Good Mo'nin'

[RyanTurtle]

This is another thing I wrote recently. It's kinda mushy and sappy...but every word of it is true. So yeah...

Isn’t it strange how someone can go their whole life living under certain conditions and never know any other way of life? I used to be depressed, sad, suicidal, and resentful. I hated everyone and everything that this world had to offer. An anger of unimaginable magnitude boiled down in the deepest depths of my soul. I didn’t want to put up with it any more. I wanted to die. I was sick and tired of being rejected by everyone. Any time I tried to fit in, I was cast aside like a broken toy, or a book that nobody had time to read. I tried to let love into my life, but it just stood at the door menacingly. Love didn’t’ exist to me anymore; it was nothing more than an evil demon looking down and laughing at my shattered soul. Until this last September, these feeling of depression and bitterness were routine; they were a way of life that I had grown accustomed to. I accepted the fact that I would die alone and miserable with nobody to claim me, and nobody for me to claim. As unhappy as I was, I was content with my existence. That is, until she came along and filled my world with a light of unimaginable spectacle.

I remember that day like it was no more than a matter of hours ago. I had just gotten home from school and I walked down to the neighbor’s house. See, my neighbors are the Faris family. I’ve known them for the larger portion of my life and I had grown accustomed to their presence. As I drove down the street toward my home, I decided that Ed Faris must DIE! See, we had recently discovered the world of Halo 2. Halo 2 is the video game of video games. It had become standard operating procedure to take the half a minute walk down to my house and play a few twenty-five-point games. There was no telling what would happen when Ed and I got into a shotgun duel, or a sniper stake out. In many cases we would be sitting still for what seemed like hours waiting for someone to stick their head out, only to grow bored and go in for a close quarters shot to the head with a magnum. Halo is heaven; it’s almost as if God himself had created the game and passed it down to the programmers of Bungie studios. Halo is an act of divinity, and it was our divine right to play. Anyway, I digress. As I was walking down the street to the Faris home, visions of digitized blood splatting against the wall behind a fallen Spartan soldier sporting Ed’s emblem on his arm flooded through my mind’s eye. Today, Ed would perish. Today, I would rule the realms of Headlong and Coagulation. Hail to the king, baby.

As I entered Ed’s bedroom with a challenge proposition at hand, I was crushed to see her there, lying on the floor. I’m sure this was made clearly obvious by the fact that my face was twisted in a way that showed nothing but pure and total disgust. She is Ed’s ex-girlfriend, Jayme. I had the distinct pleasure to meet Jayme two years prior to this day. Let me tell you, I was far from impressed. You could go so far as to say that I hated her more than disco, and I hate disco. The Earth had revolved around the Sun five thousand four hundred and seventy five times since the day I was born, and in that amount of time I had never met anyone as annoying as her. So, naturally, I wasn’t so happy to see her. However, I ventured down there because I wanted to hang out with Ed, so I sat down on the bed and joined them in conversation. This is when it hit me. This girl is not the same person that she was two years ago. Her smile alone could topple buildings. That smile. That smile may very well be the thing that had first drawn me to her. That smile was, and still is, the most perfect thing I had ever seen in my life. She had her hair pulled back, but a few stray hairs fell to the sides of her face. This did an immaculate job of framing that insanely cute face. She was so tiny; it was hard to think that she was two years older than me. She just had that glow of youthful energy about her, the kind that makes you all warm and tingly in the depths of your soul. I had seen a Colorado sunset, and I had seen countless rainbows. Yet, I had never seen anything as breath taking as the girl sitting on the floor that day. She’s so beautiful that she could give a blind man chills. From that point on I was instilled with a happiness that I had never felt in my life before that. From that point on, I knew that this was going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

