So There Is This Girl.....

I don’t believe in luck. I should start by saying that. I have talked with people about it many times. I believe luck is a concept that was created by people when they realized just how much of life’s circumstances are beyond their control. I firmly believe things, good and bad, happen for a reason. Some to enjoy, some to teach and most that we can’t comprehend at the moment they are occurring. I don’t think our lives are run by random chance, I believe in a plan. I don’t think things are automatically certain to be, but I do think that sometimes in life circumstances are choreographed to overcome many different obstacles in order to present us with an opportunity to have something special. Then it’s our job to take it and make the most of it.

I met Lauren on Tuesday, January 16, 2007. I remember the day clear as yesterday. It was a dreary, cloudy and cold day for transfer student orientation at Longwood. Thinking back, I am now reminded of how close I was to never coming to Longwood. Not even one week before, I had been prepared to head back to Liberty for my fourth semester. That’s when I got a call from an assistant baseball coach telling me if I could get through the financial aid and admissions process there was a spot waiting for me on the baseball team that spring. That was a miracle all in itself. I don’t know how I ever got admitted and got financial aid, transcripts and scholarships transferred to Longwood all in a little over seven days time.

But there I was bright and early at 8 a.m. I wore sweats because I would be bouncing between orientation and baseball practice, which had already begun for the spring. I looked over the schedule figuring out what was going to be essential for me to attend and what I would be able to skip out on to be at baseball practice. I remember I spent the day switching between baseball and orientation sessions, but I wasn’t really paying attention to the people around me. As far as I was concerned I had my own things to think about. It wasn’t until we split into our groups by major later in the afternoon that I thought I might want to take a look around and see the people with whom I would be spending time in class over the next two years.

Looking back, I realize that I remember two people from the group that day. I recall another guy, a theatre major, whose mom was in the armed forces and then a girl who was wearing a pink coat/hoodie with jeans and slip on sandals. That's Lauren.

First they split us up by grouping our majors together, then later on by specific major. I remember by the end of the process there were three of us who headed into Jarman that afternoon to sign up for classes, myself, Lauren and another girl. The other girl was called into Dr. Rao’s office first to be placed in classes, and I remember sitting in the hallway of Jarman on one bench while Lauren sat on the other bench at the other end of the hallway.

When I am in new situations I tend to take in my surroundings and analyze them thoroughly, but I don’t often talk much. Just the same, there was no real conversation in that hallway that afternoon but I remember watching Lauren studying a bulletin board intently trying it figure out what she was studying. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, there were hellos and names exchanged and then just like that it was time for Lauren to go be placed in classes. It would be cool to think the first time we met could be a spectacular story, but in real life it was just a normal hello.

The next day (Wednesday) entering a Media Law class I found myself sitting next to Lauren and then Thursday in Broadcast too. Every weekday, sparing the occasional road trip for baseball, I sat next to her for the hour or hour and fifteen minutes in class.

I’d like to say our everlasting bond quickly grew from there, but the truth is life is much more complicated and gradual than that. And unfortunately I’m quite shy and inept at creating last friendships with just anyone. It takes quite a talent in order to go one and half years at another University and not create one friendship that lasted after you left. Especially playing on an athletic team and being involved with the school paper. But I did.

Yet, by some circumstance I was put in a class with someone every day which was probably going to be the only way I built any kind of a relationship with a person on campus. I remember eating dinner with Lauren and her suitemate one time because the team had left dinner before I was finished and they happened to be sitting close by.  That’s where I learned we both had significant others whom we planned on getting married to. But that was the extent of our communication outside of class, save for the facebook wall posts making fun of Dr. Rao’s sweater or our grades on a test. Sitting next to this girl in class everyday, I didn’t really know anything about her and I never even really had enough guts to find out.

