Life as Betsy

But I decided to upload the disc tonight to my iTunes and had to search the song titles and artists by Google tonight. I started to notice a pattern in your song choice:

Forever’s As Far As I’ll Go
Close Enough to Perfect
Alabama
Live Until I Die
Everything That Glitters Is Not Gold
You Never Even Call Me By My Name
Love A Little Stronger
I See You In A Different Light
The Man In Love With You
Texas
I Love the Way You Love Me
Amy’s Back in Austin
Blame It On Texas
Same Old Star
What’s Forever For?
No Doubt About It
Big Dreams In A Small Town
He Left A Lot to Be Desired
Some Girls Do
You Can Dream Of Me
Keeper of the Stars

Here we are, five years past my return from California and this week that we are currently in (April 5th - 12th) is what I would probably refer to as my "Hell Week", if I were to compare it to the "Holy Week" of Christianity with Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday. Because at that time and still looking back now, I don’t think I have ever been as miserable as I was in that specific week of my life.  The end of the end was unbearable and I know now that I am only that much stronger and smarter because of it. But had you come to me, five years ago today and told me about my life currently, where I am, who I am with and what all I am doing, I never would have been able to comprehend it. Seriously, I couldn’t see past getting up in the morning, going to work, coming home and not entirely falling apart. Which I am sure I did, more than once.

Chances are the one you love at 16 or 18 is not the one you are going to marry. And even in the throws of puppy love, you have to realize that. You throw in the towel and move on and even make friends with them years later, able to laugh at what went wrong and rib each other about current conquests.

But when the one comes along that clenches the prize you once held sacred, you are left to realize that you weren’t as special as he once said you were. And if you aren’t in a relationship yourself that is as solid and special as you know your ex’s current relationship is, it can leave you feeling very small and alone.

New Year’s Eve 2007, Mike and I were engaged and celebrating with friends at the club Aura in Portland. While he and I were standing there, talking and kissing, I noticed this girl walk by in flats. I remember thinking "She’s smart to wear comfy shoes" and then I looked up from her feet and then saw the guy walking behind her with his hands on her hips. It was my first boyfriend, Sean. I called out hello and he came over, introducing his girlfriend Tessa to me and Mike and I, introducing Mike to them. "This is my fiancee, Mike." I didn’t even mean to say that. I cannot stand when people use the term "FIANCEE" all the time. It sounds so desperate to me. My fiancee this, my fiancee that. "My fiancee things we should go to Hawaii for our honeymoon but I really was hoping on Cancun, myself." Yet there I was, using the term I disliked to introduce Mike to my high school boyfriend. I wanted to slap myself there on the spot.

Within a month of that run in, he proposed to her and they were married last weekend. I couldn’t be happier for them and I truly mean that. But there is a small part of me that remembers when he gave me that sweet little ring on my 16th birthday and told me that he loved me. Nostalgia, perhaps. Fond memories, definitely.

I have to wonder if any of my exes felt that way when they heard I had gotten married. Not an overwhelming sense of loss and woe as their one true love Betsy was off the market (I don’t hold myself in that much regard.) but I can imagine the sensation that I felt is a pretty universal one. At least, I am hoping so.

But here we are, 13 odd years later and she is a wayward stranger that I occasionally hear things about through the gossip mill. Sad gossip, true gossip and it all leaves me wondering what happened that led her to the point she is in her life. How did she go from being that vibrant girl who made me want to be just like her to an unwed druggie single mom with an underweight baby that we all shake our heads at?

There are plenty of upsides to having a phenomenal memory. You can remember details others overlooked or quickly dismissed. You don’t need to sign up for a Birthday club for reminders of all your friends and family’s birthdays, because you never forget them. You can recall credit card numbers and addresses at the drop of a dime, even ones you probably shouldn’t know or recall. You are awesome at trivia games. You can learn lines and poems for recollection so easily. You don’t need to look at recipe cards for long before you can just see it in your head.