For the first couple of days Ed, Jayme, and I hung out together. Then, one night, something happened, something magnificent. Ed was somewhere else; I don’t recall where at this time. Ed’s location doesn’t matter. All that matters is that it was just Jayme and I hanging out in the kitchen at the table. There was a lull in the conversation and we were bored out of our minds. I was trying so hard to think of something to talk about, but I couldn’t find anything that I thought was interesting enough or worthy of her time. All I could do was look at her, at her smile, that beautiful smile. That’s when I found five pennies setting on the table. I began to balance them on end on the table. As soon as I got five pennies standing up, I was pleased. I looked at Jayme with a look that was a mixture of triumph and cockiness. It was a time that called for celebration, a joyous occasion. I was so proud of myself; I had gotten them to stand so close together without falling over. With a smug look on her face, she blew the pennies over with a giggle. This is the part where I start to get confused. Any other time I would have been pissed off beyond belief. I’ve come unhinged at someone just for stepping on my shoes, but this time I just laughed and stood them up again. Every time I would get the five cents standing up, she would blow them over. We hardly said a word to each other during this little "game". We didn’t need to say anything. We were connecting on a whole different level, a level that I have never felt before. This continued for God knows how long until Ed got back.

After about a week I started looking forward to going to the Faris’s house to see Jayme. I would sit in the last hour of school and count down the seconds until I could go tell her about my latest classroom hijinx. I enjoyed talking to her. She had more to talk about than the trivial crap that I sit through while talking to John or Jimbob. She had more to talk about than the studio like I got when I talked to Eddie. The conversations with Jayme actually had a certain something to them. Conversations with her made no sense at all, but at the same time it made perfect sense. When I talked to her, I could see in her eyes that she wasn’t judging me. I could see that she was putting me on an equal scale with everyone else. She was giving me a chance. Whether she was messing with my phone or blowing over pennies, she was digging deeper into my heart, and I really didn’t want her to leave that spot. Throughout the course of those few weeks, many incidents strengthened my bond with this five-foot tall angel on Earth.

The next incident that I remember is when the three of us (Ed, Jayme, and I) sat down to watch The Terminal. About thirty minutes into the film, Ed got a phone call and left the room for the remainder of the movie. It was just Jayme and I on the couch. At the time I didn’t think anything of it, but now I think about that night all the time. There was a certain point in the movie that made her laugh, if you can call it a laugh. Tom Hanks’s character in the movie had just told his friend, “You no *******.†A heavily accented version of “You no cheat.†This was followed by the strangest sound I had heard up to that point. I remember thinking, “Jesus Christ! What the hell was that? Did she just squeak?†This night was also when the first of the inside jokes between us came to be. Expedited seemed to be a funny word in her head. She seemed to really like that word, yet it never came out right. This is the cause for our newfound word “expedibeded.†Make a note that this may not be spelled correctly due to the fact that we never officially agreed on a proper spelling. This would be the case with many of our “not-words†in the future.

After the movie, one of the most important events of our friendship took place. We went up to Ed’s room, where Ed was nowhere to be found, and began talking about Harry Potter. Mind you, I hate Harry Potter. Yet, for some reason, we still carried on an actual conversation about the books and films. After about an hour of talking, Ed came back, and he wasn’t happy. Apparently his recorder had been broken, and after getting it back from the repair shop it broke again. Though the mood was so damn solemn, I couldn’t stop smiling. Every time Jayme would so much as glance at me a smile would spread across my face and I would let out a chuckle. I have no idea how it happened or why it happened, but it happened. Some could argue that this marked the beginning of my transformation; some argue that it started with the pennies on the kitchen table. When it all started doesn’t matter; all that matters is that it started with Jayme.

After Jayme went back to her home state of Illinois, things just weren’t the same. I was back to my meaningless and dull conversations with everyone else. I actually kind of missed being around her. Most of all, I missed her smile. I really did wish she was still staying with the Faris family, but she wasn’t. I knew that. Then, a couple days after she went back, my cell phone rang. When I looked at the caller ID I almost passed out. It was Jayme. To this day I don’t know how she got my phone number. I had hers, but I don’t recall giving her mine. I was so happy to hear from her. That first phone conversation lasted three hours, and we talked about nothing. Sure we talked, but it was nonsensical stuff. I loved every pointless moment of talking to her. These phone conversations became more frequent; we began talking every night. I would feel strange if a night passed where I didn’t talk to Jayme. It was routine; it was part of my pattern.

