My Heart Is In Blacksburg, Which I Proudly Call Home

A year ago today I was at work, and opened up my internet and on my msn homepage was a headline story that a gunman was loose on the Virginia Tech campus. I read a little clip about how he’d shot a girl and they thought it was a domestic violence dispute…I didn’t really think a lot about it…not the first time a crazy person had been loose on the VT campus, and they’d always handled it well, always been “overly cautious” to guarantee nothing happened…hours later I learned 32 people had lost their lives to this gunman.

 

I grew up about 30 minutes away from the Virginia Tech campus…my mom earned her bachelors there while I was in middle school…as corny and generic as it sounds, I’m going to say it anyways, because it fits…it’s just not the kind of place you’d expect something like that to happen…let me explain. My mom attended classes there while my little brother and I were in middle school…so 12-15 years old time frame…she would pick us up from school and drive to tech and go to class, or we’d ride the bus by ourselves to the campus, if she was already there…she’d give us each a few dollars so we could go to the on campus Burger King to get us a 99 cent whopper and a drink (free refills…we could survive off of that for hours)…after we’d finished our dinner we’d walk across the drill field to the campus library where we’d play on the internet or do school work, if we had any…she’d get out of class at 9 or 10 and walk across campus to pick us up…she’d ask us about our day as we walked across campus to the parking lot…we never worried about wondering campus alone, and she never worried….it was perfectly safe for us to wonder around, and no one ever questioned who we were or why we were there…the librarians learned our names, as did the security guards, but they all knew we were safe there on campus…or even, sometimes, we’d walk to downtown and go browse the shops, we never once felt in danger…

 

Last year, when the tragedy happen, I came home from work and cried. I have friends on the Blacksburg Rescue Squad, I have friends on the Christiansburg Police Force, I have friends that are Virginia Tech students and alumni (my older brother is tech alumni as are most of his friends)…I cried for them, I cried for what they’d seen, I cried for those they’d lost, I cried because I couldn’t be there with them….I’d been away from home for 5 years, and never once had I truly felt homesick, until April 16, 2007…a day or so later I received an email about Maroon & Orange day…an effort to get everyone to wear Hokie colors to show there support…I tried to find a VT shirt or hat for my boyfriend…every single store in the Hampton Roads area was out of everything VT, orange or maroon…normally, those items SCREAM at you from store shelves…but not one was left in Hampton Roads…my heart swelled…I’d never been so happy to NOT be able to find something…that evening I came home and the news reports showed people in England and France and all over the country (even the New York Yankees) wearing orange and maroon…it showed the community in Blacksburg standing together, uniting together, to overcome their grief…their pain….I talked to friends and family…and the whole community not only back home, but from all over the world, was uniting together to help the victim’s families…to help each other heal….

 

Tonight…the same pain and pride I felt a year ago is back, part of me wants to be home, but I know, that the whole VT community is united, even if it’s not all in Blacksburg…I watch the news cast, I see the huge moment of silence that occurred on the drill field…the whole drill field is covered in orange and maroon shirts, and yet, not one word is spoken…that’s respected, for our lost family…Almost every college, today, had some kind of memorial service…it shows that not only was the Virginia Tech community effected, but the entire college community, the entire country was effected…and the entire country is uniting behind the Virginia Tech Family.

 

So please, remember the Hokies in thoughts and prayers.

 

Blacksburg, I love you and wish I was home.

 

Lovemaking Versus well…F***ing

Again tonight, we were intimate. It was good. I wouldn’t call it love making, in fact, to be 100% blunt, it was fucking…I mean, we love each other, and that’s why we sleep together, but tonight, I think we just both had so much emotion that we haven’t expressed that we just went at it.

