I have thought of another analogy for my predicament with BlueEyes. I know it's lame to write about your love life (or, in my case, lack thereof), on your blog. But I will remind you that this is my blog, and I can use it to write about whatever strikes my fancy, so that new analogy is the main topic of today's post.
But before we get to that, let's take a trip down Memory Lane. We're going back to pre-school.
Pre-school! Remember those days? Pre-school was awesome, dude. Things were simpler back then. Pre-school was playtime, all day, every day! Boys were gross, and girls had cooties. Roger picked his nose, and Debbie sucked her thumb, and tag was the best game ever invented, unless you were playing hide-n-seek. You could make a friend by telling a kid you liked his hat. You could make an enemy by pulling a girl's hair. And your idea of a date was protecting the fortress on top of the monkey bars for the entirety of recess (that still sounds like a good date to me).
In pre-school, it was an earth-shattering disaster if you fell and scraped your knee, and if it started bleeding?! Oh, lawdy, the world was ending.
In pre-school, your coolness factor was directly proportional to how much mud was on your clothes. 'Shut up' and 'poop' were bad words. And the worst social disaster you could possibly endure was to refuse a dare. Such an infraction of pre-school social etiquette would earn you the shameful title of 'chicken' for a whole week.
In pre-school, we had no fear. Heights? The higher the better! Tight spaces? Perfect hide-outs. And let's not forget that nothing was inedible. Worms, dirt, grass, pebbles, and yesterday's Skittle that fell on the floor -- all fair game.
In pre-school, our plans for our lives were huge. The sky was the limit! We were going to be firemen by day, astronauts by night, and paleontologists in our spare time. Our parents were superheroes (they still are), our siblings were annoying (they still are), and nothing mattered more than what flavor of pudding was in your lunchbox.
Those were the days.
I don't know about you kids, but when I was in pre-school, my favorite indoor activity was Legos. I loved me some Legos. As an only child for the first four years of my life, I was really good at playing by myself. My parents couldn't even use the typical go-to-your-room punishment, because it wasn't a punishment for me at all. There were toys in my room. Why would that be a bad thing?
Every day when I went to pre-school, I would claim the entire bucket of Legos as soon as I was through the door, to make sure no other child could infringe on my playtime. If any of my classmates beat me to the Legos bucket, I could only find the energy to walk in endless circles around the room, my arms hanging listlessly at my sides, my eyes filled with lost, confused tears.
I created masterpieces with my Legos. I made towers as tall as I was. I made sprawling mansions, complete with perimeter walls and an entrance gate. I made castles, with turrets and battlements and tiny little paper flags. I could make a house with hardly any effort at all, complete with separate rooms, furniture, doors and windows, a garage, a car for the garage, stairs, gardens, a driveway, sidewalks, whatever I could think up!
I probably ought to mention that, since I was so self-sustaining, I did have "imaginary friends." Mine were not the typical imaginary friends of lonely little girls, however. I didn't play tea-party or dress-up with my imaginary friends. They didn't have stupid names like "Mrs. Pollocolips" or "Nanny Friarbutt." My imaginary friends were not just my friends. They were my children.
My Children were about two inches tall, and there were hundreds of them. Although I knew each child individually, they were usually referred to in the plural just for the sake of simplicity. They were a huge part of my life. After My Children were born, nothing was ever my fault anymore. If something was broken, it was My Children. If something was missing, it was My Children. If I told you I didn't have to go to the bathroom, but you made me go anyway, and you heard someone peeing, that was My Children, too.
Whenever Mom describes the importance of My Children in my life, she talks about that day in the car. Mom was driving me somewhere, and this somewhere involved getting on the Interstate. Not unusual. I was talking and singing to myself. Also not unusual. But, quite suddenly and without warning, I started screaming hysterically. That was very unusual, indeed.
My poor startled Mom tried to ask me what was wrong, and in my panicked state, I managed to yell at her to pull over, which she did. As soon as the car had stopped, I rolled down the window and leaned out, looking back several yards behind the car. I probably called out a few unintelligible things, but Mom doesn't remember. She does remember that just a few moments later, I rolled up the window, faced forward again, and told her it was okay to go.
When she asked what happened, I very calmly explained that My Children had fallen out of the car. But they were back inside now, and everything was fine.
Clearly, My Children were very important to me. And as you can imagine, My Children also accompanied me to school. And when I constructed those beautiful, wondrous castles and houses and buildings, who do you suppose peopled them? You guessed it: My Children.
