I wrote something half an hour ago in this but I'm an idiot and somehow I x'd out the box...words don't hit u twice especially what I had just written. But I found my first essay that I have ever written here at UCLA. It was my essay for English Comp. 2 last year in the fall...before all this shit in my life...enjoy and let me know what u think...
Sheena Sanchez
English 2 Composition
Fallows
Love is Life: Life is Love
I am a hopeless romantic there is no simpler way to label myself. I am that girl who lives for the way his eyes meet mine across a crowded room. I am that girl who shudders at the mere touch of his powerful hands. I am that girl who becomes teary eyed at the sight of a sappy love story on the big screen or a television set. I am that girl who lives for his Kodak moment smile. I am that girl who swoons at the simple spoken word of poetry. I am that girl…I am a hopeless romantic.
I was born in the era where every cool kid knew everything about every television show there was. I was the typical little kid sitting in front of the television watching all the many television shows: cartoons, sitcoms, educational programs. I loved them all but there is one thing I remember now that I did not know back then: they lie! I thought all of those fabricated stories were how things were really like. Boy, was I ever wrong! My favorites were the ones with Mickey and Minnie holding hands, DJ and Steve being ever so in love, and how Zack and Kelly were meant for each other. Not to mention the Disney classics that had everyone watching it fall at the beauty of their tale: Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty all had their princes but the question that I propose now is “where is my prince?” They lied. They never told that those things did not happen in real life. The girl does not always get the hot star quarterback to take her to the senior prom. The guy does not always get the popular head cheerleader as his girlfriend. A White Knight will not ride into town and save me from the wretched life I live. It does not work that way because we live in a different world than they do: we live in reality while they are living life in a dream world. In all honesty, I hate that.
I thought I had watched enough television to know what is going to happen when so-and-so happens in my life. Those moments were the ones that I was so sure I would know that it would end in something good because they always turned out well in the movies or the television shows. The moments I am talking about for me were the relationships throughout my life: the “I’m in love” type relationships. The thing that kept me going everyday and made me look forward to tomorrows also became the thing that made me wonder why I am even living on this Earth. There was no way I could have known the things that would occur to me when I finally got into a “relationship” except through what I had seen on the screen. I am only seventeen years old but I have had my share of relationships and they were nothing like I had ever imagined. I have been raised believing that relationships are when a boy meets girl, boy asks girl out, boy and girl fall in love, and boy and girl live happily ever after. Little did I know the fantasy of that scenario was completely false! Television spoiled my mind and my vision of my future. They never spoke about the fights, the jealousy, the other girls, and not to mention the inevitable heartbreak. There was nearly always a happy ending in all of them when I had seen them. It was stuck in my head that everyone has that one true love out there and that they will find it in high school. The first person you fall in love with in high school, you know, your “high school sweetheart,” was the one that was meant for you. They would be the one you spend the rest of your wonderful days with, and to this day, I realize how incredibly credulous I was to believe that these things were true. There is no such thing as a fairy-tale story, from beginning to end! It is just too bad that I did not know that back then rather than knowing it now. It would have saved me from a lot of pain and disappointment.
It was my first year at Center Intermediate School. It was the sixth grade to be exact. I was getting used to this new found world I was in rather than the sheltered environment I had in elementary school that I was just so use to. Everything was different: class periods, more than one teacher, new people, school sports. I still remember standing in front of the parking lot gate to the school staring in amazement at its vast size that seemed to stretch on for miles right before me. It was different all right; it was an ominous kind of different: a large difference that frightened me and excited me all at the same time. I met new people and kept my old friends as well, and I kept up with my studies as best as I could. To my parents it was all about being the number one honor student, while for myself, my best is all I could do. I did not really try to be one of the “popular kids”: if people did not accept me, then they just did not accept me. I thought everyone liked me and accepted me just fine, but somewhere down the line, every time I would walk down the halls to get to my class, people would giggle and whisper. I always wondered why they did that until finally one day my friend Christine spoke up.
“Sheena, do you know who Mike Foster is?”
I stared at her in confusion wondering why she would ask me that. I still recall the way I felt at that moment: I felt so lost and I remember going blank when I heard that name. There was no particular reason why I went blank. Perhaps it was because of my sheltered nature: exposure to guys was always through sports and Mike was unfamiliar to me in that aspect.