 

Now, I really hate to say this. And J was KILL me if he knew this…hence, why I don’t tell him…but J is great at the fucking, and the normal sex, but when you really want love making….he’s not so good…now any guys reading this will say that there is no difference, any girls reading this will understand 100% what I’m talking about…fucking is purely physical…that’s when all the dirty talk and 69ing comes in…lovemaking, is much more intimate…it’s more loving, more eye contact, more kissing, more “I Love You”s…My ex, was actually pretty good at the love making…horrible at everything else though…(yep I know…I’m evil for saying that)…He was good at pretending to be in love with me, and therefore very good at pretending to make love to me…although now, the thought that I ever kissed him, much less slept with him just creeps me out. All I can think about when his name is mentioned is him…doing a 15 year-old girl behind their parents back…or jacking off to naked 15 year olds on the internet…he actually argued with me once on what constituted child pornography…I’d found sites on his computer, and he told me it wasn’t child porn because they were in clothes…not much clothes, but clothes…therefore it wasn’t child porn…what the hell does it matter….it’s sick!!!

 

Well…enough on the ex…that’s enough to bring any blog down….

Regrets and Lies

I’m kind of regretting the intimacy from last night, mainly because I know I can’t take it back. It was almost like, we did that, and now he thinks everything is fine…which it’s not.

 

It’s 7:45 at night, we got off at 5:30, he said he’d be home shortly, that he wasn’t going any where besides home. He called at 6:50 to tell me he was on his way home. We live about 10 minutes from work…I hate when he does that. I don’t care if he goes somewhere else to hang out… just have the common courtesy to call…looks like he’s going to have another cold dinner.

 

I just, I don’t know…I’m regretting last night. He said he wanted to make things work. I’m trying to believe that, but then he does stupid stuff like not call….makes me wonder. But then other moments, he makes me feel like I am the only thing on earth he cares about.

 

I must be giving everyone a very bad view of this relationship. Unfortunately, I started this blog right before all of this happened, otherwise, you’d think we were a great couple. Everyone around us does. Of course, they don’t know everything. They see what they want to see…I guess we all do.

 

I’ve just finally found someone who supports me, and loves me. He encourages my crazy ideas, and helps me however he can. All I have to do is say I need or want something, and it’s mine. He’s the first person to accept me for me…or at least most of me…there’s still a lot he doesn’t know about me…lots I’ve hidden, but it’s because in a way, I’m very much ashamed of what I came from. It varies, there are days I’m proud of everything I’ve accomplished, but then there are days where I’m that 7 year old little girl who’s lieing to her teachers because she doesn’t want them to know that she’s growing up in a home that has no running water. It may not have been an ideal place, but it was home. I never got to really have friends over, or have parties, because I was always worried what would happen if someone found out. I spent so much time hiding our lives, that it’s kind of hard to not. It’s second nature to hide it.

 

A while back, my little brother and I were out to dinner, and he was telling me how he doesn’t mean to lie. He doesn’t want to lie to everyone, but he just can’t stop. That it just comes natural. And he’s right, we spent our entire lives telling people lies, and partially wanting to believe those fantasies ourselves,  that we blurred the line between truth and fiction so much, that we’re not even sure where the line is, much less how to get back over it.

Breaking the Ice

So, it’s officially been one week since everythings happened….well…I still don’t know what I’m going to do. He lied to me. He flat out lied to me, for two years!!! Two years!! 95% of relationships don’t even last that long…I just…I’m just dumbfounded…I get so upset every time I think about it.

 

We still haven’t kissed. I don’t let him touch me in bed. He normally comes to bed about 2 hours after me, and climbs in under the cover and slides over to my side of the bed and wraps his arms around me…use to be the most wonderful feeling on earth…now, he knows not to, he knows I don’t want to be that close to someone I’m not sure I can trust….I mean, we’ve had problems before…we’ve fought before (what couple hasn’t), but he’s never betrayed my trust like he did this time…

 

I have let him hug me, of course, I haven’t hugged back, I just haven’t fought him off like I did a week ago.

