The Start of Something New

She sits down at her desk on a cool November morning and opens up her journal. Keeping a journal may sound silly to some people, however, to her it is a way to express her feelings. When she opens her journal, she lands on a page she most desperately didn’t want to read. She can’t read it, as a matter of fact. For the last five months she has been trying to erase all of the memories she had during those wonderful fourteen months she spent with him. She wanted a love like Hazel and Augustus’ from “The Fault in our Stars”, and as a matter of fact, she had one similar to it. Her journal knew this better than anyone because it didn’t care how much she talked about this handsome boy. Looking at this journal entry, she automatically flashes back to the very beginning. She was sixteen and he was seventeen and they were both seniors at Benton High School. I guess you could call them high school sweethearts, even though they had only been together for a small part of their senior year. After they met, they became a couple on April 23, 2013. Graduation quickly approached on May 23, 2013. He decided that he was going to join the army after graduation, therefore, he left on September 3, 2013. She had never experienced so much pain as she did on the day he left, or so she thought. The Struggle 1/1/14 No words will ever be able to describe the feelings you get when you have to walk away from your loved one. It’s the not knowing that really hurts though: not knowing when you will see him again. This was the third time we’ve had to say goodbye. We may only be teenagers, but we know what love is. It’s when he looks at you with sorrow because he can see the tears welling up in your eyes. The goodbyes never get easier. The pain never lessens. The way your heart feels is unbearable. Your chest becomes heavy. Your heart literally hurts. It really feels like it’s in a million pieces. You get that lump in your throat and you hold back the tears. This is a kind of pain that no amount of retail therapy can fix. But that is the army life. Yes, I am an army girlfriend. Something I swore I would never be. Not because of the military itself, but because of the leaving. Walt Disney once said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” If I can dream of a happy life with my army boy, then I can do it. He doesn’t have to hug and kiss me every day to show me he loves me. That’s the crazy thing about love. Being an army girlfriend may have its benefits, but it’s still a struggle. She knew this would be a hard life and she never gave up. He needed her support more than anything. She even had a ring on her finger to symbolize just how much he loved her, but sometimes love just isn’t enough. Losing Hope 1/31/14 I love this boy to death, but he never does what he says he’s going to do. He ALWAYS forgets to text me goodnight. He never calls when he says he will. I guess this is the army lifestyle. I don’t like feeling like I’m being forgotten about. He means everything to me and it makes my heart hurt feelings like he doesn’t w=have time for me or doesn’t want to talk to me. I put so much effort and dedication into this long distance relationship. I just wish he would put forth as much effort as I do, because I’m starting to lose hope. Their good times out-weighed the bad. She was so in love with this boy. Their relationship was the one that no one saw coming, it just happened. He was a changed man when they got together. He didn’t party anymore. He didn’t talk to any other girls, or so she thought. He treated her like a princess, which is what every girl wants. If you ever think something is too good to be true, then it most likely is. My Love 2/2/14 You can’t even dream of the kind of pain I feel. I hurt so deep. I can’t have my other half here with me. I get so stressed out with school and work, all I want is to lay down with him. Because when I’m with him, the whole word stops and everything is forgotten. It’s just me and him. The fact that I can’t have that right now absolutely kills me. I feel so lost and empty. The days can’t go by fast enough. No one around me understands. I get so emotional and it’s almost as if I’m bipolar. Every little thing sets me off. I have no balance in my life. I feel so alone. He feels bad because he’s always gone. He chose this lifestyle, and I chose him. I have made sacrifices and I will always have to make them. He is the only one I could ever imagine myself with. He means so much to me and quite honestly, I have no idea what I would do without him. He is my #1 fan and my biggest supporter. He is the love of my life, and he has my love. As she flips through these journal entries she asks herself, “If I had known then what I know now, would I go back and change everything?” The tears are welling up in her eyes as she reads these. Even though she was in pain from the distance, she was still happy. The pain she felt in these journal entries doesn’t even come close to the pain she felt on that day. She flips to the next page and returns to her past. Lost 2/18/14 No one understands what it’s like being an army girlfriend. Our relationship is permanently long distance. It’s not like we’re at different colleges. We’re in completely different states, even time zones. Words can’t describe how much I miss him. I feel like my other half is missing. I would give anything to have him here with me right now. I am so lost without him. After she reads this she becomes angry with herself. All of these journals are about her complaining because she didn’t have him here with her. She grabs a Kleenex out of the box sitting on her desk and she wipes the black, mascara tears running down her face. A part of her wants to rip the pages from her journal and just start over, however, she knows she could never do that. She turns the page and continues to relive the past. Teenage Love? Or Naw? 2/23/14 Today is our 10 month anniversary. He drops the bomb on me that if he isn’t stationed close then he won’t have leave for 6 months. I’m going crazy being away from him for 4 months. When he comes home in April he will have been gone 6 months and in that 6 months I will have seen him a total of 11 days. 9 at Christmas and 2 when he graduated from basic. I’m trying to get out of college as soon as I can so we can start our lives together, but school only goes by so fast. Sometimes I feel so alone. I couldn’t imagine doing it for 6 months consecutively. I hate seeing happy couples because I don’t have that. He doesn’t understand the emotional toll this has taken on me. When I’m so stressed out all I want is to lay on his couch and watch Netflix with him. I think back to those summer mornings when I would come over and he would want me to lay down with him so he could finish sleeping and I would just leave. While these are happy memories, they also make me sad and make me want my boy even more. Well, I guess I shouldn’t call him a boy anymore. He’s a man, my man. He would do anything for me and he loves me with all his heart. I have no idea what I would do without him. He is my rock and not only that but he is my other half. My better half. You have to have few bad ones before you have a good one. Lord knows I’ve experienced it all. From dating a cheater, to a control freak, to just being a high school hoe. I am so thankful that his amazing man walked into my life. After spending almost a year with him I know that without a doubt I will spend the rest of my life with him. It’s probably a god thing he’s already “unofficially” asked me. He told me to tell people that I’m engaged if they asked. Is this teenage love? Or naw? Naw, I’m ready to be Leigh Ann Morgan. That last sentence makes her completely break down. She is now sobbing uncontrollably and can’t catch her breath. But why? She didn’t care anymore, or at least that’s what she keeps telling herself. Maybe she will start to believe it. Important? 