Split Sides

To Erika (Interest #2)

Erika, you came to my life at the second juncture of my path to maturity. I was studying Marketing in college, a course I now regret, and I was deep in the throes of what would turn out to be depression linked to my mental condition. You were studying Accounting and I was impressed with your ability to make sense of numbers and complex mathematical equations. Honestly, I hate Math and I still do to this day, and I appreciated your ability to explain these things to me in a way I can seldom grasp.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can say I went through college after being cocooned with a small group of classmates from grade school to high school, and my eagerness to expand my awareness and grow my social circle has been a gross overreach. I was not prepared for the massive shift of environment and mentality and pressure that marked my college days, and I lacked the social bonds and shared backgrounds that could've absorbed them, and in the end it became too much for me. I can say now my self-esteem started decaying by the second half of my first year in college. I found myself losing my enthusiasm to live and enjoy life, with classmates and other students who had nothing in common with me, and coupled with my depression I started feeling lonely and, dare I say it, suicidal. I failed subject after subject, I cut classes because I lost the spirit to succeed, I hid in empty and frigid classrooms and walked through deserted corridors by night to calm myself down, I sat on benches and spent hours watching the world pass by me, and when it became too much, I retreated to the library and buried my head between pages of novels and books I could hide behind. It wasn't a happy time, it was devastating and mentally and emotionally searing, I became a shadow of my former self, but now I can see it was a necessary and vital phase I had to go through. I had to fall into the yawning gap of desolation to find myself. It was good for me. It's like that Chinese proverb, "Only after the iron has been put through the fire a hundred times does it become steel." Those were the circumstances I was undergoing when I met you.

I admit now I wasn't ready for you, but back then I had a strange belief that if I can get someone like you to be in love with me, I can begin to sort out my life. I had no support, none of my peers understood me or shared my interests, and the only people I befriended in those four gruelling years were the guidance counselor and the accountant in the admissions office, because we both liked motorsports. I thought you would be able to fill that void with me, I genuinely believed it.

I still remember that night. My college had won a basketball championship, it was a massive party that spilled into the streets, it was the first (and last) time I got drunk, and when I saw you I decided to take my chances and ask you out. I only had a small glass of rum and beer back then, but my mind and heart were clear as day, so I got the courage to ask you if you'd like to go out with me. You looked at me with eyes of pity for me, and you coldly told me, "I have a boyfriend." Then you walked away without another word.

I don't know why it hit me harder than it should have, but it did, and it wrecked me. Before I knew it I hid in a stranger's car and cried my heart out on the passenger seat. I guess it was the culmination of all my stresses and issues and it all boiled over and poured out of me that night. I didn't know it but I was never the same afterwards. I lost what little optimism had remained in me. Since then I've always expected something in my life to go bad, and you helped bring that about, Erika. As sudden as you came into my life you left my life just as suddenly. I don't know what happened to you and your boyfriend and I don't care. It's all in the past now. It's over now.