15 Years Later

What Larsen didn’t tell you is that there were actually two meetings that centered around Ivy.  We’ll get to that.  But first, I have to be honest.  I didn’t really want to write this.

If you read my last entry, you know I struggled with confidence in my youth.  Being in Larsen’s classroom helped the cowardly lion gain some confidence in himself.

Unfortunately, that’s not quite the end of the story.  The dark thoughts, the negative self-talk, and the unhealthy habits for coping with emotional wounds followed me well into adulthood, particularly my love life.  I learned how to handle outright rejection pretty early on.  That was a piece of cake.  But when I fell for someone, I would fall hard.  I would put my heart out there, and that made it difficult when someone I invested in emotionally didn’t return that investment.

Specifically, I couldn’t handle my own emotions.  It was always devastating, and it would take me a while to recover from a deep depression.  And yes, my confidence would get shattered.  That little voice in the back of your mind that whispers about how unlovable you are would get pretty fucking loud.

Break-ups and rejection already suck, but my mind would actively make a bad situation worse.  I worked for a decade to battle this and went through several stints of therapy.  Some heartbreaks were more damaging to my self-worth than others. 

But there was one girl, one situation, that was a greater hindrance to my emotional growth than any other broken relationship. 

I first wrote this while still recovering, after finally cutting that vine.  Let me make something clear.  With many years of healing and growth, I no longer feel any of the anger or hurt that you’re about to read through.  Nor do I blame my woes entirely on her.  But there’s no other way for me to tell this than how I experienced it at the time. 

This is the story of the biggest emotional storm I ever struggled to endure, and how a certain high school teacher helped me calm the waters so that I could begin swimming to brighter shores.  But first, we have to rewind seven more years.  Here’s what happened…

I had a huge crush on a girl I worked with, whom we have decided to call Ivy.  I fell for her as soon as I met her, which would be roughly ten years ago.  She was intelligent, cute, and maybe a little quiet.  But once we started talking, she revealed a razor-sharp wit, a magnetic laugh, and a fantastic sense of humor.  In fact, it’s that sense of humor that kept pulling me back in for so many years.  I’d always get nervously excited when I’d be in her department, hoping I’d have an opportunity to interact with her.

And she seemed interested!  We went for a walk one night, to dinner another night, and began talking more.  Every time she laughed, I melted.  I was bursting at the seams with anticipation.  I was anxious, but joyful.  Things had started off well.  I was hopeful.

Right as I thought maybe this girl might like me too, communication began lagging.  Texts were inconsistent and vague.  She began making excuses not to hang out.  The energy was becoming more and more one-sided.  All those fuzzy, hopeful feelings I began with had now deformed in the heat of uncertainty.  I was left confused and frustrated.  And that little voice in my head started whispering that I just wasn’t good enough.

Logically, I knew that I shouldn’t be putting in effort that wasn’t being returned.  I decided to try to let it go.  I was sad, but I had come back from worse.  I stopped texting her.  That’s when she paid more attention.

A month before, I had given her a candle for a holiday gift.  Days after I had stopped texting, I received a picture of a lit candle, along with a text from Ivy that it, “still smelled good!”  Yes, that’s what candles are intended for.  But it was enough of a branch for me to hold onto, and I found some hope again.

Then she became inconsistent again.  I became depressed.  I let go and stopped texting.  Then she would reach out.

Each time I regained hope, I’d be more invested than before.  Her witty responses made me laugh more.  Her voice seemed softer, somehow sweeter.  And each time those hopes were crushed, I sank deeper.  The inconsistency became torturous.  And that little voice whispered a little louder, a little hoarser, that I wasn’t good enough.

I finally had a bit of an emotional breakdown.  I was overwhelmed to say the least, and for her it was probably awkward.  To her credit, Ivy was very gracious when I went to apologize.  She said that after we took some time, we could keep being friends.  Friends.  That sounded okay.  It wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t dislike the idea either.

That initial volley into us potentially dating led me to a few months of therapy.  It wouldn’t be my last stint there.  But once I began feeling some more self-worth, Ivy and I began acting as friends.  At times, communication was like pulling teeth without the happy gas.  It was frustrating.  But you know what?  It was still nice. 

Being around each other was a lot of fun.  We still made each other laugh.  She could be surprisingly thoughtful at times.  I wished we could be more, but I began to cherish the friendship.  I met and dated other women.  There was always a place in the back of my mind reserved for Ivy, but I assumed that my story with her had ended.  I thought I had moved on.

Ivy lived in the same building as one of my close buddies, so I would occasionally stop by to say hi.  She would invite me in with a smile.  I always intended a quick greeting.  But a five minute conversation would extend into twenty, forty, often over an hour.  These were some of my favorite times with Ivy.  Texting with her was inconsistent and frustrating.  But in person, the chemistry was palpable.

The emotional storm had calmed, but I couldn’t help but still feel affection for her.  And there were moments where she seemed more interested than she let on.  I still grasped to a faint thread of hope in the recesses of my mind.  It was probably more wishful than hopeful, but sometimes those two ideas have similar onset appearances. 