Then again circumstance stepped in. After sitting in class for 3 and a half  months, during exam week I got an IM from Lauren asking the answer to a couple quiz questions that might show up on Dr. Rao’s final exam. I found the answers and passed them along, then went back on to my studying. Next night same thing, only my turn to ask a questions and then back to studying. Then on the third night, somehow a simple question about Dr. Sydnor’s exam that morning turned into one of the most amazing conversations of my life. It must have started somewhere around 9:30 in the evening, but I remember it didn’t end until 4:30 in the morning. The girl whom the day before I had only known was really smart, a transfer student like myself, funny and in a relationship suddenly became a full person in one evening. I look back at the conversation, which has been wonderfully saved by the AIM logger on my computer, and I can see we talked about everything from our names, to our families, to our relationships, to classes, to our futures, to our thoughts about drinking and college and even our experience with newspaper and yearbook in high school. (Little did I know that was going to play an interesting role in the future.)

What I did know though, was after having the conversation I would be lying to say I realized any type of love connection because I was already in a relationship I was trying to work out, but going to sleep that night I remember saying almost outloud, “wow.” I realized right there I just had a special conversation and one that I would remember forever no matter what the future held. I was wowing the things I had found out from this girl in this conversation and how unique they were, and I couldn’t help but think they were quite similar to how I felt about things, and also to how long and easy the conversation was. I had gone two years at Liberty and I had learned more about this girl in one night than I had found out about anyone else since I had been in college.

Once again though, we rarely realize the significance of situations as they happen to us. We talked again the next day and reflected no the fact that Dr. Sydnor had responded to an email from Lauren where he asked if the two of us were together. We both brushed it off as nonsense. Clearly the old man was out of his mind and seeing things? Right? That would be the first of  many comments from peers to come. 

Then we lost contact over the summer, as most college friends do. Personal relationships and work ruled until I got a wall post the week before classes last fall saying something to the extent of “are you in any of my classes please say yes!” I had already checked it out at the beginning of the summer and knew we would have media and society together so naturally I answered with an “I think so. A COMM class.” Didn’t want to seem to sure of myself I guess.  

Early on second semester proved to be tough when I found out I wouldn’t be playing baseball at Longwood anymore. Originally, the sole reason I had come to Longwood was to play ball. There were better academic schools available and better Communications programs, but I was interested in playing too. Immediately after finding out I wouldn’t be playing ball at Longwood anymore I looked into transferring. At that time I planned on being close to home, around people I knew and felt comfortable around. I was going to become a full time assistant at my high school and I wasn’t happy with it all, but I was “ok” with it.

Then, yet again, circumstance stepped in.

Lauren, as she so often does, informed me in class on day that I would be going with her to a Rotunda meeting that Thursday night. I say informed, because it wasn’t really an asking as much as it was telling me I would be going. Incidentally, not playing baseball opened up the timeslot for that meeting perfectly, and ever since I was a young kid my love for baseball and sports has been mirrored closely with how much I enjoy journalism, writing and newspaper layout. I ended up going, and to this day I owe Lauren a lot of the credit for my getting involved with the paper, because while I would have been content to just take an article and write it Lauren was intent on getting more involved. And when I saw the opportunity to get more involved with the campus newspaper I finally found something that I could throw all the energy that was being left unused after baseball into. Working on the newspaper was also another way to hang out with Lauren, who was quickly becoming my closest friend. More and more comments started being thrown to me about whether or not we were together. I still thought everyone was nuts, and frankly, I was still intent on transferring to VCU after the semester. While what I was doing was great and I was excited, I still wanted to be home around people I cared about.

Then “The Rotundas” went to Washington D.C. and again for some reason things changed. As if mirrored, I realized for the first time at Oktoberfest the weeks before Washington D.C. that the relationship I was in at the time was going in a bad direction while Lauren ended up leaving for D.C. no longer in a relationship. That trip was one of the coolest of my life. It was one of the first where I had traveled somewhere and had to fend for myself completely and it was a great growing experience for everyone on the newspaper and Lauren and I. I remember discussing relationship problems during the trip and on the way home. Again, it was another wow moment for me. Never having spent that much time around this girl outside of class it was a whole new experience to be together in the group for mostly all day. We traveled to all the sessions together where we developed cell phone soccer to send text messages where we couldn’t get service. No judgement necessary...thanks. The trip was fun, and it changed my whole perspective on what I was going to do.

