I've wanted to blog about my life for the past few years, but haven't had time to. I went on a writing spree in my last post, and wrote for like 4 hours, so I guess I'll continue it. It's a continuation of the last blog, so that needs to be read first.

Same disclaimer as before: I'm only writing this so I can look back at my life later. There's no important details, no fun facts, and no entertainment value. Just a narrative to remind myself of being a teenager, written with my awful writing style. It's written solely for me, in the same way that girls get dressed up solely for themselves. So here we go again.

Continued disclaimer: Some people read and liked the last post, but I'm pretty sure that's a fluke. I thought this through a little bit (for about 30 seconds), and I know with my write-what-comes-to-mind style, this definitely won't flow as well as the last one. To try help, I'm going to try remember to split it into tighter sections.

In August of 2007, the girl's father had moved down to my city to go to school, and she had moved the 5 hours from Sudbury to live down here, for seemingly no reason other than to be around me. Looking back, we were practically a couple for the whole summer before that, except that I refused to ask her out because she was living so far away. Whenever she would come down to visit from Sudbury, it was always tons of fun, and it was a constant and surreal high. It seemed like she was throwing herself into me.

Throughout the summer, when she would visit, we were inseparable, and would spend most of the time either lying in bed, or going exploring. When I would go to work, she would normally be sleeping. Sometimes she would draw me pictures or leave me notes. It was cute. In fact, she was really cute, almost all the time. She spent so much time being docile in my arms, and I began to understand her a lot more, and my lack of attraction to her hyperness (and the general annoyance I felt) slowly dissipated. When she would wear my clothes, or tuck herself under my covers, I was finding her a lot more attractive. Her hair was still growing back from the bi-hawk she had before I met her, and I wasn't a fan of such short hair, but I began to stop caring. It didn't help that we were engaging in…"intensely stimulating activities"…that really connected us.

In fact, I began to look forward to her hyperness. See, back when I was like 13 or something, I "dated" someone for 2-years-'n'-a-bit, and I felt useless around her. I say dating with quotations, because we barely did anything that a couple does - I don't think I ever even took her on a date. But that's fine, I was fucking 13. Anyway, back to the hyperness: because of the girl's ADHD, she was very impulsive, and it was very fulfilling to be able to stay back as she ran on ahead, and then follow behind cleaning up the mess. Usually metaphorically, of course, but there was a little bit of that in the literal sense, haha. Actually, the best part was probably not so much cleaning up after her, but thinking ahead. If she wanted to go out somewhere (most of our transportation was public transit and walking), and it was warm out now, I would know to bring two sweaters, instead of just one for when we came back in the chilly evening, or I'd pack an extra water bottle because I know she'll get thirsty, etc. Few things beat the look of happiness on her face when she would declare she wants to go do such-and-such, and the look of joy on her face afterwards, when she says "I wish I had, or had done, such-and such" and I give "it" to her, or tell her I had done "it".

I'm a very codependant person whose very happiness and self-worth relies on what I can do for someone else. Fuck my achievements, if they're not being achieved for someone else. =/

But yes, I liked her very much, and shortly after she moved down here, I kissed her and asked her out. I should also point out that it was practically my first real kiss (I'd kissed that other girl a time or two, but I was incredibly anxious, and it was only because her friends were pushing us on. I remember the very first time, I was going to hang out with a bunch of people, and she would be there, and the day before her friend said that we had to kiss, and I fell asleep that night terrified, and listening to Sic Transit Gloria by Brand New on repeat). t'was nice. Felt very normal, and I loved it. From that point on…nothing changed, really.

I was still in bliss. I still wanted to show her everyting, give her everything, protect her, and make her happy.

She still had her world revolving around me. She was still changing my life significantly. She was still trying to say something that I was worried about saying.

For quite a while - I don't know how long, but many months at least - she would continue to try to get me to say "I love you". It didn't take long before, in her cute way, she came up with "I glove poo", which is what we used instead. She would only say it because even though she was clear that she wanted to say "I love you", she was playing along.

