A Teenager's Journey (17 page)

I
wanted
to find someone to confide in, but it was just too much for me. As Lara shared more and more with me about herself, it felt so odd that I couldn’t advance on what she already knew about me, which wasn’t much at all. With my silence, I was keeping the necessary distance. On the one hand, I did want to open up and experience a real relationship based on more than physical attraction, based on trust and understanding. On the other hand, I knew that if I really shared what was in my heart, all the hurt and shame I still carried around with me, no one would want to be in a relationship with me. It was the most confusing and frustrating aspect of my young adult life.

I began to find ways to keep myself busy and at the same time to learn about
me
. I had no real idea what I liked to do, or what I didn’t. When the summer of 1989 arrived, I decided to spend time at Virginia Beach, not far from Richmond. I spent as many weekends and nights there as I could. I was determined to become socially able, and I forced myself to say hello to people. Strange as it may sound, I’d never taken the chance to learn about being sociable. I was now beginning to feel confident enough to do just that.

It was that simple step of being alone
with a purpose
that made the change in me meaningful. In the past I had been alone by design, but without a reason. I’d failed to understand that I needed to feel good about myself before I could expect anyone else to like me. I had always believed that someday I would find someone who would change me and make me into the person I always wanted to be. What was missing from that notion was the fact that I didn’t know who or what I was. How could I expect anyone else to like what might not even be there?

When I finally realized that I’d held the key to growing up all along, I felt frustrated. It now seemed so simple: All I needed was time with me, my real self. No girlfriends to keep at a distance. It had been there all the time, the answer I was looking for.

It was the answer to that endlessly recurring, simple yet profound, question, the one I had avoided for twenty years:
Who am I?

I said to myself:
I’m not that little redheaded boy that haunts my dreams
.

I’m not the shallow, quiet teenager.

I’m a man now.

Once I was able to let go of the teenager and my self-induced social void, I was able to design, to welcome, the new me. New clothes, new cologne, and a new haircut made a difference to the outside, but with the inside I had a little trouble. After I’d spent several nights sitting out on the porch thinking, Lara asked if she could help me with whatever was on my mind.

I was comfortable in telling her what I was doing and why, and she was able to help me find what I needed, to find ways of determining who I was. Being around people was the key. She suggested going to see movies at the theater rather than renting them and bringing them home. After several months of finding new ways to break down the wall I had built around me, I found that I enjoyed being around
me
.

I bought a set of golf clubs and walked the course with other players. Hours of conversation and enjoyment of the game helped me open up. I realized that I didn’t actually need to share all of my secrets, all that I was ashamed of. For so long it was all I had to share—so I’d shared nothing. I’d kept myself distant and private. Now I had common experiences that helped me understand that I was
normal
. I was just as ordinary as the next guy.

I had been clean for two years and I felt good about myself. I knew how to be sociable, and I even looked good. I smelled good, wore cologne, and hair gel. I was proud of myself. I was really enjoying the new me.

The night Lara told me that she needed to confide in me, that she needed help with a personal issue, I was overwhelmed with pride. Someone that I was not sexually involved with wanted something from me, something from me that would be respected and appreciated. In fact, what I learned that night was difficult for me to believe.

She had to make a decision, she said. She had been seeing a young man and was torn between him and another. She was interested in this other guy, but he didn’t seem to want anything from her. She enjoyed his company and conversation, but they had agreed they would only be friends. Yet she wanted more from him.

She had now found this other guy who was showing an interest in her, and she was torn between her feelings for the first guy and her feelings for the new one. I confessed that I had never been in such a position, but had the luxury of explaining that my hunch was that I would have to ask each of them separately what they felt.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Why not?”

“The first friend is the one that I really would like to be with, but I know he doesn’t want to be with me,” she confessed.

“How do you know what he wants? Have you asked him?” I asked.

“Not recently.”

“I’m confused. How do you know that the first friend doesn’t want to be with you if you haven’t asked to be more than friends?” I asked her.

“You told me that from the beginning—remember?” she said boldly.

“Me? You want to be with me?”

I was shocked. The friend that I had opened up to, in whom I’d confided that I had no idea who I was and whose help I had asked for—the one who had helped me start to find myself—was now asking me to be more than casual friends.

It was the first time since the Nichols family that I felt someone liked me for me. She knew I was lost and yet she wanted to help. She knew I was just finding myself and couldn’t offer anything in return.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“I don’t, either,” she confessed. “All I know is that I like you for being you. You’re honest and you’re not afraid of your feelings.”

I realized that she was sincere. She really liked me.

“I have to confess, this is the first time I’ve thought twice about something like this. Don’t get me wrong—I think you’re pretty and I like you,” I said. “I just think I’m better off finding myself right now.”

As we talked, I realized that I was so much further ahead than I’d thought. I was able to think through a future relationship and accept the fact that I wasn’t ready for it. When the time came, I wanted more from a relationship than I had gotten in the past. I wanted more from myself and more from my partner. I wanted a real and loving togetherness. Yes, part of me wanted more from Lara than just a “casual” friendship. But I wanted to find myself first even more.

We decided to talk more about it another time. I spent that night alone in my room thinking about the girl in the apartment upstairs. I was now seeing her in a different way: I never
had
thought of her as anything other than a friend.

That’s it,
I thought.

That’s what was missing.

It must have been two in the morning when I rang her bell. When she saw it was me, she opened the door and invited me in. She knew I was there to say something important, and I knew what I had to do. She took my hand, walked me over to the couch, and waited for what I had to say. She was wearing a filmy negligee. It was difficult to focus on what I needed to tell her, but it was rewarding to be able, at the same time, to see beyond the physical and experience the sharing of feelings and the emotions of a real friendship.

