OK Computer

Pardon me for a moment, I am trying to make my way home from Memory Lane.... *sighs*

I was listening to my Pandora radio and Radiohead came on. All of the sudden I got this overwhelming feeling of nostalgia and apparently also felt a need to crush my soul for the evening.

You see, my best friend/first love/soulmate/everything I ever thought I needed/9 soul crushing years of my best years friend was slightly obsessed with the OK Computer album in high school. I listen to these songs (as I am now on my computer bc I TOTALLY bought the album to bc I am THAT girl!) I am immediately transported back to a time so long ago. A time I never imagined would come to an end. A time when life was so carefree. A time when my only and biggest fear was that he would never love me the way that I loved him.

This was a friend with whom my whole existence revolved around. The moment we became friends, we became a unit. This was not a secret. EVERYONE knew that we were a match set...not to be separated. Few tried to break us apart, but few succeeded in their missions.

I told him ME, shared ME, was ME, truly and wholly with him. We didn't have secrets. We KNEW each other. He felt like the part of me that had missing up until he came into my life.

To say we had an unusual, sometimes crushing relationship might be an understatement. We were friends for so long I didn't know how to tell him I loved him and wanted more. The day the words came spilling out of my mouth was first time he broke my heart. He walked out the door. Literally. He came back a couple days later told me to forget I said, forget I felt it, and to make sure everything stayed the same. I tried, honest I did. I was successful for a while. But then I obviously got the wheels turning in his mind. A couple months later I was casually dating a couple people (that's a story in itself!). He drove by my house really late and night and discovered someone with whom I had a significant past parked out front. To say he got jealous would be giving him too much credit. He came to get me the next day and then drove me out to "our" place in the park. Then he confessed he wanted me. I immediately dropped all the others and ran into his open arms. This was the BEST summer! ... and sadly that was all it lasted that time.

Throughout the rest of high school we had a very up and down relationship of being friends/being more/being friends. He would just tell me he wasn't ready to be what I needed, but wanted to be. We still continued to share a mountain of memories, events, dates, parties, prom, late night drives (while listening to Radiohead, the whole POINT to this rambly post), and all the high school things kids do.

Then it came to a head. I started to date someone else...seriously. This was a problem ... HUGE problem. They hated each other and each wanted me to pick them and both tried to keep me from the other. It was ugly and for the first time in years I lost my best friend. The one person whom I wanted to talk to more then anything about how unhappy I was that I had lost someone so important to me.

I eventually dropped my serious boyfriend to be with him instead and he denied me. Talk about only wanting what he can't have. This time he disappeared. 100% NO communication. It was horrible. I went back to the boyfriend, but my heart wasn't into it. He found out and hated me a little more with each day. How dare he was all I could think. I quit my life to be a part of his and he left me.

That first Christmas when he came home from school we started have secret rendezvous and eventually confessed that we were both more in love with one another then ever. Boyfriend went away and we instantly were an item. We started dating officially as adults. It was glorious. It last several months. But then he changed. College was a different experience for him then me and it was changing us too much. We decided to cut our losses.

He then had to come home for school for a while and we wasted no time falling back into our old routine and I was a HAPPY girl. But sadly it still wouldn't last. We did this back and forth thing that just kept killing our friendship a little more each day with the pain being caused. Neither one of us doubted the love, but couldn't make it work.

Then I had an epiphany. This is NOT what is should be. So I sadly told him we were done, completely. No contact. He had broken me and I couldn't be put together with him watching. I needed to be away from him and it was the HARDEST thing I ever did and say. We went a year with no contact.

He has since made an appearance back in my life, but I have constantly held him at a guarded distance. I don't trust that I won't get hurt again and I can't recover from that again.

Despite all this, he still was and will always be my first love. I have so many good memories of him that the bad will never outweigh. I still have our entire relationship boxed up in the top of my closet. My ONLY relationship I have kept. I try to keep myself from opening that box, but everyone once in a while I open it and delve into a time so long ago. A time of carefree joyous love that I will never share with anyone else.

A time when we drove down the dark country highway, windows down, wind blowing through our hair, Radiohead blasting, driving out to see the stars and just BE with one another.