But there is a downside to it as well. Like those birthdays you don’t want to remember. July 5th. May 17th. February 22nd. August 17th. November 1st. April 3rd. Even though they are just like any other day, there is something in the back of your mind that calls to you when you glance down at the calendar. Then there are the life changing moments that are forever seared into your head - the phone call that came the night Grandma died. The horrific dreams you didn’t want to have, let alone remember.

I read somewhere that for every one compliment a person remembers, they can recall 100 negative things that were said to them or about them. Its stats like that which make me a little envious of my friend Aja, who has been smart enough to write down the wonderful things people have said to her and about her throughout the years. She has something tangible and concrete to look at if she needs to stop and remember those words.

Whether you want to or not, you remember a lot of things. From the time you were two and half or three and had that first real independent thought. Thats how old I was when my mother once left me in the family room, sitting on the floor while she went to strap my baby brother into his carseat. It hit me then, as I sat there waiting for her, that if she left right then and there, I’d be alone. I wasn’t scared or worried. My independent spirit probably delighted in the idea of being a big girl and on my own. But that is my first real memory. Its as fuzzy and clear at the same time as so many others from my childhood.

I can remember making Jacob McLoughlin vomit when I asked him if he remembered when he threw up the first day of school. It was a stupid thing that a third grader would do. I can remember the little boy who got his finger stuck in a hole in the side of the playground slide and the squirrel that managed to find its way into the school library. I can remember the rule in kindergarten where you couldn’t stack the cardboard blocks any taller than your head. I remember singing "Cherokee People" in choir and Miss Nishatani sliding her fingers down the keys at the end of each chorus. I loved it when she did that. I can remember Vacation Bible School and the first Dodge Aries Mom drove for a week that was maroon and had a bad starter. I can remember the day that we got a radio tape player installed in the second, sky blue Dodge Aries. I can remember Sugar and Libby - our first two cats. I can remember snack time at pre-school. I can remember carrying a Cherokee book bag when it was popular to carry Esprit. I can remember the night at dinner that I told my parents I felt I was old enough and mature enough to start watching "Bevery Hills 90210" We sat down and watched the season premiere together and they disagreed. It was the first season that Brenda was gone and Valerie came to town. I can remember dancing with my dad to "Love Shack" at my cousin Amy’s wedding and riding around with her sister Tammy the day before the wedding, running last minute errands. On the radio we heard Sophie B. Hawkins "As I Lay Me Down" and the theme song to "Friends". I can remember having to do a "getting to know you" assignment in Mr. Klein’s class and my partner was Jenny Weber. I can still remember the first time I laid eyes on both Kate and Aja in high school, and Jessica Lawrence too. I can remember Melinda Ronin putting liquid Oralgel on her hands. I can remember Wally Miller’s gag on the last day of sixth grade, where he pretended to vomit, but it was a can of chunky soap. Bruce Turner dipped his finger in it, licked it, and said it tasted good. I can remember watching "Wayne’s World" in a film class in eighth grade. I remember the dress I wore to my elementary school graduation. It was white with a magenta layer underneath and when we washed it before I wore it, the colors ran and turned my dress and pale pink. Robyn Hoofnagle and I sang "Friends are Friends Forever" at that graduation. I can remember Jamie Davis making a face when she heard she and I had the same birthday, as if my being born on the very same day of the very same year as her somehow tainted her. I can remember loathing the Jaunt at Gaiser and pretty much everything else that had anything to do with gym. Every Friday, if we did all twenty of our jumping jacks in perfect unison and no one screwed up, we didn’t have to do the rest of the daily warm ups. Billy Martindale was behind me in line and every Friday would say "20/20". I can remember Mrs. Fogarty showing us her bellydancing moves in dance class. I can remember learning how to draw the "Stussy" S with six little lines. I can remember girls shaving the bottom halves of their heads so that when their hair was down, you wouldn’t notice. I can remember only going to one social at Gaiser because I never understood the point of a school dance at 3 pm in the afternoon. I can remember telling my 5th grade teacher when I started my period and her telling me how proud of me she was. I can remember the first time I met Liz Harper. I can remember staying with Emily Stewart at her parent’s apartment while their new house was being built and we could go sit in the hottub. We’d talk about the boys we liked. I can remember the sticker a classmate had on her triangular shaped highlighter of the New Kids On the Block. It was the first I’d ever heard of them. I can remember going over to Emily Steidl’s house and we’d clean her room for fun. She had a goldfish named Abrahm Lincoln. I can remember going to stay at Megan Hill’s house and we’d always ask to watch the movie "BIG". We never got to the end before we had to go to bed. I can remember the first place I took tap dance lessons. The building had that old smell and we had to go to the front of the building, where some strange guy lived, to use the bathroom. I can remember having this thing about seeing bathrooms at every restaurant we went to. It drove my mom nuts.

