{"id":39,"date":"2020-07-07T22:26:57","date_gmt":"2020-07-07T22:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gorgeousandsassy.com\/?p=39"},"modified":"2020-08-14T01:04:40","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T01:04:40","slug":"playing-with-adulthood-my-awkward-college-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gorgeousandsassy.com\/?p=39","title":{"rendered":"Playing with Adulthood: My Awkward College Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is part 2 in a series about my great loves aka fuckups in terms of relationships.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My college experience, as I\u2019ve already more or less described, was weird. It wasn\u2019t the time of my life, filled with frat parties, beer and freedom. It was a struggle for me. I studied very hard, and was obsessed with my grades. I made very few friends. In fact, I don\u2019t have a single friend from college that I still keep in touch with, even with the advent of social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can think of three boys I went on casual dates with, one a real relationship, I think \u2014 who also went to school with me. Otherwise, I dated people who didn\u2019t go to college at my school or at all. It\u2019s probably why I was so disconnected from the college experience. My senior year, my friend Mindy and I walked through west campus \u2014 I call her my friend at the time, but as I mentioned, we made no lasting connection \u2014 talking about our creative advertising class. I was having a difficult time coming up with my concepts each class session, frowning over my ideas late into the night at my desk in my bedroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou need to come up to school and hang out with us,\u201d Mindy told me. She was a tall, elegant girl with classic good looks \u2014 dark hair, perfect skin, almond-shaped eyes. She was always perfectly put together, always seemed to have a styrofoam cup of coffee in her hand. I half-wondered if she ever drank it, as her red lipstick was perfect and her teeth even and pearly white. \u201cThe reason you\u2019re having trouble is that you don\u2019t come to school and brainstorm with the rest of the class. You\u2019re totally isolated with\u2026Billy.\u201d She said his name \u2014 always \u2014 with derision. Mindy didn\u2019t think I should be tied down to one guy, I was in college, after all! \u2014 and Mindy was extremely concerned with looks, money and popularity. Billy had money, but you wouldn\u2019t know it by looking at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my mistakes, as I mentioned above, was not being strong enough. My other mistake, my big regret, is that I dated people who were friends with my brother. It was sort of a natural fit, because that was my crowd. I had one foot in each of two worlds, really \u2014 college being one, and I wasn\u2019t really doing that one right \u2014 and his world being the other. My brother Dean didn\u2019t go to college. He tried it, and it wasn\u2019t for him. He had a job and an apartment and a corner store where he could buy beer without getting carded if he walked in wearing a suit from work. So his world seemed to me terribly adult, and it was fun to hang out there. He, of course, had friends who also didn\u2019t go the college route, and they had jobs and money and seemed to already be doing this thing I was trying to figure out. And \u2014 bonus! \u2014 they thought I was cute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s how Billy and I sort of\u2026fell into a relationship. He and Dean worked together. I met Billy through Dean, and didn\u2019t think much of him at first. A brutally honest and somewhat mean point here: Billy was ugly. It makes me cringe to say it, but it\u2019s quite simply true. Billy was well over 6 feet tall and skinny as a rail. It didn\u2019t help that he had a strange birth defect I\u2019d never heard of before, nor since \u2014 his rib cage was backwards, so his chest was concave. He had deep set hazel eyes, a long skinny nose, and thin lips. But Billy was one of the nicest guys I had ever met. He was smart as a whip, and he could make me laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He made up a road trip game (made up? I don\u2019t know \u2014 like the birth defect, I had never heard of it before, and haven\u2019t played it with anyone else since) called The Cow Game. The simple rules were as follows: each person counted the cows on their side of the car, if you passed a graveyard, you lost all your cows and had to start over, and the person with the most cows when you arrived at your destination won. Of course much of the game was estimating \u2014 it\u2019s pretty tough to count cattle as you\u2019re speeding past them at 70 miles an hour. Billy and I had returned home from a road trip to Dallas, and I got in a fight with Dean. I was feeling down, so I called Billy to talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey, what are you doing?