed her affection and her attention toward me, and I liked having her as a friend; moreover, I had a crush on her, too. But she wouldn't stop talking about me. She would constantly rank the boys she'd liked, and I was always at the top. She would talk about what it would be like when we got married. This would infuriate me. I never would admit that I had a crush on her, but what was the bigger point, to me, was that I liked another girl, a lovely little hispanic girl a year younger than me named Dominque, who was like a brown haired flower that I adored. My heart fluttered when she was around. I got insanely jealous when other boys liked her. And I just didn't feel like that with Meredith. Someone could come and steal her heart-- I didn't care.

I remember I gave her my phone number when I was in the third grade, and she would call me up. She'd blab on and on about things I didn't care about, then would offer to read me comic strips from the Sunday paper, which I didn't want to hear. She would start reading and I would put down the phone and grab myself a snack. I'd pick up the phone again to hear her still babbling, I would say "Uh-huh" for a minute, then put the phone down again and walk off. At another point in time her hamster had babies and she was giving them away, and I told her that I would love one, and went to her house to pick it up. She was ecstatic, and started to show me around her room, as if I was there to hang out. "Uhm, Meredith," I said. "I just want the hamster."

Valentine's Day came around. We all handed out our store-bought Valentines, and when we were all done, she said "Chris, I made a special one for you." She had hand-made a heart-shaped Valentine, and inside the words, in her third grade scrawl, said "I love you, Chris."

I was fed up. I was tired of telling her I didn't like her like that. I was sick of telling her I liked someone else. I was sick of all of this nonsense, I just wanted to be a third grader who hung out with another third grader with blonde hair who talked too much. I took the Valentine in my hands and, right in front of her eyes, I tore it into pieces.

A moment before I did it, I hesitated. I didn't want to do it. But some part of me felt so satisfied knowing I was about to do this, that I went and did it anyway, and the instant I started doing it I immediately regretted it. I looked up into her eyes and they were wide with fright, her mouth open, her breath caught. It looked like I was stabbing her. She looked as if something in her burst. Right in front of me, I saw a little girl's heart break. I couldn't believe I'd done such a thing, I couldn't believe I'd hurt her, that I knowingly hurt her, that I did all of this on purpose, and here she was, my friend, and I did it all anyway. I felt terrible. What a horrible child I must be, I thought. But because I was in the third grade-- on second thought, my age had nothing to do with this, this is just how people are-- I'd started it, and I had to finish it, put my foot down and carry through with my actions, even though I hated myself for it. I dropped the pieces on the ground and stomped on them. I don't remember what I said. Something to the effect of "I DON'T LIKE YOU!"

She made this horrible little sound in her throat, kind of a gagging sound, her cheeks flushed red, and down came the waterworks. "I hate you, Christopher!" she shouted, and off she went to tell the teacher. In retrospect, it seems kind of silly to go and complain to the teacher of a broken heart, and it seems silly to punish a person for breaking someone else's heart in the same way you would punish them for calling them a doody-head or whatever it is third graders call one another. In truth it was the third grade, and in the long run, this act would be gotten over just as much as a name-calling would, it was still a broken heart, and to simply be yelled at for not being very nice and told to pick up the pieces and apologize seems the wrong kind of punishment. Imagine your highschool teacher merely giving you extra homework if you broke up with your girlfriend in class.

