StoryTime - The One That Got Away

A couple of weeks ago, I had the thought that since I would blogging on a daily basis, there would be a point where nothing would happen that day and I didn't have a big topic to pick at. From there, I thought that I could share some stories, like I did with last year's Spring Break trip. I would have the story written down and it would be a change from the normal. So, let's have another StoryTime!

I've actually thought about blogging this story for a couple of weeks, but wasn't sure if I wanted to post it. Earlier this evening, I had How I Met Your Mother on and I watched "The Wedding" episode from Season 1 for the first time. (Pause! I'd like to take a second to say that I haven't really followed HIMYM outside of re-runs, so I'm still learning. Unpause.) In that episode, Ted and Victoria meet for the first time at a wedding and have a romantic evening and plan to keep it at that - no more contact, no sleeping together, and nothing that would make it too real. They both wanted to have a memory that's untainted and of the one that got away. I tried to look on YouTube/IMDB/HIMYM Wiki for the quote, but Ted has this excellent piece in a taxi at the end of the episode on how he shouldn't see Victoria again so that the memory can remain unchanged and simple. Granted, the show moves on, Ted goes into Victoria's bakery, and many things happen between them over the next seven seasons apparently. (Due to the re-runs, the first time I saw Victoria was the "Why are you wearing a wedding dress?" episode, so I know my facts are all askew.)

So, after seeing that episode, I decided "I should write this story down" because I do have a memory of the one that got away.

*insert flashback music*

It's the summer summer right after high school (I'm fairly confident) and I'm at a summer music camp. The summer camp is broken into separate weeks for choir and band and even though the camp took place in my hometown, I stayed with the rest of the campers in one of the college's res halls. Choir camp the previous week was a big hit and everyone had just moved in for band camp. Including Lily. (Not actually her name, but I'm keeping with the HIMYM motif.) Lily was two years younger than me and very pretty. She definitely liked pink and she kept her blond hair in a ponytail a lot of the time. She played the oboe and she was incredibly talented at it. She also had a lovely singing voice, but she was nervous about singing in front of others.

The first couple of days of camp happen and Lily is one of about five other campers that I spend a lot of time with. I played trumpet, so it wasn't like we had sectionals or small group ensembles together, but our little group always ate together and hung out in the free time we had. One morning, Lily was in the shower and thought she got a splinter in her foot. The floor bathrooms were kind of old and she wouldn't make a story like that up, so that evening, we told the counselors during the evening rec time. They looked at her foot and only saw a small cut, but thought that a splinter may have gone in her food under the skin. They grabbed a pair of tweezers and poked around, which in hindsight, was probably a pretty silly/bad thing to do. Lily was down in the game room after the floor curfew and for whatever reason, if she asked me or I asked her, I was down there too.

After some time of poking and prying, the counselors bandaged up Lily's foot and I helped her up to her floor. (Guys and girls were on separate floors, since you know, band camp and all that.) When I got to my room, my roommate told me that when a counselor came by to do room checks, he was like "Hi Chris (roommate's actual name). Where's Matt? *pokes head into hallway* Matt! *pause* Oh right. *turns to Chris* Go to bed. *leaves*" It got me to laugh, especially since Chris was half-asleep while telling the story.

The next morning, Lily's foot was still in pain and she jokingly asked if someone would give her a piggy back ride to breakfast. I said "sure" and she laughed. After I said I was serious, she agreed and I carried her to the union while she held our music folders. The camp counselors wanted to take another look at Lily's foot away from the other campers who were eating and Lily asked me to go with her. Throughout the next couple of days, I carried her around from place to place and our group of friends continued to hang out and have fun together. Just to add some information, Lily and I did know each other from a year or two earlier. We didn't hang out as much previously, but there were plenty of fun conversations and jokes and things that happened that I'm not fully typing out.

One of the last nights of the week was the tradition of going to the bowling alley nearby. The entire camp went and engulfed all the lanes and my friend group took up two lanes. None of us has groundbreaking games, but we were all having an awesome time. There were points where Lily or I would get a strike and high-five everyone, but our high-five would linger just a little longer. Lily wore pink that night and her hair tied back with a pink ribbon. At one point in the night, without saying anything, Lily untied the ribbon from her hair and tied it around my wrist. When everyone walked back to the res hall after the bowling alley closed, Lily and I didn't say much, but we were walking closely together.

The next day was the last full day of camp and when the counselors showed everyone a photo slideshow of the camp, Lily and I held hands. The rest of the camp was focused on wrapping things up - final rehearsals, final activities, getting ready for the big concert the next day. I think I ate lunch with her family and her on that final day. I think Lily's family would have looked down on her had we held hands or done anything like that, so nothing really happened in that extent. We said our goodbyes after the concert and went back to our separate towns.

We kept in touch to some extent after that. There was some emailing but then she didn't use her email because she felt like she was sneaking behind her parents' backs to do it. We wrote a letter or two, but I fell through on keeping that up. There was a period in college when we would talk for long stretches of time on the phone. We've seen each other a couple times. The most recent time was actually spring break two years ago. I focused that break on seeing people in the Cities and I took a Greyhound to the Wisconsin town where she went to school. It was a brief visit, just a handful of hours, but I got to see the campus and meet some of her friends over dinner. When she showed me the music building, she played the piano and sang a piece and she was still stunning. I didn't feel any romantic spark, but it was nice to see a friend from my childhood.

Over the years, I came to accept the fact that we weren't going to end up together like some romantic comedy. As Ted Mosby would say, the memory was enough and nothing could tarnish that. Even though I've talked/communicated/seen her since then, that week of summer camp will exist as it's own memory. (Maybe I'm tooting my own horn, but it also feels like a cute, little story.) After writing this story, I do wonder what's she up to and I think she is a very kind person with extraordinary musical gifts. So, she definitely has the capacity to do what her heart truly desires.