\u201d I asked, lying on my daybed in the apartment I shared with a high school friend named Krissy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, not much. Been driving circles around the Sirloin Stockade to try and win the cow game since you beat me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I laughed out loud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so it went. I fell in love with his kindness and his wit, and as I mentioned above, his seeming adulthood. It was my sophomore year in college, and I liked dating a guy a few years older than me who got paid handsomely for his work in computers. I\u2019m not sure what he saw in me. The only thing he seemed to actually care about was computers. He was absolutely lost in that world, and it was that world that ultimately drove us apart. He was a child, not an adult, in that way. Sometimes he stayed up all night playing computer games. He would rather spend his Friday nights in front of a glowing screen, in an alternate universe, than hang out with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was during my relationship with Billy that one of the most formative events of my life happened. In typical fashion, I had no idea it had such an impact on me. I brushed it off, moved on, didn\u2019t think too hard about it \u2014 and it wasn\u2019t until years later that I realized it was a big deal. I walked into my therapist\u2019s office for my first appointment ever. I knew I had to talk to someone because I was unhappy in my latest relationship and I suppose I finally had this inkling that I was indeed broken, because I just couldn\u2019t make these things work<\/em>. I sat down in the plush purple armchair and looked at the therapist Kat and I announced, \u201cMy dad died when I was 19 but he was never around anyway, so I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a really big deal. My problem right now is my boyfriend.\u201d Kat smiled kindly at me and said, \u201cLet\u2019s back up just a bit and talk about your dad, okay?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billy and I lived in the same apartment complex at the time. It was a somewhat botched situation, since he had asked me to move in with him and I had agreed. But then I panicked a little bit \u2014 I was only 19, was he really The One? Was I ready for such an Adult Move? \u2014 and I backed out. Billy was terribly disappointed and I had hurt his feelings. I think it was a little bit like turning down a marriage proposal, but one of the issues in our relationship was that Billy just didn\u2019t talk to me. My decision not to move in with him had, in his mind, meant I had made this huge statement about the State of Our Relationship, but he didn\u2019t tell me. He just quietly withdrew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because I had agreed to live with him and then retracted my statement and Dean had gotten a different roommate, he took his own apartment and so did I. I was again bridging the gap, a part of me in both worlds. It was a Saturday morning, I had spent the night with Billy, and the phone was ringing. Billy had a stupid Mickey Mouse alarm clock that was in its usual place: facedown on the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After trying to wake Billy several times to pick up his phone (1997, landlines, no cell phones), he tossed himself off the bed and barely made it through the doorway to the living room. I laid back down, closed my eyes. Something was off, like the light was all wrong outside, and Billy didn\u2019t get that many calls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He entered the room, holding the cordless phone. \u201cIt\u2019s for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I frowned. \u201cYour mom,\u201d he said, and left abruptly, no doubt to have a cigarette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I held the phone carefully, looking at it. There were icy fingers of fear closing around my heart. My mother could only be calling about something important, most likely bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHello?\u201d I said cautiously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDid I wake you, sweetie? I\u2019m sorry,\u201d she said hurriedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, but it\u2019s okay. We should be up anyway,\u201d I fumbled for words. It was still a bit awkward for my mother to call me at my boyfriend\u2019s apartment, but it didn\u2019t seem to bother her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHoney, I got a call,\u201d she began, and the icy fingers of fear grabbed hold with the strength of claws. Never is \u201cI got a call,\u201d a good sign. I sat up in bed, letting the sheets fall from me with a sudden clear head. No more cobwebs of sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt appears that your father is in the hospital in Maryland. I don\u2019t know how serious it is or how they found us, but I thought you should know right away. Your brother is making calls now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was silent, unable to speak. I had known in the back of my mind for so long that it would happen just this way. Automatically I started counting back\u2026how many years since I had seen him? And at least a year since we had had an actual telephone conversation, if you could call our stilted one-way talks something like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026.So you should probably call Dean, as soon as you can\u2026\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, okay,\u201d I managed, feeling hot wet tears welling behind my