I even wrote a sonnet

The Final Column as I Wanted to Publish it, Until I Ultimately Changed My Mind

Well, this is it. My last column. I suppose it ought to be a sort of reflection or wrap-up, but you know what? That=s what everything else I=ve had to write/read lately seems to be. Yes, yes. The year, and with it my entire high school career and time living in Santa Maria and being a child is ending. Strains of APomp and Circumstance@ waft through the air. Somehow, I=m not feeling it right now. I haven=t even got my gown yet, and I=m tired of endless meditations on graduation. I bet that by the time you=ve gotten to this part of the newspaper, you=re a little tired of the whole deal, too.

My columns have gotten more and more personal, I=ve noticed. So, I think I=m ready to be absolutely frank and admit that my mind has been occupied by one thing in particular lately, and it=s not graduating. I=ve been thinking about graduating, too, but only because other people keep bringing it up. Darn other people. No, the thing that=s really on my mind is actually...a boy. Not a thing, but a person. It=s not the guy I mentioned last issue (we still haven=t corresponded since I gave him that lecture on Keats). It=s not Keats, either, though I do think of him rather often, I=ll admit. This guy is actually alive and physically present in my life (and probably reading this paper B er, I hope this doesn=t mortify you terribly much. I promise not to print your name). This is a bit of a departure for me, as you might have gathered. It certainly complicates things. It=s so much easier to be in love with a guy who=s been moldering for nigh on two centuries: you don=t have to worry about what he thinks or ever face rejection or embarrassment.

But as hormones would have it, I=ve fallen for a flesh-and-blood guy. It=s hard to say when it happened: we=ve known each other for years, but it wasn=t until probably two years ago that I first thought I liked him liked him just a bit. My emotions shuttled around obnoxiously for a while as a teenager=s are wont to do, but eventually settled on him. After months of reticence and tension, I decided to pull another ACarpe Diem@ maneuver (I wasn=t going to go through high school without a single romance if I could help it, by god!) and took the plunge. It was the single most frightening thing I=ve ever done in my whole goddamned life. Maybe that speaks more to the banality of my life, but geez, was it an ordeal.

He wasn=t interested in dating me, and I tried to take this in stride. You know how it goes: ha! I=m fine, I=m cracking jokes, I=m smiling, everything=s dandy, life goes on, don=t need him, ha ha ha...lies. Damned lies. My bravado eventually wore away and revealed me to be just as crushed as any other lovelorn adolescent. I told myself that I didn=t have those feelings for him anymore, but the bizarre and uncomfortable temperature changes and gut wrenching I found myself continuing to experience whenever I saw him rather disprove this presumed indifference (or signal a premature menopause).

I=m in a bad way. I=m writing frigging love poetry. But it=s actually kind of good, I think. Take a gander at this sonnet:

Why was it you, among the many fools?

While we're all sneezing pollen-love, you stand,

Your countenance unshook, your eyes clear pools

Not rosied with the disease by springtime fanned

To the lungs of the rest. You acted bland;

Aloof and pocket-handed when I was

High on dust from old poetry books and

Coursing all through with a day-seizing buzz --

Blame your blinks of smile and laughter like fuzz

(The soft wisps tickle my throat fever hot) --

But all my ardor was in vain because

I loved the only sane one of the lot!

Spring is love's season, I guess, for the ease

Of blaming one's tears on her allergies.

I think that gives you a fair idea of what I=m feeling. When a nerd falls in love, acrostic poems just don=t cut it (although the sonnet type I used is a reference to his name. Yes, I know that I=m weird). I hope you=re laughing with me, not at me.

And as to the addressee of the sonnet, well, this is awkward. Er, please don=t be too wierded out. It=s all true, and you know what? You should be pretty damn pleased with yourself. It=s not every guy who inspires sonnets and has girls confess their of love of him in the frigging school newspaper. I rather envy you, myself.

I would, I think, be O.K. with the whole world knowing how I feel about you. You=re pretty awesome, and, well, I=m a journalist, so I have this sort of compulsion to get the truth out. But, as a journalist, I know that if I was to use your name here, I=d be compelled to show you this before it prints and ruin the surprise. Plus, I don=t want to embarrass you. I suppose this will frustrate some readers, so I=ll give out a couple clues which will require some research: 1) As previously stated, the type of sonnet I wrote has a name similar to his. 2) His initials are the atomic symbol for my favorite element (when a nerd falls in love, it=s all chemistry).

Commentary:

Ah...yes. I so wanted to pull a teen cinema move and confess my love in the school paper in one big gush. I came really close. It's been ages and I've gone through so much (including a bigger romantic trauma...stay tuned) that I can't quite recall what exactly kept me from running this. I think it was a combination of new inspiration (I finally DID get a bit of that graduation introspection sickness that was going around) and (mostly this) the realization that despite my rationalization, this still had the potential to really embarrass my crush. He was a quiet guy who didn't like drawing attention to himself, after all. I decided to end our time together on a quiet note and that was that.

It took history repeating itself on steroids for me to finally realize one year later that falling for shy, introverted guys was not going to work for me. Oof. I tried to write verse about my last crush (and have a bunch of unfinished odes buried deep in my desk), but eventually gave up love poetry entirely. Hrmph.

I hate to end a post on a "hrmph." I'm not bitter about my high school crush, on the contrary, I think the way things happened was the best possible outcome for me. I left high school with no romantic experience, true, but I had at least one big crushing rejection under my belt, so I was ready for anything. OK, that's not quite true. But it helped. And as I looked around my new home at Berkeley to fill the void for a guy to pine for, I learned a lot about myself and love and, um, Russian literature. But that is a confession for another day.

A snapshot from back when the craziest thing I did for love was volunteer to be the only graduate not walking down the aisle so I could play one last song with him. I've come so far.