Preface

The original tone of my retrospect was not going to be this grim; alas, it changed at the last minute. You see, as I look back on the past few years of my life (notably since the beginning of the blog a little over two years ago), I have come to realize that everything has been a set of chances, some taken, others ignored. But, despite the fact that remembering and discussing some of these events is somewhat exhausting and degrading to myself, I have decided to do so, only so I can help myself (and others, albeit in different cases) realize my stupidity, and, in essence, how much I fucked up.

Part Ia: Background and Beginnings

To begin, let me jump back a little over two years ago. At the time, I was finishing up my first year of high school (yes, a freshman) and preparing to move away from my hometown (Middletown) to a new area and school, where I knew no one. That wasn’t the most daunting thing about it though, although it was not an insignificant influence on me; the thing is, I was leaving people who I really care about (some more than others) behind in the hell hole that was Middletown. Now don’t get me wrong, there were only a few people who I felt somewhat ashamed to leave behind. Some of these people, at least from my perspective, deserved to be getting out of there more than me. Regardless of that, I was one of the lucky people to be getting out of there without a knife or bullet in my chest, and although I had to leave people behind, I had to move on to bigger and better things, at least I hoped.

The day I wrote my first blog post (entitled “Clogs Are For Women. CLOGs Are For Connor.”) happened to be one of the first days after I moved out of my old house. At the time, we (my family) were waiting for our new home to be completed (it was a new construction), and, as such, we were in housing limbo (residing at my grandparents for a few weeks until the house was finished). So, that day is not unimportant in any manner; it symbolized the beginning of my departure from the place that I wanted to leave, to the place that I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go to. Two days after I published the first post on the blog, I wrote a second piece entitled “Face Book is for Ugly People”, which described my (albeit convoluted) attempt at signing up for a Facebook profile. In retrospect, these two posts have, and had, no real point, except to show how I used to be.

Part Ib: A Change In Attitude

Speaking of how I used to be, I would like to underline one of the most striking changes that has happened over the past two years: the change in my demeanor, outlook, and general happiness. I left Middletown a nasty person; not because I wanted to be one, but because I had to be in order to make it through. That may sound somewhat rough, but in all honest, it’s true. People don’t care how nice you are, how caring you are, if their main goal is to just walk all over you and get what they need. As such, people are forced to act in ways they don’t necessarily want to in order to protect themselves and the people they care about. Once I left this place that had created this demon of me (which had existed for a few years prior, most likely starting around the middle of my 6th grade school year), I was able to get over that attitude, mindset, and way of life; no longer did I have to behave in a manner that destroyed the ideals that I cared about, just to be able to keep myself at a respectable level in the social community. Over the past two years, the change, from my point of view, has been shocking. I am no longer a “dick”, which is the best word choice I could come up with to describe my past self. But, take note: I am not unstable; I do have a backbone. But, just because I don’t let people walk all over me doesn’t meant that I act in a way that is cruel or heartless. I would call myself a happy, kind, and caring person, except when people chose to be disrespectful or, to be blunt, “dicks”. Then, you reawaken the beast of what I used to be. All in all though, the past two years have influenced a change in my attitudes towards people and actions in a way that I hadn’t noticed until someone pointed it out to me. Regardless, time to get back to the main focus of this retrospect.

Part Ic: The Summer and First Year

Anyway, we eventually moved into our new home a few weeks later. As such, I had come to realize that this was in fact happening: I would have to go into a new school, a new social community, where I knew no one, and where no one knew me. Once this sunk in, I began to panic. I don’t talk about this much, because, in all honesty, it’s been one of the toughest things I have done. When I left Middletown, I had a few good friends, notably Alex and Martha. Although Martha and I hadn’t talked for the longest time (a good year and a half before we started conversing again in April 2007), we had soon, at least from my point of view, grown into really good friends. I felt as if I could discuss anything with her, and in fact, we shared things that we hadn’t told anyone else. While Alex was a good friend, he was one of a different breed, the kind of person who’s more of a “hanging out” friend than someone you can “spill the beans” to. That being said, there are other notables (including Steve, a friend I had only met a year prior) that played a crucial role in helping me through this time.