“You’ve helped me in ways that I’m just realizing now. You’re a real friend,” I said. “I can’t risk changing that, yet I know that by saying this, I’ll force you to move on.”

We talked, and she made me feel that I had value and worth. A few cups of coffee later, at sunrise, I left her apartment feeling as I had never felt before in that situation. It was the first time I’d walked away.

I felt something I hadn’t in years: pride. I felt like a man. I was in control of myself and what I said. It felt wonderful to feel real.

I expected a certain awkwardness when I saw her out on the porch after that. But on the contrary, she helped me learn more about what it was to be friends. Not that we didn’t find humor in the sadness of our being only friends.

We talked more and more as friends, in particular about what she was experiencing with her new boyfriend. I was excited to be able to help her and to express my thoughts and feelings. We would sit on her sofa and talk. Sometimes, when she was wearing her short pink negligee, it could be difficult. Often she would call me after I was already in bed. I would simply put on my shoes and go upstairs in whatever I was wearing, often just my pajama top and boxers.

It felt good to have such a friend. There was so much more to our relationship than just being each other’s confidant, but I wish I had shared with her what I most wanted to, my past and who I really was. Looking back, though, I think she would have understood.

I was saddened the day she told me she was leaving the apartment complex. She’d decided to take her own advice and go back home and find herself. The morning she left she gave me a gift that only she could have given me.

“I’ll miss you,” she said.

I kissed her on the cheek and we held one another for a moment. What I felt then was more than I had ever expected to experience: I had a real friend.

It was the first time I’d had to let someone go that I cared about in this particular way. True, I’d let Ross, Dad, David, and the Prince and Nichols families go, but this was different. This was someone who had not only helped me with what I’d been struggling with—she was someone who wanted to be with me, yet allowed me my space. She was someone that I wanted to be with, yet I’d forced myself in one important respect to turn away from her. She could have been so much more to me, and yet she was all I needed at that point. She was a true partner that I let slip away.

I watched her drive away, then went back inside my apartment. I was on my own, and it felt great. I didn’t need the memories I’d carried around with me. I didn’t need the apparitions that shared my dreams any longer. I had been dependent on my past as the only way to understand myself, but now I was happy to try and rebuild my life.

I had come so far and I knew that I was close to being whole. I didn’t want to change anything: our relationship, or anything about me. She was a wise and honest friend and confidante. I didn’t want to ruin it.

15

L
ETTING
G
O . . .
A
GAIN

Christmas has always been a favorite time for me. The sounds and smells of the Christmas holidays have always made me feel like a little kid again. Oftentimes during those days I reflect and ponder the last year. I’ve written many of my diary entries, poems, and songs around that time—a time when I often used to find the strength that kept me going. This particular Christmas I needed to find the courage to finish what I had begun, to close the last door left open. I had to let Mom know how I felt about what she had done to me. I had to walk away from my past, from her, forever. I had to make her feel some of the shame and the embarrassment I’d carried around with me. I had to see sorrow in her face. I wanted her to feel bad, I wanted her to weep.

Yes, I wanted my revenge. But I also wanted to forgive her.

O
NCE I WAS ON
my own and comfortable with my life I was able to begin the process of healing and forgiveness. The healing was subject to time and patience. The forgiveness took a conscious effort. I hadn’t spoken to Mom in over four years. I felt that now was the time to find a place to bury the hatchet somewhere other than in each other’s forehead.

It was 1991. As Thanksgiving approached, I was spending most of my time managing a new restaurant in Colonial Heights, Virginia. I had a new apartment, new clothes, new friends, and a new life. I had no family around, and I had grown accustomed to being away from the Nichols family. Some people, finding themselves alone, get depressed during the holidays. Holidays never bothered me; it wasn’t difficult being alone now. Once I got over the Nichols family moving to Minnesota, I had no reason to feel sorry for myself. I was supporting myself and I was comfortable. It felt good to be able to take pride in myself.

I had to close that last door—on my relationship with Mom—once and for all. Having not spoken to her in many years, it wasn’t like there was any relationship to mend. I just wanted peace of mind.

When I returned home from the restaurant, I liked to settle down by the fire. The warmth and the smell of the burning wood were soothing. The comfort I derived from this was well worth the time spent. Often I would arrive home after closing time, past 2
A.M.
, and sit and keep the fire going until sunrise. More times than not I would sit up just thinking. Many of my journal entries were completed during those nights sitting in front of the fire.

Once Thanksgiving was over and the Christmas rush was in full swing, I worked as much as I could. The time passed quickly. I had started to write down the events of the last year that stuck in my mind. I was also going over the last several years’ worth of journals and pondering the feelings and thoughts I’d expressed in them.

I found a shoe box of old photos. Some of them helped me to recall the emotions and feelings I’d written about. But many were simply too difficult to recall and ended up in the fire.

Several of the episodes that had meant something to me at the time I had since forgotten about. The time when Steve Nichols was helping me move out of the house I rented on Rosegill Road in Richmond was one of them.

Steve was about sixteen then, and hadn’t yet received his driver’s license. We had loaded a couch with various boxes and lamps on top in the back of a pickup truck to move to my new rental. As Steve started to drive the truck out of the driveway, the couch slid slowly right out the back, landing on the driveway with every item that we’d piled on top of it in place. Nothing was broken—nothing had even moved.

The look on Steve’s face was priceless: a combination of horror and amusement. It was like a scene from a silent comedy. We split our sides laughing, then reloaded the truck and went on our way. Steve and I had always had fun. We enjoyed laughing over stupid things like that.