eyes. \u201cThanks, Mom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I pressed the off button on the phone and sit looking at it for a moment. I wondered what Billy was thinking, probably sitting on the couch, as was customary in the morning, watching soft tendrils of smoke curl from his Camel. He was just as I had pictured him, patiently waiting. He knew, just as I had, that the call wasn\u2019t good news. My mother could have waited for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sank to the couch next to him. He took a long pull on the cigarette and looked at me, waiting. Always waiting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I set the phone down, finally, carefully, as if it is a bomb that may explode at any moment. \u201cMy dad\u2026.my dad is in the hospital, and I don\u2019t know what\u2019s wrong. He\u2019s\u2026probably dying.\u201d I broke into bitter, heart-wrenching sobs then, as the full weight of what I was saying hit me, and Billy immediately stubbed out the cigarette and took me into his arms. He didn\u2019t say anything but \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d very softly, and stroked my hair and let me cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I talked with Dean later that morning. Our father was lying in a coma thousands of miles away, in the final stage of cirrhosis of the liver. He was jaundiced, unresponsive, and ready to die. Dean and I made immediate plans to fly out there, if for nothing else than to say goodbye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An image kept coming to my mind, of an old, broken man \u2014 broken by life, by relationships \u2014 lying in a sterile white room, alone. No one at his bedside but an efficient nurse who is checking his machines, and tubes, and fluids, making sure he was comfortable and perhaps wondering briefly who was this man? Does he have children? A wife? Where are they? Surely, no one should have to die alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what made me cry. I was sure that he had been alone for a long time now, not just in the hospital, but every day, until he no longer had the strength or the will to do it anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love you,\u201d Billy kept saying, because there is nothing else. \u201cI love you so much. I\u2019m sorry you\u2019re sad, baby.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How could I explain what really made me sad? I was a girl who missed some vague shadow in her life. It was him I was sad for, him, who at age 57, had decided his life is over. He missed his ex-wife, he missed his children, he missed the life that he had before and now that life is gone. He replaced all of it with alcohol. He drank and he was lonely, and he waited. He simply waited for his pain to end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was not my pain that I shed tears for, but his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dean and I sat outside the airport in St. Louis, Dean smoking a cigarette thoughtfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre you sure you want to see him this way?\u201d he asked, as if we can actually turn back at this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot really,\u201d I replied, watching a man calm his enormous dog. Perhaps it is half Great Dane, half Dalmatian. \u201cBut I feel like we should be there.\u201d I don\u2019t want him to die alone<\/em>, I almost added, as if an hour at my father\u2019s deathbed could make up for so many lost years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, I guess you\u2019re right,\u201d Dean answered, stubbing out his cigarette and shaking a fresh one from the pack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look at my hands. \u201cI know he can\u2019t talk or anything, but we can talk to him, can\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dean takes a long drag. \u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baltimore, when we arrived, was cool and humid. I headed to the baggage claim while Dean found a payphone to call our uncle. After I grabbed our bags, I joined him. He was hanging up the phone with a terse expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis condition\u2019s worse. He could go at any time.\u201d It was already midnight and I was exhausted, but there was such urgency in Dean\u2019s voice that I know we have to hurry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We grabbed a cab. It\u2019s was a 30 minute drive, and all we could do was wait for the ride to be over. I wished again, for the thousandth time, that we had had more time. Just a little more time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the doors to ICU, Dean and I looked at each other. It was a look that passed between us and was understood without words: This is It<\/em>. No turning back. We had to face whatever was on the other side of that door. Dean took my hand, and I squeezed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We walked into the entryway, where a few doctors and nurses were monitoring patients and working on menial tasks. A man approached us with a gentle smile. He seemed happy \u2014 maybe relieved \u2014 that we were there. I wondered if this was one of the nursing staff I had imagined, one of whom was hoping this man wouldn\u2019t have to die alone. The doctors had done all they could, and now we needed to take care of the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour dad\u2019s been waiting for you,\u201d he said to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind the curtain, my dad is lying there, hooked up to monitors and tubes: breathing, heart rate, blood pressure. His forehead and ears were covered by a small towel, and the rest of him covered by a hospital blanket. I immediately started crying, and Dean put his arm around me. It shouldn\u2019t be this way, <\/em>I thought. It shouldn\u2019t be this way after so many years. More time, dammit. We need some more time.