I would be lying if I said some of it didn’t have to do with VCU not being able to get their act together, but I remember texting Lauren on the way back about the future of the paper and her texting me back saying that it sounded like I wasn’t planning on transferring anymore. I said nope, I’m not. I realized after the fun on that trip that perhaps our friendship was special enough that it wasn’t worth giving up on just so I could go home and go to a school that I wasn’t really excited about and coach high school baseball. Another one of the best decisions I made in the past few years and again it had a lot to do with one person.

After I decided to stay, I quickly realized the relationships being built at the paper were pretty strong. We started coming in on Tuesday nights and doing layout. Then one day Emily, the Editor-in-Chief, took Lauren and I aside and said that she would be stepping down as Editor-in-Chief soon and that the assistant editor at the time,  Ben, would not want to take the position. I remember thinking about how great it would be to work as the Editor-in-Chief of a campus newspaper. Lauren and I talked that night about the things we saw for the paper and all the things we wanted to do. We were so excited then even though we knew how much work it would take and now most of our goals have come to pass and it’s amazing to think that they all started from those conversations. I don’t know if what happened with the paper ever could have if we hadn’t been there to get it started together. The dreams may have been too big for anyone to pull off by themselves.

Once I decided not to go to VCU the relationship between the Rotunda staff and Lauren and I began to grow even closer. The strength of those relationships in my life finally gave me the strength to end another relationship, which had been hindering my life for over a year. Again, having the newspaper and a friend like I had rarely ever come across I did alright when it came time to happen in the middle of November. I remember spending Thanksgiving that year facebook posting on Washington D.C. pictures, talking to Lauren and playing the Oregon trail. I couldn’t believe at the time how ok I was with what had happened not even a couple weeks before. For some reason I felt like things were headed in the right direction.

During the break Lauren sheepishly invited me to a wedding for one of her friends that happened to fall on my birthday. What she didn’t know was that the kid who got out of a break up weeks before probably doesn’t have much planned for his birthday. It was a welcomed thought for me to think I could spend the day at a wedding with a friend. I thought it would be fun. The only problem was listening to my dad and friends act like it was some kind of date. I told them they were all crazy, it clearly wasn’t...

I remember the wedding and thinking about how much fun it was there and being around Lauren. Again, like many times I sometimes step back and marvel about how much different she is than most everyone else. For the first time that night we had hung out together not in a school setting and not in a group of people we both knew and it was a different type of fun. Clearly we had mastered being great friends, but a relatively awkward dance moment during the wedding showed we weren’t ready for any steps beyond that. Even so, I realized that night that she was the type of girl I wanted to be around and with. Clearly beautiful and smart, I hadn’t realized I could have so much fun with someone at a place where I had walked in not knowing anyone. She seemed to carry herself differently than anyone with whom I had past experiences in that situation. Hard to explain, I won’t. I realized though, that this girl was special and what began from barely talking had grown all the way to me realizing how much I liked her and maybe hadn’t been able to appreciate before.

As life goes though, those things are difficult. Friendships and relationships don’t always mix. I remember continuing to talk over winter break, but not disclosing my feelings because the friendship had become so important to me that anything that could potentially mess that up wasn't something I was comfortable dealing with. As most people do when they like someone and don’t tell them, I waited anxiously the entire winter break thinking about getting back to school and having the excuse to be around her and the newspaper office and classes. Low and behold on my first day back we all gathered in the newspaper office and then had dinner together. Then that night, due to some friendly pressure from people who had apparently seen things that led them to believe we were both hiding similar feelings, we were encouraged into talking about how we felt.

I remember that it took me almost two and half hours to get out how I felt and finally say it. It was pretty nerve racking and the first and only time I have ever gone out on a limb to tell someone how I felt. Thankfully the reception was good, online atleast, and talking about it was perfect. I remember going to sleep that night pinching myself…I literally thought I was dreaming because it seem too good to be true. Unfortunately, for the moment it was. From two days after that conversation until almost nine months later things got awkward and strenuous for reasons I don’t think I’ll ever completely understand. While Lauren and I never stopped talking things were awkward. We still had fun, and we never ever stopped talking, but there was no more hang outs outside of publishing night and classes where we didn’t even sit next to each other like we had previously. Conversations always seemed to be ok, but there always seemed like there were things that weren’t being said. That’s the problem with friendships and relationships, they don’t mix well and going back isn’t so easy after you’ve stepped out on a limb. I was very worried I had screwed up something great for a long time.