Enter villain: Travis. *hiss* I don't remember Travis's last name. I don't think there were last names in pre-school. But I remember Travis. Travis was big, tall, and mean. He was a bully, with a copper-blonde mullet. Travis liked to pick on me, especially, which Mom always said was because he liked me. I could only respond to that with one word: Ew.
Travis was the destroyer of Lego masterpieces. I would spend so much time carefully building each little room and terrace of a cavernous villa, watching My Children move in, and before I knew what happened it would be smashed under Travis's big feet. So much work and time, now a fallen rainbow of despair! Thankfully, My Children were virtually indestructible, as most imaginary beings are.
But even when I was in pre-school, I had OCD tendencies. When something was destroyed, I would recreate it. I would build a mansion. CRASH! I would build a house. CRUSH! I would build a castle. BAM! I would build a tower. CRUNCH! You couldn't even give the guy points for creativity. He always just roared in for a few moments, mangled my carefully-constructed miniature buildings with kicking and stomping, and roared away again. It turns out, it didn't matter what kind of building you made, they were all just as easily destroyed.
My relationship with BlueEyes is like that.
For months now, I have been trying to simply forget that I have a crush on the boy. And when I'm away from him for extended periods of time, that approach works spectacularly well. I can build an I-don't-really-like-him-anymore house without breaking a sweat. But then, I'll go to a party, and he'll be there. BOOM! In an incredibly ironic move, he completely crushes that house I slaved over for weeks.
But I regroup. I build a no-seriously-I-don't-like-him-anymore mansion, and people it with good logic and hopelessness. Then I see him at church, and he actually talks to me, or waves at me, or acknowledges my existence in some tiny way. BANG! Mansion terminated. Just like this song I know, I built a castle made of paper decks that never stood a chance.
CrazyAunt has this quote she likes to throw at me sometimes. She says, "Do you know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result." But it's CrazyAunt. What does she know?
So I start over again. This time, I build an I-am-so-over-him-it-is-not-even-funny fortress, and fortify it with cannons of derision, troops of distractions, and walls of I'm-ignoring-you. Then I go to Brother's basketball game, and we joke with each other by way of an intermediary, and I hear it, that distant SPLOOPH of my fortress imploding.
And I remember that quote CrazyAunt slung at me. And I think, "I must be insane."
It turns out, it doesn't matter what kind of building you make, they are all just as easily destroyed.
But before we get to that, let's take a trip down Memory Lane. We're going back to pre-school.
Pre-school! Remember those days? Pre-school was awesome, dude. Things were simpler back then. Pre-school was playtime, all day, every day! Boys were gross, and girls had cooties. Roger picked his nose, and Debbie sucked her thumb, and tag was the best game ever invented, unless you were playing hide-n-seek. You could make a friend by telling a kid you liked his hat. You could make an enemy by pulling a girl's hair. And your idea of a date was protecting the fortress on top of the monkey bars for the entirety of recess (that still sounds like a good date to me).
In pre-school, it was an earth-shattering disaster if you fell and scraped your knee, and if it started bleeding?! Oh, lawdy, the world was ending.
In pre-school, your coolness factor was directly proportional to how much mud was on your clothes. 'Shut up' and 'poop' were bad words. And the worst social disaster you could possibly endure was to refuse a dare. Such an infraction of pre-school social etiquette would earn you the shameful title of 'chicken' for a whole week.
In pre-school, we had no fear. Heights? The higher the better! Tight spaces? Perfect hide-outs. And let's not forget that nothing was inedible. Worms, dirt, grass, pebbles, and yesterday's Skittle that fell on the floor -- all fair game.
In pre-school, our plans for our lives were huge. The sky was the limit! We were going to be firemen by day, astronauts by night, and paleontologists in our spare time. Our parents were superheroes (they still are), our siblings were annoying (they still are), and nothing mattered more than what flavor of pudding was in your lunchbox.
Those were the days.
I don't know about you kids, but when I was in pre-school, my favorite indoor activity was Legos. I loved me some Legos. As an only child for the first four years of my life, I was really good at playing by myself. My parents couldn't even use the typical go-to-your-room punishment, because it wasn't a punishment for me at all. There were toys in my room. Why would that be a bad thing?
Every day when I went to pre-school, I would claim the entire bucket of Legos as soon as I was through the door, to make sure no other child could infringe on my playtime. If any of my classmates beat me to the Legos bucket, I could only find the energy to walk in endless circles around the room, my arms hanging listlessly at my sides, my eyes filled with lost, confused tears.