Meredith moved away between the third and the fourth grades and went to a different school, so I didn't see her again until the 10th grade. And man, she was beautiful. Still exactly the same, really; tall for a girl, by now very tall instead of just a little tall, long, beautiful blonde hair, sleepy blue eyes, wide, Julia Roberts-style lips, only now she had this amazing figure. She never said a word to me when we passed one another in the halls, and I knew instantly who she was the moment I first laid eyes on her. But she seemed to ignore me just as she ignored everyone else in the hallway, the same way everyone ignores everyone else, thinking about whatever it is people think about when they scuttle to class. She obviously didn't recognize me, I thought. Then would wonder if she did recognize me, and didn't want to say a word to me because I broke her heart back in the third grade. No, of course that couldn't be it-- she wouldn't still be upset about that, she couldn't still think I was the same jerk now that I was when I ripped up her Valentine. But then, even though you get over your third grade crushes, it's not as if you ever forget them, and it's not like they don't effect you in some small way. Perhaps she was still sore. Didn't want to bother with the jerky kid who tore up her Valentine so many years ago. Sometimes I would see her in the hall with her boyfriend; she'd kiss him. I was jealous. I don't really know why. It's not as if I had embraced her love of me in the third grade, and that if I had, it would've gone anywhere.

I had a screaming migraine one day and went to the nurse's office. I was running a temperature and was laying on the bed, waiting for my mom to come. It was 11:30 in the morning, and in came Meredith Hartley. My heart jumped. God, she was beautiful. The nurse gave her her medicine; I'd remembered, even in the third grade, she needed to take medicine twice a day, only now she also didn't feel good, and took a different kind of medicine as well, and sitting down in the chair, in pain. The nurse got up and left. My eyes lingered on her.

"So," she said, breaking the silence from the air. "When did Jay-Jay die?"

Huh? I wanted to say. It's not as if I'd forgotten Jay-Jay the hamster, but of all the things I expected to come out of her mouth, of all the things, frankly, I wanted to come out of her mouth, this was not among them. It took me aback. When did Jay-Jay die? Her words threw me off balance, and now, thinking back, I know she chose them for that exact reason.

"He lived about a year," I said, stammering, finally connecting what she'd asked.

"What did he die of?" she asked.

This was actually a much more complicated question that it would at first seem, because the hamster died suddenly, and we later came to learn of a process hamsters go through of hibernating in the summer, and we thought this might have actually been what happened, but I couldn't gather my thoughts to try and explain this. "We don't know," I said. She nodded. There was a long pause as she sat there, her smile wide and her eyes coy. "I've seen you in the hallways," I said, finally.

"I see you all the time, too. I want to say hello, but I've been afraid that you wouldn't remember me."

"I've been afraid that you wouldn't remember me," I said.

"How could I forget you?" she asked.

"How could I forget you?" I asked her back.

I wanted to tell her I was sorry that I broke her heart. I wanted to say, Meredith, the moment I tore up the Valentine, I regretted it. I wanted to tell her that I meant to break her heart, that I wanted to do it, and the moment I did, I instantly did not want to do it, I wanted to go back in time and stop it, I wanted to always have Meredith Hartley in love with me, and I wanted to be her friend, and that I was sorry, and that I still think about that day, and I hate that I could be like that. But what came out was, "I'm sorry I tore up your Valentine."

Funny, she didn't ask me what I was talking about. Her eyes were gazing into mine; she knew exactly what I was talking about. She grinned. "We were little kids," she said, dismissing it.

Yeah, I thought. Little kids. Then why were we both thinking about it at that moment?

The nurse came in. I don't remember who's parent had just arrived, I believe it was mine. I waved at her good-bye, and I was comforted in seeing that she was giving me the same longing look that I was giving her-- I wanted to sit down and talk, I wanted to catch up, I wanted to be friends for fuck's sakes, but for some reason I couldn't just get it out, give me your phone number, give me your email address, let's hang out sometime, whatever it is people do, but I waved and said good-bye, Meredith, and I walked off and fucking regretted it.
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three days ago, last year a parent i saw at a store decided to ask me to help her teach her kid a lesson about not separating from her-- but why me?

two days ago, last year a secret about me. it's a true secret, but not an especially funny one.

yesterday, last year seriously, i don't think it took very long after the invention of the camera for this to happen...

on this day last year finally, someone speaks the truth about bob marley. and that someone is me.
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with love from CRS @ 9:30 AM 

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