I had to apply for a scholarship for my creative writing degree at the College of Santa Fe, and one of the essay questions was to describe someone who has influenced your life. So I wrote about Phil (Sid). I remember the admissions director calling me at 8:00pm on a Thursday to tell me how much he liked it. They offered me $2-3,000, but I had to turn it down because it didn't make the other $25,000 worth a creative writing degree.
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| I got this quote because it described the two of us. "Find what you Love and Let it consume you". I didn't realize how well is described my relationship with him. |
It's amazing how much your life can evolve in a matter of weeks, days or mere seconds. The first time I saw Phil was the moment that confusion and immaturity escaped me and desire and understanding began to flow through my veins. Months after I met him, he inspired me to write my first monologue, in which I described my first feeling of his presence. "I can still remember the glow from the sunlight of the dirty room, as I talked and laughed with my friends. I remember looking up from Drew's feet to a noise in the corner, and that moment in my life was the most important moment in all of history. He sat, now so close in my heart, but so far away in the room." And that is how I still remember him entering my life.
I had never felt this way for someone before. This extreme want of attachment, and yet being 6 years younger than him, it seemed impossible. It didn't matter to him who I was, what I looked like, where I came from-- I was just an audience for his rants of politics and physics. But to me, he was a deity. His features were handsome, unmatched and perfect. In him I saw a sense of badness that I had longed for and a challenge; like my very own Kurt Cobain, they even shared similar smiled. His personality was everything I had dreamed of come to life, trapped in a flawless body that became my temple. He walked into my work, while I was a 14 year old dreamer who had learned for a taste of reality, and though I believed he was my dream come true, he was never a possibility.
Before I knew it, my summer with him had ended. I achieved my last hug, received one small ticket for further communication, and was left with my intricate memories of his aura. That one little screen name became the object of my intent. As much as I brushed aside my job to focus on him and try to make him notice me, I ignored everything around me but this tiny scrap of paper with a screen name on it. Alas! he came on line. The gorgeously intelligent twenty year old obviously didn't see much need to converse with my inexperienced opinions, but I forced myself into his life, stalking him with internet searches. Finally, my desire for him brought out the evil in me. I posed as his perfect match- an older blonde bombshell whose pictures i found on a t-shirt site. And victory was achieved! He wanted me. No, he wanted her.
My life had now become this facade. Every morning and evening before and after school I would slip into a charade of my wild side- everything I had wanted to be but couldn't show- to try to impress my idol. I met so many other people this way as well. People who couldn't make judgments from my clothes and facial expressions. People who wanted me because of my false image, but wanted to know me because of my personality. Aside from Phil, I would always reveal my true character to my new companions once I was sure they appreciated me. I can't count the number of people I met this way, or explain without talking for years how each conversation with these unique and understanding people opened my eyes to life beyond first impressions.
One of Phil's friends online sent me four seconds of one of the best songs I had ever heard. I finally tracked it down and bought the CD and joined a message board for the band, where I found a whole other family of insecure artists like myself. Dozens of experiences like that enhanced myself because of my short relationship with him. By my sophomore year the confidence I had gained, the appreciation I now held for others and the respect I had for myself had made my new idol me, although Phil would always be the object of my desire. In the next two years, through un-trusting relationships, frustrating fantasies and hopes of success and college I would go to bed dreaming of Phil. My ultimate goal and most common dream was to be in his company again, and for him to at least notice me. I once wrote after waking from a dream of him that, "I feel like holding his hand is something people get rewarded in paradise. So if I urge for it, and obtain it...there can't be a heavy, but on this earth, because holding his hand would be just that divine."
Well, it's always seemed sort of a fairy tale, but this last month I learned that dreams come true.When I told Phil that I wasn't his blonde beauty, but actually confused little Cassie abusing the powers of the internet, he was rightfully upset. It had only been a few months of bliss and confusion that I let him on, but it would cause years of punishment, I believed. He disappeared, out of my life, gone from my boundaries of view, forever...Or so I thought. A year and 4 months later from his last words to me, I was typing away to my current boyfriend, most likely using the sincerity that I had learned from my life for Phil, when an unknown screen name popped up on my computer. Much to my surprise and delight, it was him. Lonely and bored, he had probably forgotten my crime though his minute drug abuse. I was so thrilled to have him talking to me again that I couldn't stop smiling for a week. Pretty soon, he didn't come online anymore. I was left with our sparse and unspecific conversations, and with my old memories. Eight months later, he came around again. I began to think of him as Jenny in Forrest Gump. I would spend months running across the world, doing great and unusual things all because of the inspiration he game me; and he would wander back into my life in-between abusive relationships with girls and drugs. After 4 times of lighting up my life with his unexpected arrival, and leaving me again with more to hope for than last time, I got a message once again. "Booga Bogga Booga" the many says, "do you know who this is?" "Give me a hint," I inquired. "Uhhhhh. I like politics?" "Phillip?!"
He informed me that he still resided in Albuquerque, as I knew from the research I would do while he was missing from my life (a horrible habit that I have never ceased from the moment we met). I told him that there was a college I wanted to visit up in Santa Fe and before I knew it I was on a plane to one of my favorite cities with all of my desires possibly coming true.
It was so weird to be sitting down to lunch with my parents and my deity. A man I worshiped before I even knew what he would do for me. [and had no idea what was to come...] I couldn't tell this stranger that had lucked into getting food from an old friend that I had a shrine of his photos above my bed, and that for years every time I closed my eyes I pictured him, or that holding his hand would be bliss. [Although I learned 10 years later that he knew all this that day... that was his secret from me.] I couldn't tell him, because I didn't know why I had worshiped him so. [What I now believe was a stronger force...] He was human, as much as I or my father sitting across from him. He bit his nails and hated his hair cut just like so many others I knew. Although his words still grabbed me and his eager mind still inspired, and his goodbye hug left much regret for hings I could have done...but he's just a man. A handsome man, however, that symbolizes desire, confidence and success.
We've talked more since that visit than ever online. He shares his rants with me daily and I hesitate to tell him how often he's crossed my mind. He has revealed to me that he appreciates my care, and I hide how much. I have learned that obstacles like age, appearance and mannerisms are not as crucial to understanding someone as knowing their goals and beliefs. He taught me all this, and he never did anything but exist. And now that I've learned that love at first sight isn't necessary, he is interested in me, and I above all, and interested in myself.
I think this says as much about growing up with Chat rooms and internet as it does about my relationship. I'm so scared and curious for the next generation.
You Make me So Very Happy <3
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