I don't remember how I said "I love you" to her, but it was similar to how I asked her out. By surprise, at what seemed like a good moment. But I'm getting ahead of myself here, and I should really get on with the story.

So I've established, for the fourth time in the story now, that I asked her now that she was living in Toronto, and we continued on in our relationship. She and her dad had moved in with her dad's cousin. We were quite inseparable, and she would always sneak over on most nights, and I'd sneak her into the basement (where my bedroom was). In the morning, I'd sneak her out, so that she could "come over" and spend the day with me. I should note that I've been homeschooled my whole life, and she was a high school dropout, so we really could spend all day together.

Sometime before Christmas (a few months after moving down here), her and her dad moved to a basement apartment and started paying rent. I would go over whenever I could, and when she wasn't at my house, and basically lay in her bed, and either cuddle, listen to her music, or watch her play Zelda on her SNES.

While she was in the basement apartment, I spent more time there, and she would always be fighting with her dad, and I'd be getting mad at her for getting mad at him. I won't go into all that, but it's something I want to remember. There were little revelations about her life now and then.

While she was there, I also bought her a chinchilla, and she named it Pikachu. By that night, it was called "pikapoop", and even "you little bastard'. He was adorable, but he would leave little poop everywhere, and nipple all the wires, and wouldn't sit still.

At Christmas she went back to visit her family in Sudbury, and her mom's friend gave her another chinchilla, because that friend didn't want to take care of it anymore. This became Raichu, and these were the start of her little collection of pets.

In addition to bringing back Raichu, she also brought down one of her best friends, Kandyce. This was the first time, of several, where friends would stay with her, and I would retreat into my usual self. I would stay quiet, and just do as much work in the background as I could. Whenever her friends would visit, I'd drive them around, bring them food, set things up for them, and do a whole lot of paying-for-things. And it made me happy. So very happy. I got to sit and watch her have a blast with her friends, knowing that I had helped contribute to it, without having to go through that awful experience of actually being social.

Kandyce stayed until new years, so that they could go to a rave, and then she went back up to Sudbury a day or two later. They dragged me along too (as you may recall, I hate raves if I'm not on ecstasy or amphetamines, and I kind of dislike the idea of neurotoxicity). Oh yeah, at this point, the girl was really budding into her raver stage. Let me explain:

In the months leading up to, and including her moving down to Toronto, she had changed quite a bit. When I met her, she was into punk music, and a little bit of metal. She'd gone to a rave or two, and really enjoyed dancing, but for the time being, she definitely embraced the punk lifestyle.

She had both sides of her nose pierced, and a septum piercing, that she loved, and swore she would never remove - when she died, she told me to make sure no one ever removed it. She had recently removed piercings in her lip, eyebrow, and lost a few in her ear, and has growing her hair back from a bihawk. She wore tights, and patches, and had a syd vicious snarl when she took pictures.

She was pro anarchy, had spent a few weeks living on the streets, and did minor vandalism and trespassing for fun. She'd been in fights, dropped out of school, and hated authority. She had her favourite boots, and had been to plenty of punk, rock, and metal shows.

I, on the other hand, was pretty conservative, and timid. The idea of anarchy, and even socialism, is flawed in my book, due to the human factor. I was not compulsive at all, and I was very respectful of peoples' property.

I was too afraid to look like any style at all, because I was afraid people might think that I WANTED to look that way, and no matter what, I usually look stupid in any style. I was too scared to go to concerts, because, well, what would I do, just stand there? I didn't want to look like a fool and joining in with anything, from mosh pits to head banging.

Throughout the summer, and into the winter, she opened me up a lot to punk music (I was much more into metal and both the heavier and softer side of punk-influenced stuff, but not punk itself). Years later, I was listening to a radio show that had someone from a punk band on it (I don't remember which band, now), and a kid called in and asked how to get other people interested in punk music, and the band suggested that he take his friends to a punk show. And years before I ever heard that, that's what the girl did.

