I’m reluctant to make even brief comment on this meme, let alone elaborate upon it. If the details are too embarrassing, the memories become more searingly painful as every passing year confirms a lost joy. I’ll just say that it never once occurred to me that the inordinate interest an attractive young woman, who was the spitting image of Jane Asher in the ‘60s, and who sat next to me at night school and at break, whom I would escort to the college car park and engage in joyous conversation until her father picked her up to take her home .. took in my future plans to apply to university and leave the town were not actually motivated by a concern for my academic well-being. She had a job and was staying in town. I now see that her interest was less encouragement to me to apply for university and more an attempt on her part to elicit the information she needed from me, to see if there was the remotest inkling in my thinking that she had any part to play in my future plans. The singular focus on university I exhibited must have dampened her ardor. But it was an illusion. The tragic part of all of this is that I was merely playing a role, trying so very hard to do things the right way, the way that others who went to university did it. The fact that I was prevaricating rather than actually completing the application forms indicated that I was clearly unsure. I really didn’t want to go, but it seemed that it was my only option in an age of mass unemployment. And it was what most of my other friends from school had done. In truth, I delayed and delayed and ended up applying only after the“A” level results came out. Despite being the best in class by far, I was dragging my feet. My inquisitor-encourager was hardly in error in intuiting
that there might well have been a deep reason for my evident reluctance to leave town. She kept questioning, and I kept the focus on education, maintaining a Zen-like impassivity that gave nothing away. Apart from once when, having failed to fill in any applications, despite my declared intentions, she questioned me and I blushed bright red and went completely silent. She should have pounced there and then! I wait and wait and wait …
Months later – having returned from the university life I hated with a vengeance – I met one of the other members of the class, who wanted to know how I had got on with my results. She then asked about S. I said I hadn’t seen her since the exams. The woman looked most puzzled, utterly perplexed, actually. Screwing her face up, she declared her surprise, saying that “we all thought you two were an item.” The significance of her observation still didn’t register with me, as I quickly returned to boasting about my grade “A” distinction in the exams.
The fact is, I knew at the time that the day was fast approaching when we would come to part. It never occurred to me to ask her out. I was happy enough to be sat next to her and didn’t want the happy memories I was already planning to nurture over the year risk ruination by possible rejection. And I remember consciously thinking at the time that many years from now I would still be thinking of her. My judgement was that life never gets that good. It was a complete misjudgement. The signs were many, weekly, consistent, and obvious.
But
"faint heart never won fair lady."
Being out-of-kilter with reality, being at cross-purposes with others, always struggling and being the butt of others’ jokes saps confidence and courage. In my head, I idolised her. She had a full-time job and was studying history because, as theory went at the time, it was a great subject for future management. She had no university ambitions. She was also studying economics and struggling badly. I already had economics “A” level, which she thought was marvellous. My marks in the history class were first class, regularly scoring 20+ out of 25 for the essays. Intellectually I was hot! I must have cut an impressive figure. I was easily the best in the class. I should have been swaggering with confidence. Unfortunately, I had brought the psychological effects of years of failure at school with me. It never occurred to me that people in this class saw only the me that I now was, the super-smart high achiever. So I’ll blame that. Knowing fine well that, with top grades at degree and postgraduate level, I still didn’t strut and swagger as I ought to have done in face of expressions of interest by impressed others.
Wrapped up in particularly interests and activities, you can miss what is important in life. I've made some big mistakes in my life, but this one was by far and away the biggest. I'm not going to write of the happy-ever-after that never was. The odds are that my 'awkward' nature would have caused yet more 'issues.' She was the most level-headed, organised, neat and tidy kind of girl, the kind who liked things done right, events nicely scheduled, and everything in its place. I have my own system. But on ne sais jamais. What I do know is that I would gladly exchange every certificate I would come to earn in the years that followed to go back to 1984 and act in light of what I now know. I’d be a sight happier, that’s for sure. But there it is. In addition to all the frustration that comes with living life at cross-purposes there is the ever-deepening awareness of the opportunities for happiness, fulfilment, and wholeness you have missed, and the heart-rending knowledge that once upon a time comes once and never again.