As the summer quickly progressed, I had to enter the school for the second time (after taking a tour of it a few months beforehand) to create my schedule for the school year (You can reference my posts from early August 2007 for more detail), and, at that same time, decided to risk a lot and sign up for a Fall sport. At the least, I hoped it would help me meet new people before the first day of school, which in any form, was going to pose a severe threat to my mental stability. At the most, I could actually be decent at it and do well. So, I signed the health forms, created the schedule, and prepared myself, both mentally and physically, for August 20. During this time, both at home and wherever I ended up spending my free hours, I often found myself talking to friends regarding the future: how would my experiences in this new school go? Would I be able to change myself for the better? Could I get through it? Would I ruin this chance?

And then I realized: no matter what happens, I could not give up on this chance. After the first day of school, despite knowing some people from cross country, I really just wanted to give up and go back. Sometimes it’s easier to revert back to your old ways in order maintain a balance, both physically and mentally, that appeals to you. My balance was a world in which I had to act in a way that I often regretted in order to survive, in essence. No matter how much I didn’t like it, that was my balance, and that’s what I wanted for months after the first day at Wallkill High School. Slowly, though, I came to realize that no matter what I had to go through, I was given a chance to leave a place that slowly ruined me, and I had to make the best of it, because I was stuck.

As time went on, I slowly got rid of the notion that going back would be for the better. Don’t get me wrong (I am skipping ahead for a second), there are days even today (two years later), that I wish I could just abandon ship and go back to the place that I was comfortable, but at the end of the day, I still believe this was one of the best chances to change myself that I had ever received. But, as I would come to know sooner than I thought, losing out on chances can also happen, and when you do miss them, you put yourself back three paces from where you began.

Part IIa: The Second Year

Going back to Wallkill for a second year turned out to pose little stress on me. For the past two years (going into ninth at Middletown High School, and then the summer before tenth, which I just discussed), especially the summers, were quite stressful: I was entering an environment that I wasn’t used to. But, now that I had a set base of friends as well as an understanding for the building and grounds that I was going to be contained in for another year, I was quite relaxed. Cross country began as it should have, and the first day of school came and went without a hitch.

Instead of me detailing the entire year, I would just like to focus on the two (three, but two distinct categories) of chances I had, and missed out on. The first is academics. In the past, I had been an amazing student. I had never failed a class for any marking period or semester, let alone fail a final exam. But, this year changed that. After barely passing Math and French, I realized that if I wanted to be able to make other academic chances in the future a reality, I have to step up my game. I don’t like to discuss school or grades, for the shear sake of privacy, but I will say that this year has been, by far, my worst ever. But, there is always next year, when I plan on being completely focused on the task at hand: performing at my best, in every aspect.

The second aspect I would like to detail is that of my relationships, notably with girls (three in particular). You see, I entered this school year not knowing what would happen in that regard, and I ended up finishing it in one of the worst regrettable attitudes I had ever been in. You see, for the longest time, I realized that I loved a very close friend of mine. But, I was not sure how I loved that person: did I love them as a sister, or as more? It took me almost a year to figure it out, but, I eventually did, just in time to miss out on one of the best chances I will ever have in my life. But, I am skipping ahead. You see, Junior year has one of the biggest events in terms of school: Prom. As such, the majority of the year was spent being harassed by my friends regarding who I was going to take to Prom. For months and months, I told them the familiar phrase “I’ve got this”, when in all actuality, I was unsure about whether I did myself.