“Um, nope, not really.” I lied. I did not know Mike at all. I never heard his name before until that very moment. My mind wandered wondering how this Mike Foster looked and acted like. Was he a dreamy guy with dark spiked black hair? Was he tall and handsome with the cutest smile that could make any girl fall weak at a mere glance of it? Was he the smart guy in class who always raised his hand to answer the teacher’s question? Who was he…?
One day I was walking down the hall, I had the feeling someone was looking at me. I turned around. Right before me stood a tall, lanky, black curly haired boy. He stared at me with the oddest smile on his face. I felt like laughing but knew I should not do so because he might think I was a dork.
He finally spoke to me: “Hi, Sheena, right? I’m Michael.”
I stared at him for a while thinking to myself, “Wow, you are nothing like I expected.” This means in lament terms, “I am not interested!” I did not know what to reply with but simply, “hello.” That was the first time we met and would be only the beginning of such encounters with the boy named Mike.
It was about two weeks after our first meeting and the truth was we barely spoke within those two weeks. However, there were so many people advising me on what to do about the situation. I did not even realize I was in a situation. People were advising me to get with him or to ignore him, to do this and to do that. I did not know where or who to turn to for help. Not even my best friends knew what to do and they always have had some kind of comment on my problems.
The day stretched on and lunch had just finished when Mike decides to talk with me. I remember his words very vividly:
“Sheena, I really like you. Would you be with me?”
I stared at him with the blankest expression I had ever had. I never really had a boyfriend before. I had never been on a date before. In the past I have liked guys but I did not consider ever getting with someone especially Mike. Mike just did not seem to be my type. At the time my type being just not him.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I said no.”
“Please?”
“NO!”
Everyday after, it was the same routine over and over and over again. He would come up to me during lunch and ask me to be with him and I would simply say no. He would say please and I would still say no. It became my daily entertainment/amusement. I would usually keep a count of how many times he would ask me; I recall it being twelve times a day on average. I never thought of it back then but saying no was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made.
Seventh grade I realized something: Mike is great! I realized that he is someone I have been looking for and I should have given him a try but like so many opportunities in my life, the time had passed. The more I started hanging out with him the more I realized that he was something special. The way he treated everyone was paradigm-like. He had a unique style where I found myself trying very hard to resist going up to him and blurting out what was on my mind. I was so nervous that I knew I could feel my cheeks blush red and a wave of heat just come over me. He was the one I just could not get off my mind. The more I wanted him, the more I knew I could not have him. We would play basketball during lunch with all of our other friends, we would talk after class whenever we could, and chilled together sometimes, and painstakingly, it was just all as friends. He knew exactly what to say that would make me laugh or magically make a smile appear. It was just too bad that he did not know what was going on behind the smiles and the laughter. If only he could have taken a look inside my mind and knew that he was always in my thoughts. He had moved on and all I could do was watch in disgust and distress thinking to myself how I could have ever made such an egregious mistake. Sometimes, I swear, I can still hear him calling out, “Sheenie,” but when I would turn around, I knew that no one was there. I lost my chance to have that dream romance that I have always wanted. I was lost within myself trying to find a way to get over it but it just never happened.
Two years passed and the flame I carried for Michael never went out. It continuously grew brighter and even larger as each day passed. I do not think a moment went by that I did not think of him. Although we went to separate schools at that time it never made me stop thinking about what could have been.
How could I have been so blind? All the time I had been searching for “the one,” and he had been looking at me straight in the face the whole time! I lived life like a self-absorbed moron: I became oblivious to the people and things around me. The person I once frowned upon to speak with now became the center of all my thoughts. Who would have ever thought that would happen in a million years? I sure did not.
I walked around Gladstone High School looking at each guy with an expression of disappointment upon my face. None of them were Mike. They were not the goofy guy who kept asking me out back in junior high. They were not him at all!
I talked to him a couple times in the summer. Those talks always put a smile on my face even though I talked most of the time and all he would do was listen. His birthday was around the time that school started up again my sophomore year but I had a tennis tournament that day at San Dimas High School. We went to two different schools during high school. Our schedules were very different: he was on the cross-country team and I was a part of the girl’s tennis team. He was one of the top runners on the cross-country team at his school. I had finished my matches early so I thought I would just call his house and leave a little birthday message since he would probably still be at practice. It would be the least I could do since I already sent him a card expressing how I truly felt about him. It said all the things I always wanted to say to him but never did say for fear that he would laugh in my face. The words embodied years of built up feelings that were finally expressed. I did not think he would get it yet but guess what, he did get it.