She took me to my first concert (at the same place I saw Chris Liberator, actually): a UK Subs concert. One of the supporting bands had this little girl as a bassist, and I remember seeing her in the crowd a lot (the place was tiny - couldn't have held more than 200 people if it was packed) and thinking she looked so scared and out of place, and I just had this urge to protect her. She was all punked up, of course, but she still looked out of place. But then later that night, she got up on stage, and ripped away on the bass, and I was really surprised. Her body language and playing had the confidence of a carefree bass player in a punk band, but her face still held that scared little girl look.

The bassist really adds no point to the story, so I apologize for bringing that up.

So the concert was actually pretty good, as far as the energeticness went. At one point the mosh pit started moving my way, and I kind of got really anxious. See, I'd wanted to try moshing, but as mentioned before, I was terrified of even trying. So as it got close, I forced my mind to go blank, and I took a step in, got shoved face first towards a pole, and then I was yanked back out.

The girl let go of my shirt, and got up on her toes and yelled over the music into my ear "THAT WAS A MOSH PIT. YOU ALMOST GOT PULLED INTO IT. YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL". I just nodded my head and said "thanks". I didn't want to tell her that I had wanted to go into it. This whole night…The whole experience…Was her world. Not just the music, but everything. She was excited to show it to me, and it made my heart melt to have her excitedly pointing at someone's patch and saying "that's a Crass patch, that's my favourite band", or the beaming pride as someone pointed out "yo, fleas and lice!", which she had written on the back of her shirt, or her need to explain things to me, like when one of the bands started their song, screwed up after a few seconds, and restarted. "that happens a lot", she told me.

We didn't really end up going to many concerts, mostly because we were lazy. We did go to a Misfits concert in October (either halloween, or the day before, or something). I actually invited ludamad to come (he liked punk music), and that was the first and only time I ever met him.

I'll diverge one step further from the main storyline, and mention that Halloween was her favourite day. She loved dressing up, and all that was involved in it. She wanted to put so much work into her costume.

I had never gone trick or treating, or dressed up, or anything, so at the age of 17, I went trick or treating for the first time (for some reason, no one ever asked how old we were. I can't understand why no one thought we looked too old to be trick or treating. [/sarcasm]). At 20, I decided I was too old.

The first year I think I went as an angel, the second I went as Raichu (and she went as Pikachu), and I don't' really remember what I did for the last year. I always hated it SO MUCH, but it made her so very happy, and the candy pay off was HUGE.

But back to the original divergence, about her changing style: by the end of 2007, she had gone full on raver. She had also taken out two of her nose piercings, and kept her prized septum piercing. She was into bright colours, bright hair, and hair extensions. She made almost all of her own stuff, including her hair. She was incredibly good at finding information, and learning DIY stuff when she wanted to. She has ADHD, so it was incredible that she could actually be sucked into learning for hours and hours on end, and then ACTUALLY GO BACK AND DO IT AGAIN the next day. But it wasn't just her ADHD that made it impressive - it would be impressive even for a normal person.

I'm going to take a step away from the story again for a second (after just one paragraph), and just say that ADHD isn't some made up disease to try explain away a lazy child (which a concept that also angers me deeply, because it is often spewing from someone with no knowledge about the brain at all, and has no empathy of understanding that the most complex system known to man could have possibly developed in any way other than the exact same way theirs did). Sure, AD(H)D is a blanket term used by many school counselors to try and explain a child's problems in most cases, but it is legit. The basic concept is that the the brain's pleasure centres are often under stimulated by most things, and the requirement for stimulation and novelty overrides the brain's attention centre. Most people's attention centres can be controlled via conscious thought - eg "this is boring as hell, but I might need to know this later", but that's not the case here. Now, back to the story:

She began to abandon most punk stuff, in favour of the raver style. She eventually realized how anarchy won't work, and became a bit more conservative (in the sense that conservative = common sense, as opposed to liberally retarded). I always hated her hair extensions though. At first she made them out of wool, and whenever I would fall asleep holding her (both of our beds were singles, which made it very lovely for cuddling), I'd always ask her to pull her hair to the other side, away from me, so it wouldn't touch me.