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We approached his bedside, and I looked into the face I used to know so well; the long, dark lashes under bushy brows, a strong nose and wide lips. He was yellow, jaundiced, and as Dean reached for his hand under the blanket, I noticed that he was puffy. The fluid he is supposed to be getting rid of through his liver is collecting, poisoning him from the inside out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey, Dad,\u201d Dean said softly, next to his ear, \u201cWe\u2019re here. It\u2019s me, Dad, Buster Brown\u2026\u201d he said, using my dad\u2019s nickname for him. My heart went out to Dean to hear the way his voice broke as he finished the sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHi, Daddy,\u201d I said tentatively, wondering if he could hear us. \u201cHey, Daddy, your Precious is here.\u201d Precious was my name. There was nothing. No response, no squeeze of the hand, no movement behind closed lids. Somehow I thought maybe we would know, that we would feel his acknowledgement that we are here. We just had to go on blind faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sat at his side, examining every part of him, looking at his face. We pulled back the towel covering his head and touch his hair, as if we could make it more real by putting our hands on something tangible. He never moved; nothing ever changed but the blips and beeps on the monitor. His heart would speed up, slow down, sometimes beat at an amazing speed, and I kept thinking, He\u2019s going to go, right now, right here, with me holding his hand. <\/em>But he hung on. The breathing, slow and ragged, with the help of a machine, kept going. We talked to him, told him our names over and over. And that we loved him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can only hope he heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sat in our vigil until four a.m., when we decided that our job was done. The doctors were instructed to let him pass when the time came; there was no need to resuscitate him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We peeled back the towel from his head; we each kissed him in turn and whispered, \u201cGoodbye, I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He died twelve hours later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found an old diary entry from this point in my life. There were exactly two mentions of this event. I recall bombing a statistics assignment shortly after my trip to visit my father. I tentatively explained the situation to my professor after class one day \u2014 I had been out because of my father\u2019s passing \u2014 could I get a redo on my homework assignment? I had been distracted. I actually felt guilty for my excuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I honestly and truly thought my situation didn\u2019t warrant any special treatment, and life should go on as though nothing changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billy\u2019s reaction? He picked me up from the airport and there were red roses in a vase on the front seat of his 240SX. He didn\u2019t talk to me about it, didn\u2019t ask me how I felt, and when I asked him, he said he didn\u2019t know what to say. In retrospect, in the relationship I have now, in which my husband is my best friend, my confidante, my entire world \u2014 it sounds completely insane to me. My father died, I was 19 years old and we hardly said a word about it. I didn\u2019t spend nights curled up next to Billy, reminiscing about the good times with my dad, or lamenting his untimely demise, voicing my worries that I or Dean would end up just like him, crying about how he ultimately died alone \u2014 nothing. We had one brief discussion about it, during which Billy admitted how uncomfortable he was with, you know, feelings, and we moved on with our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had no idea what we were doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I eventually moved in with Billy, despite my earlier misgivings. We lived together for my junior and senior years of college. Billy pushed me to enter the Adult World on more than one occasion. Another time that my inability to be strong, to stand up for myself, to take care of me \u2014 was a huge problem. I wanted to study abroad for a semester, but Billy wouldn\u2019t let me. I wanted to take a series of classes that meant I would graduate in the spring, on time, instead of early, in the fall \u2014 Billy didn\u2019t like the idea. He wanted me to Grow Up and Get a Real Job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think Billy was similar