I have snippets that come to me like visions, or overwhelming feelings with no discernible cause. When I describe them to people, I often call them "dreams", because I think that calling them "visions" comes off as a bit schizophrenic. The best way I can explain these visions is that it is as if somebody has downloaded a memory of something into my mind that I haven't experienced yet, like I'm remembering something that hasn't happened. Whether or not you believe in these things is irrelevant, I think: perhaps it is just good intuition and luck. In any case, it happens more rarely now and less intensely than when I was younger, but it peaked when I was with DW.
When I was a junior in high school, I was taking an advanced calculus class that was half seniors and half juniors. Some of our classmates and I would have study parties before every exam. We would invite anybody who wanted to come, make popcorn, and work through practice tests and homework together and learn from each other's strengths. A couple seniors would come to these study parties, one of which was a boy who I began to notice: I'll call him DW.
On a Monday night, I had a vision that DW was going to ask me to the Senior Prom. He was going to do it outside of a house I've never been to, under a tree I've never seen, and next to a dark blue pickup truck I didn't recognize. A black-blue sky would be dotted by only the brightest stars, with wispy clouds moving quickly through it. I told my friends about the vision, telling them it was a dream. That Wednesday, we had a study party to prepare for a Thursday Calculus test at a house of one of the students that I had never been to. I saw the tree and the truck on my way into the house, and I knew that the vision was referring to tonight. I spent the study party trying to put it out of mind, trying to focus, trying not to notice that DW was trying to time when he left with when I was leaving. I knew exactly what I would say, because I knew exactly what he would say from the vision and I rehearsed my response.
It happened exactly as I had seen. It was surreal -- I felt like I was in one of those made-for-teen movies where the popular older boy and the not-as-popular misfit girl get together. I had never kissed a boy before. I had never had a real boyfriend before. I wasn't unpopular or bullied, but I wasn't popular and I had always felt plain. And here I was, one of very few juniors being asked to the senior prom.
I wore shoes, jewelry and a dress that I had laying around because I didn't have time for anything else since he asked me two weeks before the dance. I still have the photos of us on the stairs in a friend's house with him, me with a silver scarf thrown around my neck to accent my black gown, he with his arm draped around me, and both beaming. I have never thought of myself of glamorous, but looking at that picture reminds me of Old Hollywood.
We went to a fancy dinner, and then to the dance, and then to the school-sponsored After Prom. A friend's parents were making breakfast for us post After Prom, and we went to their house in the wee hours. He and I sat on a couch, and I laid my head on his shoulder, and we both fell asleep until somebody woke us up when it was time to leave. He drove me home, and as he was dropping me off, we had a moment -- but no kiss. I just remember me giving him a sly smile as I read the nervousness on his face. I floated into my house on a cloud at 8am. Boys had liked me before in school, but never the one that I was interested in. It always seemed impossible that the person interested in me and the person that I was interested would ever be one-in-the-same; I had just learned that it wasn't.
A few days later, he was waiting for me outside the public library that I worked at as I got off my shift. He asked me to go to dinner with him. When he was dropping me off afterwards, he said, "I was supposed to ask you something that night at Prom, but I chickened out. Will you be my girlfriend?" I said of course. A few days later, we had our first kiss.
He was my first boyfriend. He was the first boy to tell me I was beautiful. He was the first boy I kissed. I was head over heels. He was a complete gentleman. There was a lot of kissing while horizontal, but he never pressured me into anything more. My parents loved him; his parents loved me.
A few months into dating, DW and I were making some graduation party rounds when I was with panic washed over me. I steadied myself on a trampoline nearby and tried to regain my balance. This was the first time I had ever been overcome by disassociated, overwhelming feelings like that, and I didn't recognize what it meant. But it made enough of an impact on me to note that it was 2:33PM at the time.
I was sitting in the living room with DW and his parents when I got the call. I stood up and said that I had to go but couldn't say why. My dad had a heart attack, and because of his pride, they told me not to tell DW or his family what was going on. My little sister was at home alone and I needed to go be with her. My hands were so shakey that I dropped the keys to my car on the way out, and I had to ask them to turn on their light. When I did that, DW knew something was very wrong. He came out and hugged me and said he was coming with me. We got in the car, and I told him what was wrong. I remember him holding my right hand with both of his hands and talking to me in a soothing voice as we drove.
I asked my mom when they left for the hospital, and she said 2:30 that afternoon.
I remember more about that night than any other night with DW. DW made us dinner. The three of us turned on a movie and ate popcorn together. Once my sister fell asleep, DW smothered me in cuddles and kisses. I remember having very chapped lips the next day, and somehow that still makes me smile. DW stayed with me until 3AM, when his parents finally demanded to know what was happening. That night should've been one of the scariest in my life, and though I feel shame to say that it wasn't, I'm glad it was the way it was. I would've lost it if DW wasn't there to distract me.
Around month four, DW had college orientation. He was gone for the weekend. When he got back, he called me and said sweetly that he missed me a lot. I had never had somebody say something like that to me, so I responded: "yeah, right". I could tell he was confused and hurt, and he said, half-jokingly: "Well, see if I say something nice again." I remember that so perfectly, because that was the first time I knew there was a problem.
About 5 months after being together, he left for a college an hour away. My mother wouldn't let me visit him because she was afraid of me driving that far. Soon, I felt like I had fallen off his radar. After a couple weeks of not hearing from him, I found his dorm phone number online and called it. When he answered, I said that I was ending it. That I still wanted to be friends, but I didn't like the distance. He said okay. It broke my heart. I always thought of him as my first love, but looking back I don't think he was. He was a lot of firsts for me though -- first date, first kiss, first boyfriend, first heartbreak -- and I think all that adds up.
Soon after breaking up, I had a vision that DW's grandmother died. I watched the newspapers and found that she passed a few days a later. I made an apple pie and left it on DW's front porch during the funeral hours, when I knew they would be gone.
DW holds a special place in my heart. When I found out he was engaged four years ago, it broke my heart all over again, regardless of the fact that I had moved on to other guys by that point. I wrote a poem entitled "loves that were" about it, which you can read here. We don't keep in touch, and I'm not sure I want to. But I'll always look back on the memories fondly. I feel as if the purpose of my relationship with DW in the scheme of my life was to help me figure out who I am and come into my own. Now that I think about it, that's probably how he fits into a lot of peoples' lives, since he now is a Youth Pastor in a lower-income neighborhood.
One of the largest impacts of my relationship with DW was with my relationship with my best friend. I was always the girl in high school to refuse to change my life around for a boy and here I was, the first one out of my friends to have a real relationship. My best friend was the opposite: she was constantly pining over this boy or that boy, but didn't date until well into college. She was upset that I started listening to Linkin Park while dating Dan (she had recently been converted to listening to only Christian bands) and wasn't always available to hang out. She told me I had changed. And admittedly, I had, at least in the way I acted: I stopped being a follower. I stopped putting on a show. I became myself. DW helped me find my own way, regardless of my friends' paths. My relationship with that friend never really recovered, but that is a story for another day.
As far as the visions go, I have no idea why so many of them predicted things involving DW. They are fairly rare for me, let alone this vivid, and yet I had three in the span of 7 months involving one specific person. When I have visions about people, though, it makes me feel as if God is assuring me of my relationship with them. Hopefully that means that I have had a positive affect on DW's life, just as he has had on mine.
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