Unclosed/Unresolved Chapters Part 1

I'm sure that everyone has that chapter in their lives that for whatever reason went unresolved, or worse, unclosed. I have two such chapters in my life that come back to haunt me in my thoughts and the occasional dream from time to time. I am about to share one of the two events. I don't talk about either of them often, but perhaps if I write about them it will help me gain some closure.

When I was in high school I had a very fickle attention span when it came to boys. The best part of boys was the thrill of the chase: finding "the latest crush", getting said crush to notice me, playing the flirting games, and eventually triumphing in making him my boyfriend... for all of two weeks, which was the average for me, before getting bored, dumping him, and moving onto the next crush. Funny enough, I was actually a total prude back then. I just liked the way pursuing and being pursued made me feel. I wasn't in it for "the action." By the last half of my senior year my longest relationship ever was 4 months, and that only happened twice.

In January of my senior year, I attended an honor band festival at a state college. I had gone the year before and started crushing on a boy I met there who was from another state, but was a student at said college the following year. I went to the festival in hopes of hooking it up with the oh so hot, Selwyn. Little did I know the fates had other plans for me. While I was off trying to catch my fella's eye once again, my good friend was off hooking two other hotties for us to NCMO (non-committal make out) with for the weekend. The guy who chose me as his make out buddy, we'll call him Sam, was very persistent and wouldn't have my flirting with or chasing Selwyn for the world. He just knew he wanted to be more to me than a weekend make out fling. He had determined upon first sight that he was head over heels for me. By the end of the weekend, the feeling was mutual, and Selwyn was left shaking his head in the dust wondering what had happened and how I had run off so quickly with someone else.

Sunday morning as Sam and I prepared to head to our homes, three hours apart, he gave me his class ring with the promise that he would come get it in the coming weeks just so we could be together again. Yes, I was a very giddy girl. For some reason this guy had done what no other guy before him was able to do and wrapped me around his little finger. By the time I got home that night, Sam had called twice. We ended up talking to each other over the phone every night from that point on.

I can't remember how long it took before Sam drove 3 hours one way to come see me, but it wasn't long. Sam's parents for whatever reason, fully encouraged our relationship and willingly gave him the family car to drive out to see me every single weekend. If he didn't come out to see me, he came out to pick me up and take me back to his house for the weekend.

For the first time in my life, I fell in love. Real, true, honest-to-God love. We felt like Romeo and Juliet, and in a way were every bit as doomed. Over the next 6 months our relationship was absolute heaven. We would often plan to run away to Reno to get married and even bought wedding bands for each other in anticipation of actually biting the bullet and running off. Thank God we never made it to Reno!

Then one day, something in Sam changed. He became distanced and depressed. I kept asking him what he wanted or needed from me, and he kept telling me to hold on, not to go away, that he was sorting through his life. While he went on in his funk, I became depressed, wondering what was going on. Then one day it became apparent to me that I had lost him. The last time I was ever supposed to see him, he didn't show up, but sent his parents in his place to ask for his class ring back. He hid like cowardly child to prevent himself from having to see my face with its tell-tale signs of a broken heart. A few days later he called me, apologizing for being so cowardly, and asked me to please hold on, to not leave him. I told him he had two weeks to figure things out and then I would go on with my life, that I couldn't continue holding out for him. I had just graduated from high school and was weeks away from moving away to college in another state.

A few days before I moved away to college, I still had not heard from him. Sobbing, heart breaking, I wrote him a letter telling him that I was done waiting, and that I didn't appreciate the way he had treated me in the end. I didn't deserve it. I had never treated him so poorly and couldn't understand why he had been so cowardly. I informed him that he was not a man. I ended my letter the way I always do when I know I will never see someone again, I wished him all the best in his life. Then I moved away to college and never heard from him again.

I have no true closure on this relationship. Yes, I knew it was over, and yes, I have absolutely moved on with my life and did so a year after we "broke up". But every now and then Sam creeps into my dreams, as he did earlier this week, and as he did in the days before my wedding. My subconscious is always trying to gain what my conscious self never had - closure. A few days before my wedding, I had a dream that I went to see him to tell him that I was getting married. In the dream he was convinced I was coming back to him until I told him, "I am only here to tell you that I'm getting married. To tell you goodbye to your face, and to gain the closure you denied me years ago. I wish you all the best in your life." I had hoped that this would be the last time he would appear in my dreams, and that my words to him would be good enough for my subconscious to finally let him go forever.

I wish so much that I had closure with him. I wish so much that he would quit cropping up in my dreams during my major life events: marriage and pregnancy. However, I know that I will never get either of those things. I know that he will crop up in my dreams until the end of time. If I could go back and change only one thing about that relationship, it would be that instead of giving him two weeks, I had told him goodbye. I don't regret the relationship for a second, but I do regret that I allowed him to treat me so poorly and to run away like coward.

I just wish that there was some way I could keep him from appearing in my dreams. That I could gain real, true closure, but I know that isn't possible. All I can do is continue to wish him the best in his life and continue to live and love my own with the occasional haunt from my past.