At one point, I even made her a website to sell all the raver stuff she made (she only sold a little bit of stuff, though). She had impressed me with her incredible ability to draw and paint, her ability to make videos, her ability to make clothes and stuff (and envision a style in general), and now her ability to learn and use photoshop (I didn't teach her anything) and pick up on HTML.

She stopped listening to punk music, in favour of happy hardcore. Whenever I would be driving, she always hated my music, and I wasn't allowed to listen to it. Instead, I got to listen to her talk - which I loved, by the way - or listen to happy hardcore - which I didn't like nearly as much.

So that's how the girl, who was so excited about the Ramones and Sid Vicious solo CD that I bought her on her first week here after WEMF, transitioned to a raver. A raver who didn't do drugs, I should mentioned. Girls seem to be the only ones who can love dancing if they're not high.

And so life continued as what-had-become common. In early spring 2008 her dad went up to Sault Ste Marie (SSM) to pack his stuff to move down here fully, and the girl and I bussed up separately a little later in order to help with the move. The bus is usually pretty packed, but we got a seat beside each other. She would write things on my phone or little notes back and forth so that other people on the bus couldn't hear us. She was being her cute little self.

We stayed at her grandma's house (her dad's mother's house), and I honestly don't remember a whole lot about it, such as how long we were there exactly (only a few days), or where I slept. The girl was originally from SSM herself, and moved to Sudbury when she was like 12 or something, so most of her family and old friends were there. I met her grandma on her mom's side and her old best friend. We couldn't have sex in her grandma's house, because it was small, and open, so that trip was the first time and only time I'd had sex on a football field. I only mention this because that part of the trip sticks out in my mind a lot as something very…I don't know how to explain it. It doesn't matter, anyway.

It was in SSM that I learned about her love of Yop (and actually had it for the first time), and I got to see her 5th grade photo that she was so embarrassed of. She showed me her posters and stuff for the band she was in when she was 12, called "the backdoor trumpets" (a fart reference, if you're wondering).

On the night before we were supposed to leave, her dad went out, and we went to bed. We woke up early the next morning for the long drive in the moving van that he had rented, but he was nowhere to be found. After a couple hours, her Grandma drove us to the bus station, and paid for our bus ticket home (despite my protests that I would pay for my own, of course). I never did find out what happened to him to that night. But regardless, he did end up driving back down with all the stuff, and we unloaded it into the basement apartment.

At the end of the school's semester, in late spring/early summer, her and her dad moved again to an apartment building. I helped them move, and everything was kind of nice. She got a job, so she was making money. Her dad had decided that he couldn't afford school, and was going to go back to Sault Ste Marie (his home town, about twice as far as Sudbury). Her and I were both looking forward to this. A lot. Since she had a job, she could pay rent, and since I was working and also had $10k saved up, I could help her stay in that apartment. He packed up and moved back within a few weeks, leaving her with the apartment.

She made the apartment into a home, and I was so very proud of her.

I was over there a lot, now. It was really nice. It almost had that feeling of when you-and-the-girl-you're-madly-in-love-with move in together. I gave her my gaming computer, because I wanted her to be able to do anything she wanted, from having a faster photoshop experience, to being able to play any game she wanted, like spore. On teamspeak LAR Games mentioned that Empire Earth II was his favorite RTS, and it was the girl's as well. We sat and played together for hours and hours, side by side. I was sure to turn my monitor so that I couldn't see hers, but she could see mine if she peaked. She was a girl, so of course I could beat her, but I usually "let" her win (‘cause she totally didn't kick my ass ever *shifty eyes*).