to Alex in this way \u2014 Billy didn\u2019t go to college, and had a chip on his shoulder about it. He, of course, wouldn\u2019t say a word about it, but I knew it made up a big part of him. He felt like a failure because he dropped out, and it was hard for him to relate to me. He was a little bit jealous of me. I spent my days walking through campus and looking at the couples, feeling jealous of what they had. I wanted to sit on the lawn between the buildings we called The Six Pack and do nothing in the sunshine \u2014 other couples did that. Again, I was doing both things \u2014 college and Adult World \u2014 neither of them well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was alone during much of my relationship with Billy. Because he was always playing computer games, it was rare that we even went to bed at the same time. Sometimes I felt like we were nothing more than roommates. I had to ask him over and over for something that made me feel special \u2014 to take me out on a date, to buy me flowers \u2014 these things seemed so important to me at the time. I was looking constantly for signs that I was a good girlfriend, that I was loved. I wanted romance and fun and excitement, and he didn\u2019t. He was satisfied with life, and with our relationship just as it was. He didn\u2019t put a lot of work into anything \u2014 except the computer \u2014 and least of all, into our relationship. We entered a never-ending cycle of me begging him to do something with me, take me out, go somewhere, hell, have a fucking conversation, and his response would be to get me a stuffed animal or a rose, with a note about how much he loved me and wanted to marry me. Two months later, repeat. At the time, I thought I was completely justified. Now I realize I was trying to change someone\u2019s fundamental being. He just wasn\u2019t that guy. I must have been driving him crazy asking all the time. I wonder why he stayed with me so long. I spent the entire relationship screaming, jumping up and down and waving my arms, \u201cLook at me, Billy! No, really look<\/em> at me!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes while he was gone, working or pretending to work because he was really playing computer games at work<\/em>, I would sit in our apartment with tears running down my face, splashing the keyboard, and I would type into my journal, \u201cI am so lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not surprising to me that I had an emotional affair. It\u2019s also not surprising that it was with one of Billy\u2019s friends. I\u2019m not proud of it, but I can see now with clarity how it happened. Isn\u2019t that the reason people cheat? They\u2019re not getting something from their current relationship that the outside one provides. Billy\u2019s friend Jay was definitely in Adult World \u2014 ten years older than me, with a failed marriage and a son. He lived in Dallas, and I met him on one of our trips there. I remember what I was wearing the day I met him \u2014 a pair of cutoff shorts and a striped midriff-baring top. He couldn\u2019t take his eyes off of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We started chatting on the computer. It was 1998 and the underground chat program was called ICQ. It was a play on words, meaning \u201cI Seek You.\u201d It was a fitting theme for the relationship I started with Jay. He gave me everything I wanted from my relationship with Billy. He told me how beautiful and funny I was; he was also a writer. He wrote me poems<\/em>. I was a hopeless romantic writer, who at 20 years old was afraid my life had passed me by. I felt like I was already married to a boring man who was addicted to computer games and would say that he loved me, but he didn\u2019t really know who I was or why he loved me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was a goner from the first words Jay typed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jay came to visit us one weekend in the fall of my senior year. Strangely enough, I had told Billy that we were talking, and that sometimes Jay said things that were, to put it mildly, inappropriate or flirtatious. I\u2019m sure that I told Billy for two reasons \u2014 one, I tried to be completely transparent and honest with him, always. It was something my mother instilled in me from an early age. She always said that she would forgive me anything but lies, so I should always tell her the truth, and we would work through whatever truth I had confessed. The second reason is one I\u2019m not proud of, but it makes sense when I think about it now. I wanted him to care. I wanted Billy to be jealous. He had this maddening way of either being completely unfazed by other men \u2014 or completely flipping out. I had no way of knowing what would trigger his jealousy. And in my mind, jealousy meant he cared. Yet again, I was waving my arms at him, frantic for him to \u201cget it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think we even left the house when Jay came to visit, except for a drive around the block at 5 a.m. after we\u2019d stayed up all night. The three of us sat around drinking beer, watching football and talking. We couldn\u2019t stop talking. Well, Jay and I couldn\u2019t. The three of us stayed up all night. Billy might even have been dozing at points during the evening, as the night stretched into morning, but Jay and I couldn\u2019t get enough of each other. He had a brand new Mustang, and I wanted drive it, hence the 5 a.m. cruise around the neighborhood. After his visit, it occurred to me that Billy and I had never stayed up all night together. Just\u2026being together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our chats became more serious. One night, about a week after his visit, I asked him if I could tell him something and would he please not laugh at me or think that I\u2019m stupid?