Introduction

I’ve always thought of my life as the biggest movie of all time and myself as the tortured, hopeless-romantic, damsel-in-distress waiting for her prince charming to come make everything make sense. Of course, in my head prince charming looks a lot like Matt Damon, sings like Michael Buble’, and treats me like Tom Hanks treated Meg Ryan in every movie ever.
In reality I’ve just kissed a lot of frogs, more than I’d like to admit.
My first boyfriend and I had the makings of a storybook romance. Third grade boy meets third grade girl and they chase each other around on the playground and then they stick together through all the tough times of fourth and fifth grade. He buys her necklaces, she buys him cologne, they have a million chaperoned “dates”. Then one day at lunch during sixth grade the boy (oh who am I kidding...) Andrew sits with another table full of girls. A week goes by and we stay separate during lunch every day. (Lunch was always the cruelest part of the day in Jr. High). One day two girls turned around to me and said, “Andrew doesn’t want to be your boyfriend anymore.” I was so shocked. We’d spent three wonderful years together and it was over just like that? I was devastated. I barely made it off the school bus before I burst into tears and ran into my mom’s arms.
That was my first encounter with boys being complete jerks.
Over the years things just got worse.
Later on in my sixth grade year I fell in love with an older man, an seventh grader. He had band the period before I did so every day my best friend, Shanna, and I would wait outside the band hall for him to walk past and when he did we would giggle and blush all the way to our seats. One day I even said hi, and of course the giggles came harder. Looking back now I realize that 11 year old Jordan had no game (not that 21 year old Jordan really does either). Being in a small school, everyone knew of my obsession and it became a sort of joke. At the Valentine’s dance that year my friends got him to slow dance with me to Selena’s “Dreaming of You”. I was in heaven, but after that he rarely gave me the time of day. I pined over him for two years. When he graduated from Jr. High, so did I, I began dating a Sophomore in high school. Today he’s happily dating my old best friend Shanna. Funny how those things happen.
These days I wouldn’t call him a jerk, but back then I thought the fact that he wouldn’t date me was the worst thing in the world and I cried myself to sleep many nights. I don’t know how many times I’ve thought the worst thing possible was happening to me, but I think that’s one of the biggest things you have to know about me, I’m a bit over dramatic.
Back to that Sophomore. His name was Clint and he was one of my mom’s actors in the play “Hillbilly Hankerin”. He and I hit it off pretty quickly and he had a truck, so I thought I was set for life. We started dating in December and things went south in May. After 5 months and 11 days it ended with me saying over the phone, “Now don’t you go and tell your little friends that you broke up with me because I’m clearly breaking up with you”. (I thought I was feisty for a 13 year old.) After that I ran into the living room, into my mother’s arms, bawling. Even though I’d claimed I did the breaking, I blamed it all on him.
I know, still a bit over dramatic, but 13 year old me swore up and down that no guy was ever going to date her ever again. Luckily (or not) for me a few have since then.
This brings us to the beginning of the core of my story. This is also the beginning of my high school years.
As I mentioned before, I was in band. I played the the flute and couldn’t wait to march with the Mighty Leopard Band at Van Vleck High School. The band begins marching practice during the summer before school actually starts, so I had to opportunity to meet a few upperclassmen before I had to walk through the front doors of the school for the first time. Since this is where my “movie life” begins, let me paint the picture for you.
The scene is set in a small band hall: beige walls, dirty white tiles, black chairs and instrument cases strewn around carelessly. Students milling about reuniting with friends they hadn’t seen all summer long. There’s an old raggedy couch along one of the walls with seniors sprawled across it, clearly marking their territory and young freshmen hanging around them, trying to get noticed. A few over-achievers are already putting their instruments together, talking about music they’d like to play for contest, and then actually playing a few songs from past years.
Amongst all this is me. Even though I had a lot of friends growing up, I was always a shy girl and never liked to walk into places alone. I can’t quite remember how I arrived at the band hall that summer morning, it all blurred together once I saw him.