Impetuous Youth

I've been feeling really sappy this week so that means some Valentine's related posts are coming your way.

What is it about impulsiveness that seems to scream romance? It really is a splendid thing to be so caught up in the thought of another person that nothing else can invade your mind, almost like that boy or girl has made a permanent residency inside the walls of your head and he/she refuses to accept any visitors.

The most impulsive thing I've done for a girl was in April 2002. I had been dating her for the whole school year and the second semester she was back at home in Northern California. She had visited just after my birthday and right before finals, and was going to be spending the spring term in Italy on a study abroad. Once finals were over I went home for the summer. Having just seen her recently, I had kind of figured that would be it until after she got back, but I had some weird attachment/dependency issues with her and so I desperately wanted to see her again. So from one day to the next I drove up and met her near PacBell Park, which might be called AT&T or SBC Park now. We met up on a crowded street, stayed the weekend at her sister's place, and spent the whole time cruising around the bay area. I didn't tell anyone that I was leaving.

My favorite Valentine's day and impulsive related memory was on February 14th, 1994. We just had our Valentine's dance at Sierra Vista Middle School and I had managed to work up enough courage to ask the love of my life, Jennifer Meyerson, to dance with me. Back then I honestly thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes upon, but I was painfully shy. A few days later, it might have even been the Monday after the dance, was Valentine's Day. My friend Chris and I both liked these girls and decided that one way or another we were going to confess our undying affection for them. I can't remember if Chris did it the day of, or the day after, but she ended up crushing his dreams. That turned out to be the first of many such instances for him. That guy has really taken a beating over the years. At least he never gave up and found the one for him. I wanted to see Jennifer, but had no idea how to go about doing it, and of course was deathly afraid of putting myself out there like that.

After what may have been an hour or two of coaxing and confidence building from my friends, I finally decided to go to Von's, pick out the most romantic card of what's left on the night of Valentine's day, rollerblade over to her house and tell her how I felt.

So with Dave in tow with me for moral support, I found my way over to her front door. I'm not sure what I was wearing, probably jean shorts at the time because I was really into that then, but I remember she came to the door wearing a red sweatshirt, black jeans, and had black socks with some kind of white pattern on them. With trembling hands, a faint heart, and a mouth exceeded in dryness only by the Atacama desert in Chile, I handed her the card. I think I said maybe about a dozen words the entire time, and repeated those probably about a hundred times during the course of the evening. I think I mentioned something about how great she looked at the dance, and how I just really wanted to let her know how I felt.

I was luckier than my friend because Jen was a really nice girl and really appreciated the gesture. She said something about how brave it was for me to actually face her and give her the card. I think I spent an hour at her doorstep, but I'm pretty sure we didn't talk about anything. Dave was rollerblading around in the cul-de-sac the whole time. Nothing ever resulted from that big step forward because I couldn't suppress my nervousness around her enough to ever talk to her after that point. At least not until my senior year in high school when we were finally a little more friendly, and I asked her to prom, but she already had a date.

I just love that memory. I love that I gave her that card. I love that I never took off my rollerblades the entire time. I love that Dave was just blading around in the background the whole time.