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour mind is beautiful,\u201d he typed to me. \u201cOf course not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How could I hesitate after words like those? So I told him that I was having \u201cJay withdrawal.\u201d He admitted he, too, had been a little bit depressed since the weekend ended. We were both trying to ignore it, given that I was in a relationship with his very good friend. But once we acknowledged it, a torrent of feelings was unleashed. Jay said we had a different connection than most people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean you don\u2019t love the person you\u2019re with \u2014 it just means this other connection fills a void in your heart or mind,\u201d Jay typed. We rationalized our relationship, trying to convince ourselves this connection we had wasn\u2019t dangerous. We pretended that it wasn\u2019t going to destroy my relationship with Billy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We kept talking over ICQ, and after a couple of weeks I realized I had fallen in love with Jay. It sounds insane. Maybe it was. I loved Billy too \u2014 or, I thought I did \u2014 and it was only then I understood that you can love more than one person at the same time. My relationship with Jay starkly exposed the faults in my relationship with Billy. What I was describing to myself as a \u201cdifferent\u201d connection was really just a connection. Billy and I were just bumbling along together; we just fell into each other as a couple. If someone had asked me why I was with him, I\u2019m not sure I could have answered. I would probably have said, \u201cHe\u2019s nice.\u201d That also sounds insane, because I wanted to marry the guy. Because he was nice? Because he didn\u2019t treat me like I was disposable or yell at me like Alex had? I was painfully young and I simply didn\u2019t know any better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why Jay rocked my world. That\u2019s why I fell so hard. It was practically inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billy figured it out. He may not have had a plethora of endearing qualities, but the boy wasn\u2019t stupid. I was acting way too cagey about my ICQ account, hurriedly closing the window on my computer if Billy happened to walk in the room at a bad time. Logging on to ICQ from school in the computer lab, just to get a dose of words from Jay. He was my drug, and I couldn\u2019t quit. I was at a football game with my friends in late November when it happened. The game was amazing. That was the game Ricky Williams broke Earl Campbell\u2019s rushing record, and we were chanting \u201cRun Ricky Run!\u201d at the top of our lungs, high-fiving, hugging each other, shaking the bleachers. It was one of those days that was a college day \u2014 a real college day. The sky was overcast and it was deliciously chilly, perfect football weather. As the stadium began emptying out, I called Billy for a ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the moment I heard his voice, I knew what had happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The elation from the football game evaporated instantaneously. Billy was stoic, hardly looking at me as I got into his car. He had already called Jay, and Jay told him we\u2019d fallen in love, that we didn\u2019t mean for it to happen, that Jay felt like the biggest asshole on the planet. But it sounded like Jay was willing to fight for me, for us. Billy and I went home, fought, cried, hugged, talked, and cried some more. Billy was furious at me, furious at Jay, and furious with himself for being played a fool. He knew he should leave me, but quite plainly, he loved me and he didn\u2019t want to. He laid down the law \u2014 if I wanted to save this relationship, I had to cut Jay out of my life. I told him I couldn\u2019t. Jay had become too important to me. I wanted to see if what we had was real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went out that night with my friend Mindy. Before we left her apartment, I called Jay. We talked for nearly an hour. We both felt like heels, but we were giddy hearing each other\u2019s voices. I promised him I would figure out what to do. I decided it was time to take a break from Billy, move out of the apartment we shared and give me and Jay a real try. We had only been in the same room together for a total of 24 hours, ever. Before we got off the phone, Jay said, \u201cI really really love you Christianne,\u201d and my heart melted. I was head over heels for this man, and I had to be with him. Billy was the \u201clogical\u201d choice, the comfortable choice, but he didn\u2019t make my heart sing like Jay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But by the time I woke up Saturday morning, extremely