Jared J. H. CatapanoPop goes the cherry
February 14th 2008 02:36
Counting down!
203 days until my 20's are over!
When reaching a milestone in numbers, specifically birthday numbers, everyone seems to get caught up in the notion that you must look back on and critique your life up until this magical point known as 'getting older'.
Part of me would like to reject this notion. Looking back on the past is the fastest way to depress yourself. We really all should be concentrating more on living in the moment and not quickly making descisions based on what we think we know, what we have done, and what has happened to us in the past.
But in keeping with the fact that humans are notorious, walking, talking masses of contridictions, another part of me wishes to look back on the life I have led and see what has brought me here, to this state of mind, this station in life, this web page, these words.
So get ready for angst of the highest levels, insights of the darkest (and lightest) order, self-analyzing of amazingly indulgent levels, and funny stuff that I can come up with.
So today being Valentines Day, the day of love and profits for florists and card companies, I will start with the start of the train wreck that is my love life. Yup, my very first, mind-bending kiss...
Given the success rate of my romantic relationships (100% failure so far, but thats ok, 100% of divorces start with marriage), my first kiss really did set me up with a somewhat skewered view of love and physical intimacy.
Ahh, it was like it happened yesterday. And it did! Haha, I kid, I kid.
The year, 1991, summer camp, the last summer camp before we left middle school and headed to college (NZ has Primary school ages 5-11, Intermediate 11-13 and College 13-18). So it was a special time for all of us. I can't say how special it was for anyone else, so screw those guys! Here's what happened to me....
We were camping out on a deserted beach on the North Cape of the North Island. No paved roads lead to this beach, and anyone wanting to go there had to be given special permission from the local Maoris to cross ancestral lands. So yes, very isolated, very romantic, serene...Too bad I was too young to notice all this and was instead praying every night for hair to finally sprout from my underarms.
All the way through my schooling years, I had an immeasurable crush on a girl in my year named Clara (not her real name, but Clara now is married with a family, and due to the ever-mounting apathy in my brain, I really couldn't give a toss), and she was on this camp also.
On the last night of the camp, customarrily, the parents and teachers laid into the grog and us kids went a little wild. We we're all running around, jumping into people's tents, chasing each other, and some of the girls were running around kissing boys. Clara was one of these girls, and after exiting a friend's tent, I was knocked to the sand in the darkness by a shape that was Clara.
She pinned me to the ground (not that I was fighting, hard), and lent down over my face. Her hair brushed my face, her breath hit my nostrils, I swear I could smell her smile. She whispered 'Just pretend'.
We held our faces close, looking into each others eyes even though it was pitch black, our breath mingling and my heart beating a million miles an hour. She got up and ran off with her friends, laughing at the deed that wasn't. I lay there for a minute or so, looking up at the stars, thinking that this was the beginning of a new chapter in my life....stupid kid.
So there it is, my first kiss that wasn't even a kiss, the illusion of a kiss, the illusion of love.
I like to think I'm an emotionaly-mature man, one who recognises love and it's potential when he sees it, one who can deal with his emotions when they threaten to change my reality for the worse.
But when I think back on my first encounter with love, with real emotion, I realise that my collected memories about it, the bedrock on which I place my assumptions, is built on sand...
203 days until my 20's are over!
When reaching a milestone in numbers, specifically birthday numbers, everyone seems to get caught up in the notion that you must look back on and critique your life up until this magical point known as 'getting older'.
Part of me would like to reject this notion. Looking back on the past is the fastest way to depress yourself. We really all should be concentrating more on living in the moment and not quickly making descisions based on what we think we know, what we have done, and what has happened to us in the past.
But in keeping with the fact that humans are notorious, walking, talking masses of contridictions, another part of me wishes to look back on the life I have led and see what has brought me here, to this state of mind, this station in life, this web page, these words.
So today being Valentines Day, the day of love and profits for florists and card companies, I will start with the start of the train wreck that is my love life. Yup, my very first, mind-bending kiss...
Given the success rate of my romantic relationships (100% failure so far, but thats ok, 100% of divorces start with marriage), my first kiss really did set me up with a somewhat skewered view of love and physical intimacy.
Ahh, it was like it happened yesterday. And it did! Haha, I kid, I kid.
The year, 1991, summer camp, the last summer camp before we left middle school and headed to college (NZ has Primary school ages 5-11, Intermediate 11-13 and College 13-18). So it was a special time for all of us. I can't say how special it was for anyone else, so screw those guys! Here's what happened to me....
All the way through my schooling years, I had an immeasurable crush on a girl in my year named Clara (not her real name, but Clara now is married with a family, and due to the ever-mounting apathy in my brain, I really couldn't give a toss), and she was on this camp also.
On the last night of the camp, customarrily, the parents and teachers laid into the grog and us kids went a little wild. We we're all running around, jumping into people's tents, chasing each other, and some of the girls were running around kissing boys. Clara was one of these girls, and after exiting a friend's tent, I was knocked to the sand in the darkness by a shape that was Clara.
She pinned me to the ground (not that I was fighting, hard), and lent down over my face. Her hair brushed my face, her breath hit my nostrils, I swear I could smell her smile. She whispered 'Just pretend'.
We held our faces close, looking into each others eyes even though it was pitch black, our breath mingling and my heart beating a million miles an hour. She got up and ran off with her friends, laughing at the deed that wasn't. I lay there for a minute or so, looking up at the stars, thinking that this was the beginning of a new chapter in my life....stupid kid.
So there it is, my first kiss that wasn't even a kiss, the illusion of a kiss, the illusion of love.
I like to think I'm an emotionaly-mature man, one who recognises love and it's potential when he sees it, one who can deal with his emotions when they threaten to change my reality for the worse.
But when I think back on my first encounter with love, with real emotion, I realise that my collected memories about it, the bedrock on which I place my assumptions, is built on sand...
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