I called his house around 6:30 p.m. at a payphone by the tennis courts of San Dimas High School, the school that hosted the tennis tournament I was participating in. My friends, Lorraine and Aracely, came along too but they ran across the street to play in the lawn of a large building so I could be left alone to leave my message. I remember everything we said that day. His sixteenth birthday became the day we confessed our true feelings for one another. It is one of the happiest days of my life. Little did I know that a month later, I would wish that day never existed but I am jumping ahead.
A month passed by and we rarely saw one another. We were officially together, boyfriend/girlfriend. It was rare occasions that we would catch a glimpse of one another and usually it would be at a school function when our two rivaling schools would battle in some sports competition. He was the first real boyfriend I ever had so it did not matter to me if we rarely saw one another because I would not have cared as long as I knew he was going to be in my life that way. How was I to know what to do or what to say and where to go? The game of love was a new thing for me to learn. Mike had many girlfriends before and many of them were also serious ones. This was all just another learning experience for me. All I knew was that I was falling for him: I was falling for him hard! To make it worse, I did not know how to tell him or how to go about showing my feelings for him. I missed him constantly when we were not together. He would page me but I never called him back. My parents were strict like that but I found ways around it. I sent letters here and there. I tried to get out and see him whenever I could but for him that was not enough.
The day before our one month anniversary, I was working at the Golden Days Carnival in my hometown of Azusa. It is the annual festival celebrating the founding of the city. My tennis team always sets up a food booth to fund-raise for our banquet. That Friday night I had worked the booth, Mike came to the fair with his little brother, Richard. He sent his brother off to play games and I took a break from the booth. We walked and stood by the baseball diamond and I remember the way he looked at me: his eyes never looked so sincere and so intense before. It seemed like everyone around us disappeared and were playing amongst the clouds in the night sky. For the first time in our whole relationship, he held me in his arms. Yes, the ultimate hug where you are filled with this indescribable warmth. Our bodies intertwined with one another in a timeless bliss. I recall looking up at him and his face inched closer and closer to mine when finally, we kissed. It was magical! I could never put into words what the kiss was like even though it ended short because his little brother ran to show us what he had won, it was still timeless in its own right. It was memorable to add to that because that was our first kiss. That was always how I have remembered Mike: the magical kiss that made me fall in love for the very first time.
Two weeks later, he paged me with the saddest news that I had ever heard: he wanted to talk. Not just any talk-THE TALK! The talk that every person dreads when they are in a relationship; the talk that every person hears the lines: “it’s not working out,” “it’s just too hard,” and my all time favorite lame break up line, “we can still be friends.” I must have cried for days after that. Each and every one of my friends comforting my big baby ass and telling me, “no guy is worth crying over.” He hurt me-he honestly hurt me. My life that seemed so perfect and full of joy fell to pieces in just one conversation and with one simple phrase, “I just want to be friends.” The dream world that had been built up in my mind had come shattering down like a glass bottle impacting the concrete ground, and the guy that I thought I had come to love and know was but another face amongst the crowd: a mere stranger to me. Love’s mysterious ways can surely entrance a person under their spell so easily that it boggles the mind. That is what it did to me and still now, I do not understand after all my relationships.
Months passed on and we kept in touch. We often talked on the phone, met up every now and then when we would get the chance, and usually talked about how we still felt certain feelings for one another. It would always be fun but it was never really the same since he was no longer my boyfriend and that was all it would be for “us.” Regardless, my eyes still welled up after we talked or hung out. I ended up staying up late sometimes and trying to figure out why he did not care about me anymore or wondering why the one I gave my heart to just ended up breaking it into a million pieces. It took me a long time to finally realize that it was over-it was completely over. There no longer was an “us” there was just “he” and “I.” I think that was the last time I would share my inner side to him or for any other guy for that matter. For me, I was in love once and that was all I needed for the rest of my life. Love is funny and exciting like that because it always keeps me on my toes never knowing what will come next never really guaranteeing the outcome that the television shows that I watched as a child depicted to me.
