All Things Considered

There is actually very little I remember about Angel (and even less about Sarah, who's name I'd come to find out via a slip from someone else).  We didn't need much as kids.  We just liked the idea of playing our character, and it was simply more fun to play with other people. I recall she was a genuinely kind girl, a bit more shy and pulled back than most who ran in our group.  Most of us struggled with (or at least claimed to) early stages of depression.  Maybe it's a fad all kids go through, but looking back I like to believe that a mixture of our growing darkness and preference to physical isolation is what drew us to find companionship online in the first place.  Angel, however, didn't seem sad like everyone else.  She seemed happy just to be there, to be part of things.  Many of us liked to cause drama, but it was her resistance to doing so that initially drew my attention to her. It was never anything too serious, we eventually wrote it ...

Whether it was because I was younger and was ignorant enough to truly believe this world and that world were separate, or whether I was the same asshole then as I am now, it never even once crossed my mind that "Cloud" should adhere to the same rules I did.  At the time, the Internet and the real world were two entirely separate places.  In my head, "Cloud" being with "Angel" was entirely acceptable. I wasn't old enough to know what that next level of romance meant, but I was definitely old enough to be interested.  All of the things I never had the courage or capability to do in the real world, Cloud was more than capable of doing.  Dating, going out, cuddling, making out.  Done entirely through words on a screen, sure.  But still important enough for me to recognize.  I didn't ask for Angel's real name and she didn't ask for mine. It was taboo to acknowledge the real world, and even more so to actively ask about it.  Oh and if you'r...

II.  Sarah/AngelEyes There were two things that people who role-played wanted to do.  Fight other people, and fuck.  Teenagers  (and any other creepers who managed to deceive and hide their true identities) were given a blank canvas to host our very own day-time television drama every day.  But for me, the best part about all of this was none of it had to affect your real world once you stepped away from the keyboard. Or so I thought. I eventually met a girl from my cousin's group who went by the name of AngelEyes.  Long story short, I never really got to know her too well.  Those chat rooms were very much like the school setting I'd known back in PA.  We were all just trying to fit in, and often times things came down to playing a massive roundabout game of copycat.  Being "with" someone is just something we all did.

Fast forward to my 5th grade year, specifically the summer time.  By now, my father had left PA, and Chelsea and I had relocated to live with my mother.  She and my step father (a man I'll always consider a true second and real father) had decided that between Chelsea and I, they and a still growing family (I'd eventually get two more sisters) needed a bigger home that could accommodate.  I won't get into why he left (or even how I felt about it) now, but what's important to know is that I used to spend summers in Louisiana with my dad and his southern family. During that summer in LA, my cousin introduced me to AOL, specifically AOL role-playing chat rooms.  The concept was simple enough. There were places I could go on the Internet where total strangers could speak with one another. But not just any old conversation. These rooms were meant to be used by people who had created some kind of character. This drew in the fantasy-world lover in me, and the not ...

I don't have regrets. I firmly believe that for something to truly be a regret, you must willingly and actively do something to address the situation.  If the totality of said situation is only that you "wish you'd done things differently", then it's a mistake, not a regret. I'm saddened by how things ended with Meg and I, but that's as far as I'm willing to go. But let's go back a bit.  Not too far, but let's rewind a few months to a critical moment in my life.  At the time I wouldn't recognize its importance, and yet it would be the beginning foundation of events that would come to shape the very blueprint that makes me, Me. I grew up playing a lot of video games. As a very young kid, that came primarily in the form of the SNES.  Even before the accident, I loved gaming. I would play any and every game I could get my hands on. I never got bored of immersing myself in different realities and environments, I actively sought to escape the...