Eventually, perhaps out of self-preservation, I developed a theory: maybe, just maybe, she had a thing for me.  However, because she had built some massive emotional walls, I would never, ever hear about it.

Well, one day, four years into this thing… I heard about it!

I was closing in on completing echo school.  Ivy and I had been talking a lot more than usual.  Like, throughout the day, every single day.  We joked around more and more when we saw each other at work.

She told me, in person, that I should try to find an echo tech job at our mutual workplace.  She also assumed out loud that it wouldn’t be a goodbye for us if I found employment elsewhere.  But for once, I wasn’t getting my hopes up.  It turned out she did care, and that was enough for me to feel like our interactions had been a win.  I had successfully convinced myself to just appreciate the growth of the friendship.

She texted me one night.  She was having a rough evening at work and had a lot on her mind.  Then she told me what I never thought I’d hear.

“I like you, but I don’t know how you feel.”

I couldn’t believe it.  I truly never thought she would actually say it.  I still remember exactly where I was when I received that message.  My mind had built up a defense against any expectations, like little mental beavers continuously building a dam.  This message broke through the dam, flooding my chest with an excited, fuzzy feeling, this time without the nerves.  Finally, finally, I had a real reason to be hopeful about the way I felt for Ivy.  It was as if the universe had finally decided it was time for things to work out for Mike.

However, after a date to the county fair, things quickly dissipated.  My confidence was still thin, and on that night, I simply blew it.  But this was the one time where I handled it reasonably well.  The little voice that would whisper my inadequacies to me was faint.  Starting a new career in a new place certainly helped me focus elsewhere, and I was good enough at my job to feel good about myself.  I’d swung and missed.  That was okay.  I felt a sense of closure as the next chapter of my professional life began. 

But after a little bit of time, Ivy and I started talking again.

This was the first year of what became an annual cycle of emotional chaos.  It happened the same way at the same time every year.  I wished her a happy birthday in the spring, and we’d begin talking more often, eventually becoming nearly every day.  At first, I would resist whatever urge I had to ask her how she felt.  Just enjoy the fact that we’re talking, Mike, don’t push the issue.

We would spend more time together than previous years.  My feelings for her would boil up, to the point where I just had to know, so I would carefully approach the subject.  Even if she rejected me, at least I would know.  Then I could move on. 

But she wouldn’t reject me.  Her answers were non-committal, but they were positive.  They were encouraging.  They stopped just short of outright saying that she wanted to be with me. 

For a few weeks, those non-answers would have me on top of the world, hopeful and excited as ever.  Sure, years ago, she had been inconsistent and flaky, but this time would be better!  Truly the fool’s motto. 

Then by midsummer, she would start to fall off.  Responses were suddenly lacking, hit-or-miss, just like years ago.  I would recognize the shift in behavior and would try to address it, hoping to avoid holding onto false hope as I had so many times in the past.

But she would slowly, painfully drag it out, refusing to reject me outright and occasionally taking an action that would make me second guess myself.  Perhaps she would call me, the contrast of her soft voice and sharp humor freezing me in my tracks.  It would be enough to keep marching through each red flag, despite their familiarity.

Finally, by the end of the season, it would fall apart enough that I would just give up.  And at the end of each cycle, all I had left was that little voice, no longer whispering, telling me that I wasn’t good enough.

Then I’d wish her a happy birthday in the spring and open the door again.  Each time she gladly stepped through it.  We went in this circle for four more years.

Year Six was particularly rough.  We don’t have time for that one today.  I struggled to survive the emotional fallout.  I had cut all communication with Ivy.  Blocked all social media connections.  Took her number out of my phone, though I knew it by heart.  I did everything I could to convince myself that I was worth more than the way I had been treated.

But all I could hear was that little voice in the back of my head, shouting at me that I was not good enough.

“You’re a loser.  You’re not attractive.  You’re not interesting.  You’re not smart.  You’re not loveable.  Ivy didn’t see your value because you don’t have anything that matters, because you don’t have any strengths that anyone cares about.  Because you’re not good enough.”

This landed me back in therapy.  I won’t digress about this very much, because it’s obviously personal.  But my therapist was very helpful.  The tools and strategies he helped me develop to combat that little voice in the back of my head were very beneficial and helped me get back on my feet.

That was the short version of those first six years.  You can ask Larsen, it’s the short version.

Early in my recovery from the sixth year of Ivy, I had posted something on Facebook.  “Nobody gets to make me feel like garbage about myself ever again.  Ever.”

I received a lot of positive, uplifting comments and support.  But what I truly did not expect was one of those comments to be from my favorite teacher from high school, Tim Larsen.

“That’s because you are not garbage.  And this is obvious.”

It’s still the only comment I remember off the top of my head from that post.  I messaged him personally and thanked him for the support.

“Once a Larsen student, always a Larsen student,” he said.  It meant the world to me.  And that’s where 15 Years Later actually began.

But before our first session of wings and beer, my circular story with Ivy began to take one final lap…