I can remember kids who picked on me and kids who I picked on too. I can remember nights that I cried myself to sleep because I felt so small and so useless and pointless. I would try to remind myself that this wasn’t going to last forever; that some day, this would all be over and I’d be grown and be far far away from anyone who made me feel this way.

All in all, having a phenomenal memory is a good thing, something I cherish and value about myself. But it does sting when someone asks you if you can recall something for them, give them a specific situation when a particular thing may have happened (or something may have been said) and then for them to criticize you because you are able to remember it.

So the summer of 2005 is when Mike and I met, but we met in August. Earlier that spring and summer, I had been dating a guy named Garrett, who’d I’d met a year or so before through his friend Sonny. Garrett and Sonny were part of a group of friends (like a lot of us) who were very close and often spent a lot of time together. In Garrett’s case, a number of them even all shared a house together owned by his brother. So it wasn’t strange on a Friday or Saturday night that a number of us decided to hit downtown Portland and go dancing. I can recall that it was either in May or early June that this night happened, because it was the first time in two years of being back in Vancouver that I had laid eyes on Liz Rolling.

(Liz had been a friend of our group of friends since . . . elementary school, but we’d all kind of parted ways with her after high school. Aja and I kind of wondered if/when we’d run into her because while Vancouver is big enough, it’s not that big. Sure enough, it took me just over two years and there I was, standing in line to get into McFaddens and she was in the VIP line across the door opening from me.)

I can remember when it was because it was the first time I was doing WW and I remember wishing that I was a bit further into the WW process, so I would have been a bit thinner when I saw her. Seeing as how this was the first time I’d seen her since 1999, it was definitely the heaviest she’d ever seen me. But nonetheless, she recognized me and I recognized her and we both, I’m sure, did the girl size up thing. I immediately determined that while pieces of her outfit were fabulous, all of them pieced together made her look trampish. I am sure she was just amused at how heavy I was. (Not that it matters, but I was in jeans, heels and a cute double layered creamish tanktop set I’d gotten at Old Navy. I remember this because it was one of the two times I got to wear it, the second being in San Diego, before I washed it per its instructions and little tiny holes appeared in various places in the fabric. I still have the shirt, it still hangs in my closet, but as of yet, I am not comfortable enough to attempt to sport the deconstructed look.)

We all get into McFaddens (Liz and her group just before us) and anyone who has been to McFaddens knows that it is 1. a Meat Market 2. a sweat box. Its set up more like a sports bar that just kind of clears an area every night for a ‘dance section’. So if you want to dance, you are crammed into this area and sometimes, it is unbelievably cramped. But somehow, we fit ourselves into the place and make our way to the bar to order.