So here's the dynamic.  Megan and I are in like 5th grade by now.  We've been together longer than any other couples I knew around us, and yet here I am trapped in that "next step limbo".  Whether it was a lack of courage or whatever, it was starting to become brutally obvious that our relationship was not growing as it was expected to be. One of her new friends, a guy I became painfully aware of, was Jason.  Whether it was just childish jealousy or natural instinct, I never liked him.  For all I knew, they might have very well just been friends.  But I saw the way he made her smile.  I had claimed that smile, it was mine to behold. I don't remember how specifically it all ended.  Maybe it was just us growing apart, maybe it was my inability to take our romance to the next level, maybe it was my jealousy of Jason or maybe it was just the fact that what should have just been best friends was cultivated and groomed into dating by family and soci...

We stayed together for a long while. God, I wish we could have just stayed kids together forever.  But alas, this is reality, and people grow. We grow and so do the expectations around us. I couldn't even raise the courage to hold her hand, man.  Anything physical, I was just so terrified it would go wrong or I would do it wrong or I'd be an idiot.  Near the 3rd grade or so, I think that's when I started to notice couples around us had begun to get physically closer. Be it a slow dance at school stuff or even making out behind the bleachers, they were all things I'd convinced myself I couldn't do right. I thought at the time that my chair prevented me from being in that kind of relationship (and maybe I was right).  Looking back now, I imagine Megan wanted me to take that next step in our relationship. And part of me really wanted to.  I genuinely loved being around her.  She was absolutely gorgeous and most importantly she made me feel wanted. But I ne...

She stuck with me after I came back. I don't really want to get into the accident.  It's pretty self-explanatory.  I was a kid thankfully, so I'm not cursed with having the memory I do now.  Things changed, I changed, that's just how something like that works. When I came back, Megan was still with me.  Our relationship was still only what could be expected of kids in 1st grade, hell we were like 7 years old so I hope you're taking my use of "relationship" and "romance" with the proper age appropriate grain of salt.  Anyway. At least as far as I could see, nothing had changed between us.  During school, I was allowed to have one person accompany me through the halls, I was given actual permission to have Megan with me for 7 hours a day.  She used to push me around school while I held our books. I contend that even to this day, that simple act is one of the most intimate connections I've ever experienced with another human.

I. Megan Before I considered any of this on my car ride to work this morning, I hadn't actually noticed just how much you forget.  People always say their first legitimate memory is from the age of 3 or 4, a brief glimpse frozen in time forever. Mine doesn't occur until the age of 5 (maybe)? Pre-school, specifically. Maybe that in itself says a lot about who I am, but that's a discussion for another time. I specifically remember being seated in a circle of other kids in class, myself flanked on both sides by two girls with the names of Sharlene and Megan. I don't recall why, I know only that Megan and I would become friends. When my father still lived in PA at this time, we lived in the upstairs of Megan's Aunt's garage. Small kitchen, small living room, small bathroom, single small bedroom. Chelsea and I shared a bed as kids, my father slept out on the couch.  Dad drove truck at the time and was split from my mother, so we weren't exactly strapped wit...

So what's the plan here. First and foremost, I want to take a proper trip down Memory Lane (or at least some of it).  I've tried to understand some things about myself and my past, I'm hoping putting pencil to paper will help further that goal. The first thing I want to address is love. What it is, what it's meant to me, how I've handled it, and ultimately what or if I plan to do with it.  I only really know of one way to tell a story, so let's just go back to the beginning.

Prologue. I'm already weighing the importance of a good start. Already dissecting each word and sentence before putting it here forever. I came here to write about something very important to me, and yet my first task will be putting together an acceptable introduction. I suppose I could read some books, see how other "proper" writers begin their works. But I already know what would happen. I'd analyze and try to understand the "meta" of writing, to see the most common and efficient way to do things. I'd lose myself and with it the entire reason I'm here. Let's do this instead. Let me apologize in advance. I've only ever written as a hobby, only whatever was required for some class on some whatever assignment. I don't read nearly enough to have a genuine understanding of writing styles or powerful techniques. I don't think of being clever when I write, only trying to put thought into words.  I accept in advance that my story contai...