A year had nearly passed again and it had been a couple months since we had last spoken. I thought no communication with one another was best so I would not end up dwelling on a relationship that would never work. “Out of sight, out of mind” but one day, an e-mail on my internet account showed up from him. It was a short and straight to the point type of e-mail. In a short summary it basically said that he still cared about me and wanted to know if we could give it another try. I did not know what to reply that e-mail with. I had my doubts about jumping into this again but I believed in second chances but would it be different this time or would it be the same as before with the same result? I racked my brain for answers but my heart already knew what it wanted: flee back to him and love him with all your heart. This was exactly what I did.
It was different this time…at first. We saw more of each other and spoke more often. He finally told me the words I was longing to hear: “I love you!” My heart never filled with so much joy before. I was ecstatic all over with love that I blurted it back to him. I had been waiting for the longest time to tell him that. My life was finally perfect. School was perfect. Sports were perfect. My love life was finally perfect: I was happy, in love, and finally making my dream come true but that was merely the beginning of the end once again. Things peaked before anything developed.
Like so many things in my life, things went bad. I do not think that anything in my life that I ever really loved has ever stayed in my life. I just was wishing at the bottom of my heart that with Mike it would be different but I was wrong, as usual.
Two months after our love began, it ended once again. My life once again shattered but what could I have expected new from this? I should have known better. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. It was definitely a shame on me. I should have known that things did not change between the both of us. We went on for months after that still saying how we felt and we talked about again, getting back with one another. To me, this was love. This was it for me. He was the one. I would go through a million heart breaks if it meant forever with him. He was the only one who could ever make me feel that way.
A couple months later, I found out he had gotten with another girl just when I thought we were working things out. It killed me inside. I felt like he had stabbed a blade into my heart and left it there so he could watch me bleed to death and even then I would probably use my last breath to speak, “I love you,” to him. I have not felt the same way about another guy since then. He spoiled me for the rest of the world and because of that, I thank him.
It is ironic that I would thank such a person that made me happy but in the end so miserable but I have thought about it: if he did not do it, someone else would have and who would have known how much further it could have gone or how traumatizing that would have been. Mike was the first guy I ever really loved but I realize now that it was just puppy love, not true love. You have to go through some puppy love to get to your true love in your life. It was a learning experience to find out that life is not like a television show, movie, or a fairy tale.
I often had questioned myself through the relationship: did I love him for who he was or was I reflecting myself onto him? Was I in love with him or in love with the idea of being in love? Was it the distance that caused us to break up or was it just us going through changes? Did I smother him or did I not show him enough affection? I often found myself feeling alone when I was surrounded by people. Was it his presence that made me feel like that or was it the lack there of? Did I ask for too much when I should have asked for less? So many questions and I still have not found an answer. I guess these are those questions that just will never have an answer. They are just here to help me clarify the break up or even the presence of the relationship as a whole.
It’s been about two years since Mike and I had broken up and I had just recently gotten over it. I am not saying that my relationship with Mike was a complete disaster that will live in infamy forever because it was not a complete disaster. It was what it was, a relationship. It is because of Mike that I realize now what I do or do not want in a relationship. I realized that I have to stop looking for Mr. Right because Mr. Right is not going to just show up when I want him to. He will show up when I do not expect it. I thought I had found him in my last boyfriend, Adrian: we were one of those couples you loved to hate but it was just not meant to be. We were just like the way Mike and I were- not meant to be together. I do not need a man to validate myself though at times I wish I had one in my life. I am who I am and that is all there is to it. I have realized that before I fall in love, I better be sure I am in love with all of him and not just the good side of him. It is a bitch to be in a relationship where doubts, disappointment, problems overshadow that of the happy, loving, good times. I found that long distant relationships does not work but if you do try to have one, do all it takes to spend as much time together and make the complete effort to keep your love alive. Proximity helps only because communication, especially being face to face, always builds a stronger bond. One cannot solve a problem of not spending enough time together if they are not willing to be in the same area at the same time. There is no perfect guy for me but there is that one that “is so close that it is scary.” It kills me inside that I compare every guy up to “Michael Foster” standards. I will be doomed to live the same pattern over and over again if I do not learn from this relationship: fall for them hard, see only the good, create a problem, and inevitably it will end. You cannot change a person to fit your ideals; you must accept them for who they are. In a way, I guess that is what I did with Mike. I tried so hard to see the good in him that I did not realize the problems that were being created in the process. I am a hopeless romantic and although I am dying for the perfect relationship, I have to be content that there is someone out there for me, I just have to be patient and wait for him…someday…somewhere…we’ll be together.