hungover, Jay had removed himself from the situation. He called the apartment, and the three of us had the most bizarre three way conversation. Jay told us he wanted us to \u201cfall in love again\u201d and that I couldn\u2019t really examine my feelings for Billy with Jay in the way confusing things. I was heartbroken and angry at Jay. In turn, Billy was heartbroken and angry at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday night Billy and I grabbed some beers and went to the top of the cliffs at the 360 bridge to talk. Again. It seems all we did that weekend was talk, and rehash, and talk, and talk some more. But we weren\u2019t getting anywhere. Billy knew he should leave me, but he couldn\u2019t. He wanted to fix our relationship, but I was exhausted and unhappy. I\u2019d had a glimpse of something else, and I wanted that. I didn\u2019t want the relationship I already had. Those exposed faults didn\u2019t seem fixable to me. There was no real foundation for us, and even though I was young and bumbling around in the dark when it came to this stuff, I had figured that one out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By December, we called it quits. I moved in with my parents temporarily. I knew it was the right thing, and I didn\u2019t want my current relationship, but I was so used to Billy. He was a habit I had to break. We didn\u2019t know how not<\/em> to be with each other. Even thought we\u2019d split up, we went to my office Christmas party. Went back to the apartment and talked about still hanging out even though we had broken up. It was ludicrous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so my last semester in college was exactly that \u2014 ludicrous. Billy and I tried again. We moved to a new apartment just off campus. He interviewed for a job in New York. Sometimes Jay and I chatted on ICQ, or sent long sappy emails, or sneaked conversations on the phone Sometimes we were silent, trying to stay away from each other. I promised Billy that I wouldn\u2019t talk to him. There were times when I looked at Billy and knew I didn\u2019t love him anymore. Then I would imagine my life without him and not be able to breathe. There were times when I wanted to get in my car and drive to Dallas and knock on Jay\u2019s door. I should have, because I would have forced his hand. Jay was never going to make us happen. He always had an excuse. He slayed me with his gorgeous words. But he didn\u2019t make the effort. And at the time, these two men were my whole world. I couldn\u2019t fathom the idea that neither of them was right for me. They were all I could see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May, I graduated college and moved to New York to be with Billy. We were so battered and bruised it was pointless, but we just couldn\u2019t let go of each other. It\u2019s another time in my life that I feel badly for the earlier version of me. I was depressed. I felt directionless, boring, bland. I got a job at a little magazine, made some friends, tried to be an Adult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It didn\u2019t work. In December, Billy informed me he wasn\u2019t happy and wanted out. New Year\u2019s Day, 2000 \u2014 I woke up hungover, our apartment trashed from a party the night before. I switched on the TV to watch the Longhorns. They were losing to Arkansas. The vet called to inform me that my cat, who had been sick and in his care, had just died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A rather inauspicious start to the new millennium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I moved back to Austin on a brutally cold day in January. Billy helped with my suitcases, but he wasn\u2019t wearing shoes so we wound up in the vestibule of our apartment building, and he put his hands on both sides of my face, and kissed me. I cried. \u201cTell me if you want me back,\u201d I whispered. He didn\u2019t seem to hear me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is part 2 in a series about my great loves aka fuckups in terms of relationships. My college experience, as I\u2019ve already more or less described, was weird. It wasn\u2019t the time of my life, filled with frat parties, beer and freedom. It was a struggle for me. I studied very hard, and was … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Playing with Adulthood: My Awkward College Experience”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9,3],"tags":[10,7,8],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-memoir","category-relationships","tag-heartbreak","tag-love","tag-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gorgeousandsassy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gorgeousandsassy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gorgeousandsassy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gorgeousandsassy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gorgeousandsassy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gorgeousandsassy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40,"href":"https:\/\/gorgeousandsassy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gorgeousandsassy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gorgeousandsassy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gorgeousandsassy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}