Never Ending Remembrance

“Up and Over to a Place Down Under”

“There is a certain fish in the sea waiting to be caught, Jason. You may not be a great fisherman but even you should be able to see that the conditions are just right.” Jeremy usually had everyone’s attention unless he wanted to direct it otherwise and at that time he wanted it directed at me.

Everyone was mocking me and I knew it but I could not figure out exactly what they all meant. Obviously somebody from the group liked me more than just a friend but what if I was wrong? Doubting myself was dangerous but an assumption would have surely made an ass out of me. There were five people, Jeremy and four girls, gathered around me giggling and sneering at me in a cathedral in Wanganui, New Zealand. I was sixteen years old and on a four week tour of Australia and New Zealand with thirty high school students my age from Central Illinois and East Tennessee on a program called People to People Student Ambassadors.

We were a close knit group to say the least. There were no outsiders among us and smaller groups did not form in spite of our size and different backgrounds. We were a group of friends having the best time of our lives and knew that there would be few better in the years to come. Jeremy, Jennifer, Emily, Beth, and Amanda would not give me any more hints that day in the cathedral other than that there was a fish in the sea for me, but it would not be much longer after that until I knew for sure.

It was obvious to everyone who liked me. It was obvious to everyone but me, of course, and for good reasons too, damn it. There was Jennifer who went to the same high school with me and who I had a major crush on when I was in the fifth grade. Emily and I would go jogging every morning to see the area around us without a tour guide. Beth and I went scuba diving together while everyone else went snorkeling. Even Amanda, who had a crush on Jeremy, laughed harder than anyone else at my jokes. Her laughter made me blush on more than one occasion. My doubts were justified, so why was it so obvious to everyone but me?

Bah! It was Kathie Logue . . . Of coarse! In Auckland, New Zealand everyone had stayed with a host family so everyone was split off from each other for the day. Most of us, however, were at a huge shopping district with our host brothers and sisters and the people I saw told me that Kathie had said, “hi” while giggling to themselves. My memory had immediately flashed back to long conversations with Kathie while on the road. I remembered that they were not really conversations but rather her staring at me listening as if what I had to say was the most important thing in her life. A few days earlier, the coach driver could not find the camp of the Maori tribe that we were to stay at and it was getting late. I was next to Kathie and she was having trouble sleeping on the bus so I had offered her my shoulder to sleep on. I was unable to remember ever being so comfortable with being uncomfortable in my life.

I was fascinated by the aborigines and tribal life, but I was disappointed when the driver had finally found the camp. Kathie was the most beautiful person on the trip and that I had ever seen. She had long, straight hair past her shoulders and it was the lightest of brown shinning in the sun. I was a lost, little boy every time I looked into her deep green eyes. Luckily, after being told by a dozen people, mostly girls, that day in Auckland that Kathie had said hi, I was given plenty of opportunities to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. I was also lost on many levels and yet had known I was where I wanted to be. Those contradictions were not the last ones I had during that relationship.

It was not until our teary eyed airplane trip back home, however, that I finally asked Kathie to confirm my suspicions. It was three a.m. and we were on the plane up and over the Pacific Ocean taking us away from our place down under. I was awake because I had the arm rest piercing my rib cage while leaning over to make Kathie comfortable. Kathie was awake because she did not want the trip to end. That was what she said at least though I half suspected I was not the only one with an arm rest propped up against my side.

How happy it was to grieve when the emotion brought someone I loved so close to me. I was the happiest, depressed person that had ever contradicted the earth. On that airplane, I was holding my first love, my true love close to me. I was depressed because that moment would end but I was euphoric because the memory would not.

Stay! Wait! Don’t Go! Shouting to a memory I relived in my dreams, I woke up each morning knowing that releasing the fish back into the sea was a mistake. What was I to do, you Bastard!? Send the Fish to a taxidermist and had Her mounted on a Wall? Who was I angry at? She thought I was angry at her, but she was wrong. I was angry at the contradiction that was boiling inside of me. I was Angry at being Angry at not Wanting the things I Wanted and yet Wanting them the same. Sigh. There was, however, that airplane trip home that we shared . . . At the end of the relationship, she said goodbye. I, however, did not because I was still on that airplane that was up and over the Pacific taking us away from the place down under that we had shared.