Actually, before she moved down, she was selling a bunch of her stuff on ebay (she did a lot of ebay selling in her life), and she showed me "her favourite game" that she was selling on ebay so that she could have money to help her and her dad move down here. I went and bought the game, and she was excited that someone had paid so much for the game, and even more excited when she realized it was me who had bought it, and that she'd get it back. Well, not so much excited, as "you idiot, now I have to put it up for sale again for real", but she didn't end up putting it back up. I'd hoped it would drive home the point that I didn't want her to have to give up anything, and that I wanted to take care of everything for her.

Once summer started, my part time job offered to hire me full time, to answer calls for their tech support. I hate talking, but I took the job, ‘cause hey, aside from dealing with idiots where everything is clearly user error, I would get to do some work in databases and make some easy money.

At that point, I'd worked there for 2 years, and I had done a lot of temp work that involved most of the departments, so almost everyone at head office knew me. So it was a good advantage when I had to start supporting people in the office (at that point, internal and external support was not split up. If you got a call, it could be because Excel didn't open on an employee's computer, or a customer was having problems with one of our programs).

He also hired a girl, named Angela, who started the same day I did. She wasn't all that technically inclined, but she was nice, and was a really good worker. Best of all, she brought us cupcakes from time to time. It was cool, because she had a good work ethic (and my work ethic was just driven by the fact that I liked it, kind of), so we grew at about the same time. I was my awkward self and didn't talk to her much (and when I did, I stumbled over my words) over the years, but we helped each other out a lot, and it seemed like we were a specific generation. We started at the same time, we grew together, and we had roughly the same interest in how much work we did.

On our first day, we were called into a private meeting by the director of IT. He informed us that the previous manager had been let go. So that started a running joke that they had fired him for hiring us.

I know it sounds like that was going somewhere, but it wasn't. So let's move on to some drama.

So the girl and I were both working full time now, and on top of that, she worked evenings (until 21:00), and I worked, ugh, "normal" hours of 8:00-16:00 (thankfully I don't have to be in to work until 11 now). This meant I couldn't spend much time with her during the day outside of the weekends - though she would still frequently sneak over after her work for the night. <3

When she did go home, though, she would sometimes call me to talk on her way from the bus to her apartment, because her area wasn't really the safest. Or, once she got home, she'd call me, or try talk to me on MSN. But for some reason, I would usually get annoyed. I didn't really want to talk. Looking back now, I wish someone would have shoved me down and stomped on my face several times. I can only imagine how lonely I would feel if I was her, going home to an empty apartment, and trying to talk to your boyfriend who is being very passive and almost ignoring you, with a subtle tinge of annoyance in his voice.

I was also very much against going out to events at night, especially raves, which she loved so much. Within a year of meeting her, I had worn her down so much with my complaining every time she wanted to go to a rave, that she rarely asked anymore. Whenever she would ask, I would complain and complain, and sometimes even get to the point of us nearly going, but my constant complaining would just end in a fight, and she'd be really upset, and we would end up not going that night. I'd feel relief immediately that we didn't have to go, but I would feel like I deserved to have my lungs removed with a shotgun for being the cause of her distress.

But, I suppose you're wondering what "some creepy old dude" is referring to. That is a reference to her job. See, she really liked her job. But there was this old guy (by "old", I assume he couldn't have been more than 50, ‘cause she talked like everyone over 40 was old) who would hit on her and her friend at work, and would offer to drive them home and stuff. The way she would describe him was pretty creepy.

Fortunately, she had made some other work friends, and seemed to really like them. Most of them were girls, with a few guys sprinkled in there. She would tell me stories about her friends. Like how one of the girls would always bitch someone out without care (I hate that attitude, ugh), or how one of the guys would playfully flirt with her, or how a few other guys brought a gun to work, and bragged about how they had robbed some stores in the past, and how they were going to do it again that weekend.