I had chosen a particular person who, although a year younger than me, I would have loved to have taken. On top of that, they were expecting it. You see, we played the game for the longest time, going back and forth, talking in band, fun band lessons with many laughs, and then the period where I geared up to ask her. A day before we left on our Band Trip to Virginia Beach, she told me (although my back was turned), “Connor, just do it.” And, guess what? I missed the chance. I didn’t ask. I missed out on a person, who, clearly, wanted me to ask her. How in God’s good name do I miss out on a chance like that? After I decided that it had gotten too late to ask her, I gave up; I had been defeated by no other enemy than myself. But, despite missing out on such a chance, I decided to pick myself up and solve a bigger problem: I had no date to prom.

Part IIb: The Biggest Chance

Another friend of mine (a guy) told me that, if my original pick didn’t work out, he knew someone who was in fact interested in going with me. Before he told me the actual name, he went through the motions of “She’s very nice. In fact, I would have gone out with her myself but we fight way too much.” So, he told me the name, and although I did have an inkling of who it was during his description, I was still quite shocked. While the person was not my first choice, it was the best I could do with such short notice (just two weeks before Prom, mind you). It’s not that I didn’t like the person (in a general sense, this was far too early in order for me to even have a love feeling towards them), it’s just that I wasn’t exactly expecting it. But, I saw that I had been given a second chance, even though it wasn’t as planned. So, we talked basically every day before Prom about a whole host of issues and topics. Although I had come down with bronchitis just a few days before Prom (and my AP Exam), I was able to recuperate fast enough in order for it not to even have mattered. Prom came, which was a fun night, but nothing came out of us. The night started out well enough, but eventually grew tense and awkward. Later that night, I sent her a few messages explaining how I felt (which was stupid), and that I was sorry for ruining her night. It was a mutual feeling that we shared. A few days later she told me that, although she thought that she was ready for a relationship before that night, she realized that she didn’t know exactly what she wanted. I accepted that for what it was; I was not necessarily ready for one myself, having gone to Prom with her as something more than friends but not as a couple. But, as I would soon come to see, this isn’t exactly how she felt.

Over the next month and a half, we played the games: she liked me, and then she didn’t. She flip-flopped more times than I could count, and all along I was just waiting to see how she really felt. What else would anyone do? Would you make a move when the person you were trying to woo was changing their mind on a near-daily basis? So, I waited. We were really close, then we didn’t talk for days, and, just like clockwork, the cycle continued.

Over the past week, (June 26 through July 3, 2009), we were at, what I would say, one of our closest points. She had told me a few days ago (from the day I am publishing this article) that she was unsure about how she felt, but as we continued to talk, I realized (or at least I thought) that she was ready to do this, after more than two months of this dialogue. It was our friend’s birthday party on July 1 that I was supposed to be me. I was supposed to just sweep her off her feet I guess. Things were going great, or at least I thought, until someone else entered the picture. Someone else, that missing variable, that was making her change her mind. That’s when I realized that I had missed out on my greatest chance of all time.

Everyone around me had been explaining how she always kept talking about me, how she “loved” me, how she was obsessive over what I did, how I acted, how funny I was. All in all, I had pulled her to my side over the past two months, and had been in one of the perfect places any person could want. And what did I do? I fucked it all up.

Sometimes, we are given chances that not even the dreamiest of minds could come up with. Never in my day would I have imagined that someone was so focused on me without me even knowing. I realized that, for the first time in my life, I had missed out on the biggest chance I had been given yet. I not only ruined my own heart, but I ruined hers. No matter how much I try to ignore it, no matter how much I try to forget, it keeps permeating my mind: I completely fucked up. I ruined the best chance with a woman that I had ever been given, despite all of my past relationships, I felt something in this one. Now, I could sit here all day and blame her for not making up her mind, but the fact of the matter is that this one is on me. There is no excuse for me missing out on this, no reason for me to have acted (or not acted) the way I did.

Conclusion

So, as I look back on the past two years, I keep focusing on the past few months: I missed out on so much that it’s a wonder I have any will left in me. But, like every flower that dies, a new one is born. For every chance that I miss out on, I may end up causing damage to myself; the turmoil and regret is often enough to damage even the most open of minds. In the end, though, other chances will come, and although I missed out, I know that another chance will come. And when it does, I will be ready.