One night we stumbled upon the subject that I have insomnia. Something happened that night. She told me, “Try putting on a movie that you know by heart. Don’t watch it though, close your eyes and listen to it.†Let me say that I didn’t figure it would work, but what did I have to lose? So, I put in Casablanca; I tell you, I was out before the end of the opening credits. That’s when I started noticing the transformation. The next day I was energetic and happy. I wasn’t crabby like usual. I didn’t have anything to complain about, which was a major accomplishment for me. She had no idea that what she just did for me was going to change the course of our relationship forever.

From that point on I was happy. I wasn’t complaining; I was energetic. It was quite strange. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know up from down, coming from going, or black from white. I was so incredibly confused. I had never been so mixed up. It sent my body into shock. I didn’t know what to do. Here’s what I did know; I liked it. I loved being able to smile. I loved being capable of laughing. It got to the point to where I was walking into my newspaper class singing “Good Mo’nin†from Singin’ In The Rain. To get the full effect of the previous statement, you have to understand that musicals are toward the bottom of the list of my all time least favorite movie genres. I was happier than I had ever been in my entire life. It’s strange. Jayme is one of the smallest people I know, yet she has had the single greatest impact on my life.

Last week Jayme hit me with a bombshell. The age old “Do you love me, and how much?†question. I had honestly never thought about our relationship in that way before. That’s when it hit me. I had to review the evidence in order to give her a good and honest answer. The evidence is as follows: I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I couldn’t talk to her without smiling. All I could picture in my head was her smile. She made me laugh. She made me happy. Just knowing that she was on the other side of that phone sent my heart into a beating frenzy. That’s when it clicked. That’s when everything started to make a whole lot of sense. I answered her question with two words, “Very much.†This brings us up to now.

She has a list you know. A list of all the things that make me “adorable.†I used to be adorably scary in her eyes, but she tells me now that the scary factor is diminishing. Most people would consider her insane for putting me in the adorable category. Thank God that they haven’t had her committed, the thought of her in a strait jacket saddens and slightly disturbs me. Maybe she is insane; maybe I’m not worthy of this attention. Maybe it's just the opposite; she’s just the only one who fully understands me, or at least understands me as much as another person possibly can. Only time will tell. All I know is that the past three months have been the greatest of my life. Every night I dream of her; every morning I miss her. Every day I think of her. Every night I talk to her. I picture that smile, that radiant, beautiful, angelic smile. Every morning I wake up and hear her adorably off-key singing in my ears. Every morning I wake up to the words, “Good Mo’nin to you.â€

[Jenny]

Wow, Jimmy....you have real talent. There were so many lines in there that I really liked that if I quoted them all, I'd be here all day.

I like the passage about the pennies. I could see that in my mind so clearly....

[Earth-Angel]

That

was

simply

breath-taking

[RyanTurtle]

THANKS....you shoulda seen Jayme's reaction to it...

[Steel2Velvet]

You paint a richly visual environment and offer reward to the reader from paragraph to paragraph. A good writer can be asked to pave little else beyond those two avenues. I am very impressed with your style and your talent for expressing your feelings, Jimmy. If you continually chronicle your heart through words on paper ... we will all know your name someday. One note of correction; you say the earth had revolved around the sun five thousand plus times since .... . Because the rest of your writing is so accurate, that part caused the flow of the piece to be interrupted while I took a moment to reconstruct and assume that you meant the earth had spun five thousand plus times around its axis.

Look forward to reading more of your work, Jimmy Jazz!

[RyanTurtle]

That detail was actually pointed out to me by my science teacher when he read it, I just forgot to change it....