Chapter 6 - How You Remind Me

In the months after our first official date the Radio Producer and I continued to see each other. I laugh now at how I really thought no one at the station knew we were together ALL the time...but honestly I know it was obvious now. It's interesting to me how in our youth we think we are being so sly, so secretive, when in reality it had to have been the most blatant relationship going at the station at the time! We were together a lot, even if I wouldn't let our "hanging out" be labeled.

I would visit him at his late night job at another radio station just so we could talk and hang out. It was there we would have some of the best conversations between his on-air breaks. I would go to his house for parties, we would go to the galleria or just hang out at the station. Each time we were together we grew closer, even if I pretended we didn't.

Our relationship continued to grow despite my reluctance to allow my heart to open up. For months, I kept my heart hidden away in a dark box that I kept surrounded by soft pillows. There was no way it was going to see the light of day, regardless of how I felt. I was not in a place where I could openly give it to anyone. And this pattern of closed heartedness was destined to last for nearly 7 years and managed to destroy each of the great loves in my life. This was merely the first casualty of my broken heart.

Looking back, I realize the day our relationship took a turn toward the inevitable. It was the day several of us went to see Nickelback. I agreed to take a friend of another co-worker's as my plus one. Though the intention was not to set it up as an "official" date, it certainly appeared as one to my radio producer boyfriend. A large group of us were at the show and while talking to my co-worker's friend, the radio producer I had been seeing got visibly upset. I tried to talk to him but it was no use.

In my memory I was not seeing anyone officially and he knew that. So I tried to justify that he had no right to be angry...but the fact is, he probably did have a right to be angry. I remember standing by the bar with my drink as Nickelback played "How You Remind Me" watching him walk by. The memory has stuck with me for years now. The look on his face of disappointment and the feeling in my heart of indignance.

I wanted to believe I was justified in my non-commital ways. I wanted to believe that I was ok as long as I didn't give anyone the key to the dark box my heart currently resided in. I wanted to believe that it didn't matter to me if that key got lost. But in the part of my heart that was still alive, looking out of the key hole longingly...it did matter that I didn't lose the key...I just wasn't ready to use it.

I did end up "dating" my co-workers friend. We dated for a few months and that like the relationship before it and many others since that one had the same fate; they ended because I was broken. I had no idea that this was going to be the first of many heartbreaks. I thought I would get over that fateful night that my fiance left me to find his way in the world, but I didn't get over it. I didn't get over it for nearly 7 years.