Chapter 9

My First Girlfriend

Well, in the absence of anything significant happening in elementary school, I shall have to jump to middle school for this first romance. It was April 19, 1996, nearing the end of my eighth grade year. At this time, I was keeping a daily journal of all the goings on in my life, and it is from that journal that most of this account comes from. It was the night of the last middle school dance of the year. A brief summary of it is written: "Ah, the dance. The last dance of my eighth grade life, as far as I know....I danced with Jessica Birk, Donna Hardy, Lacey Kinney, Allyssa Martins, Chantal Myers, Aroea Borntreger, and some others. My only regret is that we don’t have another school sponsored dance this year. Ah but next year there will be proms and homecomings and parties. And four years of friends. As to the idea of Friends Forever - Love found a way." Nowhere does it say that this is the day I started going out with Jessica Birk. Only the last line even hints anything - this was because I was afraid my parents would read my journal, and they would disapprove of a relationship at my age. So I disguised it then. But I remember the dance as if it were yesterday. It started out just as any other dance. I danced with everyone, and was having a blast. For some reason, that night I was strangely attracted to Jessica. I soon began to dance every slow song with her, then I would sit with her during the fast ones. It was during one of these fast ones that Laura Chipman asked me if Jessica and I were going out. I explained that we weren’t, and she said that we should, because we looked cute together. I was definitely thinking about it, but would I act on it, probably not. I danced with Jessica during the next slow song, and Chantal Myers comes up to us and asks, "Are you two going out?" To which we both replied that we were not, and she said, "well, you should. Do you want to?" Neither Jessica nor I spoke, but our thoughts must have been evident enough for Chantal. She proceeded, "Well, Jeremy, do you want to go out with Jessica?" It took no thought at all, for every fiber of my being had been saying it all night, "yes." And in a similar manner she asked Jessica. She also said yes. So Chantal says, "well, there you go." And it was done. Neither one of us had asked the other, it just sort of happened. Just like that. School was the only time we ever saw eachother - so you can imagine how deep this relationship got. We did however, spend a lot of our school time together. I sat with her at lunch and went to the library with her after every lunch, and we also had two or three classes with her every day. Every day we traded two or three notes, which we wrote at home or during classes. I did finally "tell all" in my journal. On May 6, I told the world: "Well, I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you (though if you were paying attention, you should have already guessed) Jessica Birk and I are going out. You know, Boyfriend, Girlfriend. That kind of thing. Since April 19th, the last dance. I’m not really sure how it happened yet, I just know that Chantal Myers came up, said we looked like a good couple, and asked us if we’d go out with eachother, and we said yes. So that’s all. So now even my journal has a window into my private life." On the 11th I mention "I have the best girlfriend any guy ever had....." You can see how much I cared for her. The next entry about her was on June 5th: "Today was the worst day of my life...Jessica Rose Birk broke up with me. She claims that she needs to go out with someone a little closer to home. I don’t care. Next fall I’ll be asking her again; and again; and again; until she has no choice but to say yes. Love is cruel. Love hurts. But I don’t hate love. It’s all my fault. Always has been. Always will be." The next day I had Ms. Brack’s class first period. I was sitting in my desk crying. She yelled at me to "Get over it!" Laura Chipman came to my defense, but to no avail, I just cried harder. Later Erik Trabert commented (from my journal), "’You were crying first period? It took you that long to get over it?’ I replied ‘I’m not over it, maybe never will be.’ Some people tell me there’ll be plenty of others. I don’t care. Maybe once I’m not so grief stricken....Forever crying."

I went to the eighth grade party at St. Mary’s Hall on June 8th. This is where I "got over her," or so I said. What really did it for me was when I danced with Laura Chipman to the Boyz II Men song, "End of the Road." It really symbolized, for me anyway, the end of my relationship with Jessica, my moving on. That night, I recorded in my journal as the most wonderful night of my life, a mere three days after the worst day of my life. I wrote "I feel almost nothing for Jessica anymore. I feel as if a gigantic burden has been lifted from my chest." I was only fooling myself of course. My feelings for her hadn’t changed. I loved her as much then as the day I went out with her. We didn’t speak that summer, or for the year and a half following. That’s what hurt the most, the silence. We did, however, begin to build our friendship anew about the middle of our sophomore year, and now we’re best friends. It’s better now than it ever was then. I’m glad we decided to stick it out in the long run. The road has been long, and the path rough, but when all’s said and done, I’ll be proud to say that I did not let our friendship die.