Band Banquet Freshman Year

      It amazes me that such spontaneity and randomness exists in my life.

      Here's a bit of back story. 

So there was this girl in middle school who I liked named Victoria. She was in band and blah blah blah... Basically she was just awesome, and it amazed me that people more cautious and hesitant than me existed, and I made it my own mission to sweep her off her feet and be the one to get her to sort of come out of all that. You know, help her to experience things and what not. And for some time this kind of worked. But as it turned out, I learned quite early that sometimes it's not always the course of things, but the timing, that can make the difference between things working out or falling short. 

Fast forward about a year, and we're freshman in high school. Which, I might add, was one of the best years of my life, just like all my older friends said it would be. The classes were all challenging enough to be stimulating, but not to the extent that I had to really try just yet. Athletics were hard, but very manageable. And for reasons I will never understand, girls seemed to really like me. It is said that every guy has a phase in his life where he is absolutely irresistible to the ladies, and I believe that if such a time exists, freshman year was it. Which was all very new to me, because only a year before, people hardly looked my direction. It wasn't like I changed anything about myself either. I was just as awkward and quiet as before, but hey I'm not complaining. In fact, I was so used to girls not paying attention to me that when they did I was keenly aware and kept a constant count of how many eyes were on me. Or who said what to me and where it happened and how. So with that said, I remember at one point having five different girls in five different classes who I knew liked me. They were a little too intentional with their conversations with me to not reveal such things. But of all of them, the one I found most surprising was the attractions of an old crush, Victoria. The only girl I felt like I truly had a chance of dating. 

It's toward the end of the school year, weather getting warmer  clothes getting shorter when she asks me to be her date to band banquet. It's funny to me now, because I remember very clearly how painfully awkward the interaction was.

*walking down hall with headphones in because I hate people*

*She tries to get my attention but can't*

*She tugs on my shirt right as I'm about to step into my math class*

"Hey Jon, it's good to see you. How are you?" (sounded like one big word because she rushed/mumbled it)

"Oh... Hey? I'm doing well. Is there something you need?" (I was very caught off guard)

"Yeah um...Would you like to go to band banquet with me?"

* a pause*

"You really don't have to I mean it's no big deal I'm just cur-...."

"I'd love to."

I cut her off before she could proceed to make the encounter any more painful than it already was. Because in all of her proposing, she only managed to make eye contact with me in the hi and goodbye...Which meant that she couldn't see that I'd already nodded yes when she tried to nervously retract her offer. She managed to flash a quick smile before briskly walking off. 

I don't know why I was so quick to agree when she was the one who put distance between us in middle school and all but ended our relations, but I couldn't deny that I was happy to accept the offer. Even with my apparent popularity with those of the opposite gender. 

"May I take your order?"

"Yes, we'll just have two waters please. Thank you"

The waiter's face shown a smile caught somewhere between giddy and nostalgic as he filled our glasses and paced off to another table. Looking over her cinnamon shoulders and past her large brown eyes the sun was in its final moments, violet hues fading to purple as the rain began to slow and the droplets on the windows began to settle. It was a beautiful sight. Or I guess just a beautiful time to be alive, because the beauty didn't end there. All around families and friends cheered and guffawed with red faces at jokes funny and lame alike around tables laden with half eaten entrees and sweating glasses. Everything seemed to softly glisten with the warm, ambient lighting. The restaurant alight with incense of fancy candle and Mexican cuisine, and the girl before me no different as my gaze finally drifted toward her own. Tanned and slender, wearing a yellow dress that complemented her skin tone and long dark curls of her hair softly cascading down over her sleek collarbone and shoulder, she sat before me at a table of two. It was my idea that we go out to dinner, my treat, before the banquet. To catch up and make up for lost time. And boy am I glad that we went through with this. What a time to be present, sondering along side that window as I was. 

(http://i.imgur.com/2WLJ2.gif)

Some kind-hearted anonymous individual covered our bill. Insisted the waiter tell us we looked elegant and to enjoy our youth. That we were a "cute couple". We looked at each other with sweat on our brows and redness in our cheeks and left quietly, smiling at the wet cement we glided over. 

The bass of the sound system disrupted my circadian rhythm. The instant the doors of the event split, sound and cool air hit you like a high ocean wave as friends and hello's and handshakes also washed past you, and lapped back into the  collective sea of faces. We found a table to place our things and retire her heels before jigging onto the dance floor. 

I have to say, of any dance or the like I've ever been to, this banquet had by far the best music selection. Not to mention I'd never seen so many kids get after it quite like that. It was refreshing to see such reckless abandon in having fun and disregarding appearances. She was a bit stiff in her shucking and jiving, but we had undeniable fun. I felt very much alive having such light hearted fun. But the slow dance at the end was oddly sobering. 

She looked at me almost fearfully when the tunes slowed, but I took her up and danced as other dances had taught me. And it was right then, once my hands rested on her waist that I realized just what all was really going on here. All the signs I might have missed. Because there she was, nervously shaking as we swayed. And it really made me think. I knew then how she felt about me. And how much I've grown. And all the new attention I'd received. And what this dance meant to her. And I hated myself for not being able to re-invest all the emotion in her as I did in 8th grade when attractions were new and times were different. But things changed. 

AHS State Game at Cowboys Stadium 2014

Looking back, I wonder how different my high school years would have turned out had I dropped everything, wiped my memory, and started again with her. I think we could well have lasted all through high school. But I do not regret this time because I got to see and appreciate how beautiful meeting people/life's unexpectedness can be, and hopefully she does too. Or even better, she doesn't think about these things at all.