That weekend they apparently went through with the robbery, and then didn't show up for work that Monday. In case anyone's curious, it's because they were arrested.

Life continued on as usual for several months. The girl continued to sneak into my basement on a frequent basis (or I to her house, and then back home early in the morning so I would be in bed when my mom would wake me up to take me to work). She got some more pets: some frogs, toads, and geckos.

I continued to love her, and revel in the feeling of taking care of her. There was a subway sandwhich shop by her house, and on the way there one day, I stopped and got the sub that she liked, and put it in my backpack, and then forgot about it. After a few hours, she said she was really hungry, and remembered the sub, and I pulled it out, and I still remember that look on her face. I loved that reaction. That sensation that I was able to give her exactly what she wanted, when it was least expected. That feeling of happiness, knowing that I had thought ahead, and that little bit of effort had paid off.

After a few months at her job, she went out drinking with her friends, and Mr McFlirty brought her home. She told me about it, and said it was a lot of fun.

When I went over that weekend and we lay in bed (I slept over there every weekend), she got quiet, and kind of moved away from me, and said she was sorry, and had something to tell me. I tried to hold her again, and asked what, and she looked down sadly, and said she had kissed that guy, and she was sorry, and she wished she could take it back. I kind of went numb for a second, but I could tell she felt really bad about it. I snapped out of that numbness out as fast as I could, and wrapped my arms around her, kissed her on the top of the head, and told her I didn't care, and that I forgave her. Just like all her other negative feelings, I wished I could take that feeling of guilt and what-seemed-like-terror of losing me, away.

A few nights later, she was in my basement, in my bed, and something similar happened. But she was crying a bit.

Now, I want to explain, that I'm afraid of the dark. I'm afraid of being alone in an open space, especially at night. I'm afraid of a lot of things. And I shut down or dissociate a lot when that happens. But when I was with her (or anyone who was also afraid), I'd try to fight the urge to freeze up or check out, and instead be reassuring and present. Leading the way, or walking on the side of the road closest to the dark scary forest. Explaining the rustling in the bushes as the result of "that squirrel that I ‘just saw' run into them". Holding her close, and gliding my fingers across her skin soothingly to try keep her calm. She loved this, and it was called "touching", and every time we were laying or sitting anywhere, she would either plop a limb across me (or even her whole body) and lazily mumble "touch", or I would try and "touch" her. It was a huge thing in our relationship, and probably worth more than just a side-note. But that's beside the point.

So anyway, she had curled herself up beside me, but not in my arms, faced the other way, and was crying. I put my arm over her, and asked what was wrong. After some coaxing, she admitted that there was more than a kiss. The guy had spent the night, and they'd had drunken sex. I was expecting something bad, but that hit me bluntly enough to knock me out into a state of numbness.

But, just like before, she was in an even worse state, and fuck did I ever want to take that feeling away from her. And just like the urge to freeze up and mentally fuck off when the wind would blow on a dark and scary night, I pushed through it to try and make sure the girl wouldn't experience that feeling.

I got to spend the night lying in bed, holding a sad little girl curled up in my arms. All I had to do to make her feel better was to be there with her. It worked out for us both, because as usual, there was no place I would rather have been.

I made sure to not let it bother with me. She'd had boyfriends before me, and I ignored it as though it was a previous boyfriend. I didn't ask about it again, I didn't think about it, and I don't know if I ever brought it up again. "Less history, more mystery". *shrugs*

At the time, I had hoped that would be the worst thing she could do to me. And really, I had handled it well. It really didn't bother me. She was erratic, and spontaneous, and I loved that she was like that. I kind of felt like her "base" to come back to, no matter what she did, or how I felt. I'd forgive her, and pour myself into making her happy again, and it would make me fill fulfilled, and gave me a purpose in life.

Fortunately for my life, I would continue to have such a purpose, and get that fulfillment.