4/27/14 Don’t you love that feeling you get when you feel like something is more important than you? I’m supposed to be the most important thing in his life but am I really? I don’t even know anymore. I don’t feel anything. I’m numb. I’m empty. I feel like I should be scared, but I’m not. He kissed me for the first time a year ago today. It was so hard spending our one year anniversary alone. I always feel like I’m bothering him. I don’t even know anymore. She turns the page and realizes this is the last entry she wrote as his girlfriend. She didn’t write about their breakup because it was too unbearable. On June 10, 2014, also her eighteenth birthday, she receives a text from him saying, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry, Leigh Ann.” No happy birthday. Nothing. That was the day she felt the most excruciating pain she had ever felt. It was almost as if she could hear her heart crack and then break into thousands of little pieces. She thought she felt pain when he left for all of his trainings, and she thought she felt pain when she felt forgotten. She had been wrong both times. This was a pain she had never experienced before. After receiving the text, she stood up from her bed. She felt dizzy and nauseous. She walked to all of her picture frames and took down all of the pictures of them, she ripped up all of the letters he had written her, and she gathered all of his belongings that she had. She looked at the pile of things and fell to her knees. Her body felt like it weighed a million pounds. She cried like she had never cried before. Her dad rushes to her room and sits on the dark, hardwood floors with her and just holds her. This was the man he was going to give his daughter away to. Her dad felt her pain with her. He helped her up and gathered up the pile she made. Then, they walked outside and started a fire. She chunked the pile of his belongings onto the fire and watched as the clothes, letters, and pictures made the smoke turn black. She looked at her hand and realized she had one more thing to burn. She wasn’t aware that she had subconsciously been twirling the ring around her finger. She removes the ring from her finger, examines it closely, and throws it into the fire with so much force. She only thought she had felt numb and empty before. If only she had known. She resumes from her flashback to her current life and is in shock. As she sits there at her desk, she looks around her room. Her eyes land on her pill bottle on her desk. She picks it up and reads the label, “30 Amitriptyline Take Daily.” She continues to look at it as tears well up in her eyes. She becomes angry and throws the bottle onto her bed. “If only these stupid ‘happy pills’ worked” she shouted. She doesn’t understand how she went from planning her wedding to being on anti-depressants in such a short period of time. Her phone dings and she slides the screen to unlock it. As usual, it is just a Facebook notification. She has managed to push away everyone around her, including her parents. She deletes the text and opens her Instagram. After scrolling through her feed for a minute she realizes that there is nothing interesting happening on that social media sight. She then opens Facebook and gets the same thing. The next social media app she opens is MeetMe. It’s where you meet new people, but she never talks to anyone on there. She only downloaded it because someone at work was talking about it. She sees that she has a couple of profile views. When she clicks on it, she sees something she hoped to never see. Her ex-boyfriend had looked at her profile. She thinks to herself, “Why would he do that?” She can see his profile picture and it shows that he has a new girlfriend. She does not quite understand why he would be looking at her profile if he has a new girlfriend. “Oh well” she thinks to herself and brushes it off. A couple of hours later she opens the app again just to see if anything interesting has happened. Again, she looks at her profile views and sees that he has looked at it again. She thinks to herself, “What on earth is he doing?” Then, she realizes she could have some fun with this. She starts updating her status and makes it sound like she is seeing someone. She wouldn’t call it revenge, but she does want him to feel a similar kind of pain that she felt so many months ago. Right before she goes to bed she checks her social media sights again. What does she find? “WHY ON EARTH IS HE LOOKING AT MY PROFILE? HE HAS NO RIGHT” she screams in her head. She closes out of the app and calls her new friend Molly, whom he had made her hate because he lied. They have a long conversation about what is happening. Molly gives her some great advice. She says, “Girl, he is missing you. So let him! I know he doesn’t have any right to know how you are doing, but you need to show him that you are doing great without him. Let him think you found someone better. It’s going to kill him because he will wish that he had treated you better and hadn’t of left you. He didn’t fight for you when he should have. Show him that you don’t need him.” She knew that Molly was right. About a month ago she had actually met someone, who is a marine. He had graduated a year ahead of her and she had even played soccer with her for three years. After she gets off the phone with Molly, she reflects on herself. Yes, she is taking anti-depressants but that doesn’t mean that she isn’t happy. She is excited about seeing where this new relationship (even though they aren’t officially together) takes them. She grins from ear-to-ear as she sees the start of something new and puts her past behind her. She never wanted to get into another military relationship, but you can’t help who you fall in love with. Her marine calls her the next morning, waking her from her deep sleep. He begins to talk to her about the military ball that he wants to take her to next November. He then says, “I will have to fly you up to North Carolina. Unless, you’re already there with me. But…in order for that to happen we would have to be married.” She thought she had heard him wrong, but no. Did he really just tell her that he wanted to marry her? She zones him out for a minute and thinks to herself, “He is actually serious about this.” Before they get off the phone, he mentions the infamous “M” word again. She knows that this man is the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. After all, she is the girl who waited. She is thrilled to start this next chapter in her life. Since she is eighteen, it only makes sense to call it “Chapter 18: The Start of Something New”.