I left school for the summer amazed at how far things had come in one school year. I had gone from being a pretty good friend, to really good friend, to best friends, to almost together, to a friend kept at arms length by the end of the year. The summer was a weird time and while we talked, the conversations drifted apart and towards subjects that weren’t as deep as even our first conversation online more than a year before.

I got through a tough summer for many personal reasons and came back to school determined to concentrate on the paper and graduation and try to be happy through those things. In fact, I got so much tunnel vision on those goals that I almost missed circumstances slapping me upside the head again. This time it was Lauren going out on a limb to tell me how she felt. After the previous year we had been through together I was scared to put our relationship through the awkwardness again when we had finally seemed to reach a resting point as the friends I thought we would be. I was nervous,  I was slightly confused about what to believe.

It wasn’t until election night when night Barack Obama won the White House and the reason why most people will remember that night, but I will remember it because of the three hour talk on the steps of the loading dock at the student union where for the first time in almost a year we had real talk. I’ll never forget the discussion. For the first time we talked about everything that happened and tried to figure out why things had happened the way they did. I don’t think we ever got a solid answer, I doubt there is a solid answer, but I realized two things that night. One, I realized just how much someone could care and what it was like to see a person really hurt over someone they care about. Two, I realized that somewhere along the way before that night I had fallen in love with that girl. I still don’t know when, although I have some ideas (like the San Francisco trip which I have some of the funniest memories of my entire life from). But I couldn’t tell myself when just that it was there, and I had felt this perpetually empty feeling because I felt like my thoughts had been unanswered for so long about what had gone wrong. Apparently nothing except life and confusion, which is a beautiful thing. I believe even the unexplainable things happen for a reason and I would never have changed the way things have worked out.

 I can honestly say that following that conversation the rest is indeed history. The opportunity presented itself, and I didn’t want it to pass. And while I don’t believe things that are meant to be will automatically be, I believe all the things, good and bad, worked out for Lauren and I to have the opportunity to be together at the right point in time. I don’t believe any other time would have worked out as perfectly as it has now.

I don’t think certain things in life are meant to be explained. I can understand where the thought of luck can be built off of that statement, but even though it can’t be explained why I can somehow see that at every turn it seemed like someone was looking out and guiding a path towards where we are now. I know it’s true and I know that being able to explain why is not as important as realizing the path that has been set and making sure you take advantage of it.

Sometimes I look at Lauren and I almost can’t tell the difference between our relationships since we have gotten together as compared to when were just friends. We don’t talk that differently other than certain words, and we don’t do many things differently than we did before other than being around each other more often and touching. I chalk it up to the fact that the connection is deeper, and maybe that’s what everyone has been seeing forever. I don’t know how it’s possible to connect with someone that deeply and not know it, but I have begun to realize that I did ignore it for the longest time because communicating now I realize that we’ve talked the same way and on the same level we do now for almost as long as i can remember.

But I’m happy about that because even before I realized it my relationship with her gave me more contentment than anything I have experience in my life, and it wasn’t until that relationship seemed to be drifting away that I realized how empty I felt without it. When it came back, and now that it has finally reached such a great level, I can’t help but appreciate it even more for almost knowing what my life would be without it.

I don’t believe in luck. I believe things happen for a reason, to teach, to hurt, to serve as opportunity, to show us what’s important and finally to show us how much we should appreciate certain things in our life. Because the more we do the more we realize that we wouldn’t ever want to lose it. It’s a grand confusing plan, but a plan after all. And one that worked out for the best, with me having someone amazing to be together with.

 

Happy Valentine’s Day Babe

I love you Lauren

 

-A.J. Karidis