I created masterpieces with my Legos. I made towers as tall as I was. I made sprawling mansions, complete with perimeter walls and an entrance gate. I made castles, with turrets and battlements and tiny little paper flags. I could make a house with hardly any effort at all, complete with separate rooms, furniture, doors and windows, a garage, a car for the garage, stairs, gardens, a driveway, sidewalks, whatever I could think up!
I probably ought to mention that, since I was so self-sustaining, I did have "imaginary friends." Mine were not the typical imaginary friends of lonely little girls, however. I didn't play tea-party or dress-up with my imaginary friends. They didn't have stupid names like "Mrs. Pollocolips" or "Nanny Friarbutt." My imaginary friends were not just my friends. They were my children.
My Children were about two inches tall, and there were hundreds of them. Although I knew each child individually, they were usually referred to in the plural just for the sake of simplicity. They were a huge part of my life. After My Children were born, nothing was ever my fault anymore. If something was broken, it was My Children. If something was missing, it was My Children. If I told you I didn't have to go to the bathroom, but you made me go anyway, and you heard someone peeing, that was My Children, too.
Whenever Mom describes the importance of My Children in my life, she talks about that day in the car. Mom was driving me somewhere, and this somewhere involved getting on the Interstate. Not unusual. I was talking and singing to myself. Also not unusual. But, quite suddenly and without warning, I started screaming hysterically. That was very unusual, indeed.
My poor startled Mom tried to ask me what was wrong, and in my panicked state, I managed to yell at her to pull over, which she did. As soon as the car had stopped, I rolled down the window and leaned out, looking back several yards behind the car. I probably called out a few unintelligible things, but Mom doesn't remember. She does remember that just a few moments later, I rolled up the window, faced forward again, and told her it was okay to go.
When she asked what happened, I very calmly explained that My Children had fallen out of the car. But they were back inside now, and everything was fine.
Clearly, My Children were very important to me. And as you can imagine, My Children also accompanied me to school. And when I constructed those beautiful, wondrous castles and houses and buildings, who do you suppose peopled them? You guessed it: My Children.
Enter villain: Travis. *hiss* I don't remember Travis's last name. I don't think there were last names in pre-school. But I remember Travis. Travis was big, tall, and mean. He was a bully, with a copper-blonde mullet. Travis liked to pick on me, especially, which Mom always said was because he liked me. I could only respond to that with one word: Ew.
Travis was the destroyer of Lego masterpieces. I would spend so much time carefully building each little room and terrace of a cavernous villa, watching My Children move in, and before I knew what happened it would be smashed under Travis's big feet. So much work and time, now a fallen rainbow of despair! Thankfully, My Children were virtually indestructible, as most imaginary beings are.
But even when I was in pre-school, I had OCD tendencies. When something was destroyed, I would recreate it. I would build a mansion. CRASH! I would build a house. CRUSH! I would build a castle. BAM! I would build a tower. CRUNCH! You couldn't even give the guy points for creativity. He always just roared in for a few moments, mangled my carefully-constructed miniature buildings with kicking and stomping, and roared away again. It turns out, it didn't matter what kind of building you made, they were all just as easily destroyed.
My relationship with BlueEyes is like that.
For months now, I have been trying to simply forget that I have a crush on the boy. And when I'm away from him for extended periods of time, that approach works spectacularly well. I can build an I-don't-really-like-him-anymore house without breaking a sweat. But then, I'll go to a party, and he'll be there. BOOM! In an incredibly ironic move, he completely crushes that house I slaved over for weeks.
But I regroup. I build a no-seriously-I-don't-like-him-anymore mansion, and people it with good logic and hopelessness. Then I see him at church, and he actually talks to me, or waves at me, or acknowledges my existence in some tiny way. BANG! Mansion terminated. Just like this song I know, I built a castle made of paper decks that never stood a chance.
CrazyAunt has this quote she likes to throw at me sometimes. She says, "Do you know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result." But it's CrazyAunt. What does she know?
So I start over again. This time, I build an I-am-so-over-him-it-is-not-even-funny fortress, and fortify it with cannons of derision, troops of distractions, and walls of I'm-ignoring-you. Then I go to Brother's basketball game, and we joke with each other by way of an intermediary, and I hear it, that distant SPLOOPH of my fortress imploding.
And I remember that quote CrazyAunt slung at me. And I think, "I must be insane."
It turns out, it doesn't matter what kind of building you make, they are all just as easily destroyed.
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