 

Well, went to bed tonight, about 11. He asked if he could hold me. And he actually opened up to me, about how he’s disappointed in himself, and how he didn’t mean for it to get so out of hand…he’s not trying to hurt me…we started snuggling and things got kind of physical. Clothes came off and although no actual intercourse happened you could say we had sex or lovemaking or how ever you want to put it. Very seldom with us, does intercourse actually occur…many other ways to pleasure each other…we went to sleep curled up in each others arms.

Fences

I hate fences. Maybe because growing up in the country the only people who put up fences were trying to keep their cattle in. Even then, most farmers marked their cattle and allowed them to roam and mingle among their neighbor’s fields. They just put up fences to keep the cattle from getting in the road, not to say that on many occasions the cattle didn’t learn how to flee from the prisoning contraptions.

 

Having moved to a true suburban neighborhood, I’m starting to discover how much I really hate fences…J mows the lawn for the old lady next door; we fondly call her the old hag. So, from hence forth, that’s what we’ll call her. She complained to me one day that J’s tree branches were reaching into her yard and dropping seedpods in the front yard. (Which J cleans up when he mows the lawn, weed eats, and rakes the leaves.)She proceeded to mention how he could make him trim them…that there’s a law that gives her the right to do that. I guess she mentions it me, so I’ll mention it to him. I have a feeling she doesn’t want to mention it to him, because she may never get her yard mowed again. Of course, she has a son (rumor has it) that lives about 20 minutes away. J and I have been together for 2 years now, and of those two years I’ve spent at least 365 nights at his house and probably a good 100 weekends, never once have I seen this son…but we’ll save that topic for another blog.

 

This morning, setting out on the back patio this morning, drinking my coffee, I was looking at the tree that grows alongside our fence and the other old ladies house. The fence from the lady’s yard (we’ll refer to her as Mrs. Maid, she’s a retired school teacher) runs right beside the tree. I’m not sure how long this fence has been there, but the tree is starting to grow around the fence. It’s already been doing it, apparently, because the one side of the tree, that’s beside the fence, is growing in a square shape along the fence…the other side, is as round as can be. The squirrels love to run up and down the tree and along the fence. Of course, the branches hang over the fence and hang over Mrs. Maid’s yard. She never says a word. Of course, she’s partially blind, but J helps maintain her house, and do what ever she needs…and she in return harasses him and ask him when we’re getting married…she’s funny. We like her, although I hear she was kind of mean in her younger years…of course, age has a way of making us kinder…kind of evens the playing field, huh?

 

Anyways, back to the whole fences thing. My neighborhood is filled with these nasty little metal things, to separate everyone’s yard from his neighbors…we’re one of the few who don’t have a metal fence. Just a simple little wooden ranch-style one in the front yard. Which doesn’t really help keep anything out…it’s open on both ends, so people can easily walk in and out of the yard…I like it that a way. Encourages people to get out and talk to their neighbors, a tradition long lost that I think should be fully revived.

 

My neighborhood is also full of trees…old trees. J’s brother lives across the street and his very large oak tree reaches across the street and the branches shade part of our yard along with two other yards in the neighborhood. It’s huge, I’m tellin’ ya. And I got to looking…what the old hag sad, really started weighing on my mind…almost every tree in this neighborhood has branches that hang into other yards…yet, so far, no one has had a legal struggle over it. I think it’s mostly because older people live in the neighborhood, and really try not to cause trouble. But I’m worried about, as more young people move into the neighborhood, are they going to start seeing the trees as burdens and made their neighbors trim them back, or cut them down all together? It really would be ashamed. These trees were here long before us, and should be here long after us. I mean, really, trees don’t recognize fences; it’s just an extra obstacle for them to grow around. They just grow, as God intended them to, without thought as to where their branches reach.

 

I just pray that everyone recognizes the beauty these old trees hold, and just let them grow, without disturbing them. Whether or not they decide to reach their branches into our yards or not…in fact, I think we should count our blessing that the trees find us redeemable enough to grace us with their presences.