I should better describe to you our group before I get any further - there was myself, looking as cute as I could about 10 pounds down from my heaviest weight ever, Garrett, the guy I was seeing at the time, who by the way, is 7′0" tall and heavy on that frame as well, Hector, who was probably as heavy as Garrett (maybe a little less) but about 5′10", Sonny, who while he is about 5′8" has a wrestler’s build, and their friends Katie and Jenika, who I’d met several times and got a long with quite well and Chandra, who Katie and Jenika knew and I, oddly enough, had gone to high school with. Katie and Jenika hit the dance floor while the guys and I and Chandra went to get drinks.

Garrett had recently discovered Scotch and was standing there, like lord of the manor, sipping his Scotch and occasionally joining conversations. The other guys were drinking probably beer and I was sipping a soda because I was counting my points and most likely had driven too. The entire time, I am very, very aware that I am in the same building as Liz Rolling and am attempting to keep my eye out for her without seeming like I am interested in nothing else but her.

We soon spot her and her group on the dance floor, not far from where Katie and Jenika are dancing and Chandra goes to join them. I stood with Garrett and the others for awhile more, half chatting and half watching the dance floor. (I also at this time tried to get Garrett to spill his drink on Liz, but he argued that it was a fifteen dollar glass of Scotch. Even after I offered to buy his replacement drink, he still refused, obviously, because he is a better person than me.) So for another ten or fifteen minutes, I watched the dance floor, noticing Liz but at the same time, starting to notice these three girls kind of in the middle of the dance floor who were only dancing with each other, but definitely doing some aggressive dancing as well.  They were purposely bumping and elbowing people behind them so those people would kind of bump and elbow back and they’d start shit with them. Never to the point that security needed to be called in, but enough for anyone around them to kind of notice (or me standing on the sidelines). Generally, the people (girls) these three pirhanas would start shit with would apologize and move away or leave the dance floor all together, opening the pirhanas’ dance area a bit, until some new, unsuspecting couple or group of friends moved in near them and the same shit would happen again.

Katie and Jenika at some point then grabbed me and made me come dance with them and of course, Garrett, Hector and Sonny all followed, now making the dance floor that much more crowded. I, of course, am aware how close I am dancing to Liz’s group, but also, how close the pirhanas are to us as well.  And then Liz does some funky dance move that involves a split (something she never could do in high school, the one year she was a cheerleader) and I looked closer. At some point in the evening, Liz and her friends had already left McFaddens and I’d been watching this other girl who had similar hair and a similar top on.

Silently, I thanked Garrett and God that we did not spill Scotch on this poor girl.

I settled into dancing and enjoying the group and the music and the experience when "BAM!" I catch a sharp elbow in my back. I slyly glanced behind me to see that I was back to back with the ‘leader’ (i.e. pirhana starting the most shit) of the pirhanas. Not being one to back down, I bumped her back and kept dancing. She then bumps harder into me and I back, all the while, neither of us making eye contact or evening facing each other. This is all done in a nearly innocent way. You’d have to be watching to actually notice it was happening. This probably continued for the next 45-50 seconds when she then turns around and actually pushed me back a little into Katie.

"Bitch!" She screams over the music. "What the fcuk is your problem?"

Now, knowing that I was dancing on the same dance floor as these girls and possibly would have a run in with them, I had my comeback all ready.

"What is my problem? What the hell is your problem? The three of you have been starting shit with this entire dance floor all night! Don’t play dumb, I’ve been watching you do it."

"Oh really? We’ve been starting shit . . .  do you want to take this outside?" (Seriously, what girl says that??)

And then I smiled at her and said "Honey, are you crazy? I am here with the three biggest guys in the entire place! Do you really want the fcuk with me?" It was about then that she and her friends notice my 7 foot tall date standing directly behind me and Hector was not too far off either.

"Fine." And as far as I know, the girls didn’t start any more crap for the rest of the night.

Now, anyone who knows Garrett and Hector and Sonny (or the rest of their group) knows they are good guys who don’t randomly beat people down or anything. But if someone needed defending, I was always confident they’d have my back.

So there is my crowning comeback moment story. For all of you to read and hopefully, so I won’t even momentarily forget it again.