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Citaat:

Sunshine in an empty place

Part I: The part of my life when I wasn't actually alive

“If things start happening, don't worry, don't stew,
just go right along and you'll start happening too.”
- Dr. Seuss

I'll never forget how it all started. That one cold day in January, a typical Canadian monday you can say. My two friends and I, just chatting over some breakfast. We might have been recovering from an alcoholic headache, but then again, we had just finished exams. It had definitely been a stressful time, senior year of high school, pressure coming from all sides. Good marks will be rewarded with an offer of admission, which luckily that had never been a problem for me. However, I still wanted to do as well as I could, graduating with honours and getting that scholarship. University here is expensive, so some extra money would definitely help me scrape by.
Anyway, back to that breakfast. We were only talking for a few minutes when Jean brought it up. I was kind of waiting for it to be honest. I mean, my friends always bring it up. She mentioned how I'd taken care of a heartbroken Jackie last night. How I always take care of others, make sure they're okay, but am never taken care of by someone else. How, at the end of the night, I always end up alone. It didn't bother me too much, but to them it seemed an issue. By now it had been about 4 months since I had broken up with my last boyfriend, the only boyfriend I had ever had. They didn't know that though, they thought I had been with more guys before I moved to this country. I come from Australia, the promised love-land. The land of fun, hot beach boys and awfully romantic nights on the beach. It would only make sense for me to have had multiple relationships throughout high school, or not? Well, telling them the truth about it might make sense, but this is easier. I'm with the popular group now, it pays off you know. He might have not been my knight on the white horse, but I did date a senior guy last year, went to senior prom with him and all. I felt enlightened, happy and more self-confident. Four months it lasted, then I realized what I was doing was utterly ridiculous. I was using him, upgrading my social life in a way. I felt bad and decided to break up, it broke his heart. That's when I decided to only ever date again if I was one hundred percent sure that it was actualy love and not some kind of fake pretending.
I'm not sure if that gives some insight into my perspective, but I hope it makes you understand at least a little. Otherwise, it's fine too. I have tried to make Jean, Rose and the rest understand. That was unfortunately just a waste of energy. I'm not sure if they don't want to or just can't understand, but then again, they're all in relationships. I think that changes things, changes how you think. Somehow it also proves my point though. Take Rose for example, she's a lovely girl, one of my closest friends, but as naive as someone can be. She goes through guys like I go through books, and I have to tell you, I read a lot of them. Yet, she still believes she's in love, that this guy will be her Mr. Perfect. Somehow I respect that, respect her hope, but it also reminds me of how unfair it is. Unfair towards the guys, but also unfair towards herself. She's killing herself a little more every time she breaks up with someone. If only she would understand.
Well, this monday was very standard. Jean had a wonderful time at the party with her boyfriend last night and Rose had picked up a new guy. I guess this was some extra motivation to talk me into the whole guy-situation. What's also standard is that eventually, I will always give in. I don't know if someone has ever been able to resist the combined stubborness and puppy-eyes of Rose and Jean. This time it was a little bit different though. The guy they had in mind was different. He didn't go to our high school or the catholic school down the road. He didn't live in this town full of rich, spoiled children, and extremely social Rose had never even actually met him. He was one of Jean's friends, a guy she went to school with. Before I came here, Jean went to school with Rose, but in her Junior year she switched to a special school of arts. Jean was a dancer and wanted to see if she would ever be able to pursue a career in this field, which meant a specialized school was her way to go. This school also meant she would meet different people. Meet people like Jeff, who has been Brianne's boyfriend for the past year.
Anyway, apparently she had now decided that one of her friends could be the perfect match for me. I don't exactly remember what I was thinking, but it must have been something along the lines of “oh geez, what the hell did I get myself into again.” Within minutes my entire life was planned out already. This guy and I would marry, Jean and Rose would be bridesmaids and after an amazing honeymoon to Australia – sigh – we would raise a cute family with adorable children. Of course this was all fun, but I wouldn't have mind knowing the name of my future husband. I mean, it just makes things easier, with all the legal documents and such.
It was around that moment that I gave up trying to make sense and just started to play along with it. We started to giggle like three typical teenage girls and went on to lurk his Facebook profile. I found out that he was a music major who mainly played viola, he was also bassist and occasional background singer in a band. He lived close to downtown Ottawa, worked in a restaurant and liked to just hangout with friends. I also figured out that his name was Chris Siemens. He definitely seemed like a nice guy, but I doubted he would be able to keep me interested for longer than five minutes.
Although I didn't really see the point, I wasn't in the mood to ruin my friends' fun and agreed to Jean telling him about me. Like really, what were the chances a cityboy would be interested in a regular countrygirl. Those thoughts were interrupted when Brianne and Jeff stopped by. We started to recap the events that happened at the party and laughed at the pictures Cameron had taken with Jeff's phone. Modern technology has made these recap moments a lot more interesting by the way. You have no idea how many things you find out when you look closely at some of those pictures.
However, as most of us were still a bit haunted by the aftermath of this party, we decided it would be a perfect day for some tea and movies beside the fireplace. Brianne had foreseen this would happen and brought that amazing Ryan Gosling movie which had just come out. Or well, yea, the movie maybe wasn't that great, but Ryan Gosling was, and in the end that's all that really matters. Jeff cuddled with Brianne, and Jean, Rose and I just sat on the couch drooling over that gorgeous body. We talked about how Ryan would make great babies with everyone, about how they would look, and about how Jeff admitted he had a definite guy crush on him. Brianne was offended for about 5 seconds, but as long as she could be the best man for their wedding, she was still ok with it. All in all it was a perfectly relaxed afternoon. One of those days where time really is relative and when you think about nothing else but what happens right there at right that second. It's my favourite type of afternoon to be honest.
Unfortunately all good things have to end and too soon came the moment that Brianne, Jeff and Jean were getting ready to leave. We gave each other hugs and agreed on hanging out together that coming thursday. Our next term wouldn't start until the Friday, so we might as well use the free time we had to have fun. Unlike the others, I lived very close to Rose, so I decided to just stay a bit longer. I loved her house and otherwise she would have to be all alone. We were just talking a bit more about the movie, cooking some dinner and just doing some regular girl stuff when I got a text. The number was unknown and I'm not sure how, but I immediately knew who had send it. Such an innocent text, nothing special, a simple conversation starter.
“Hey, it's Chris. What's up?”
Not a second did it pass my mind that this text could be the start of a change, the start of my story.

Part II: I start living

“How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?”
― Dr. Seuss