Wednesday, October 7, 2009

stephanie lord

WOMEN 34
A year younger than me, we spent most of our college theater careers together. A good actress. More than good. Wonderful voice. Passionate. Bright. In her first year, i opined to some theater colleagues that her performance in a play didn't quite merit the gushing it was prompting. Maybe i honestly felt that a little, but essentially i was just a jerk who was threatened by a freshman being gushed over. I never considered her romantically, because i never had any reason to think she might consider me. Three years later, came a bittersweet moment. She was set to graduate a semester early, and i a semester late. I don't remember how it came about, but i invited her to watch a black & white movie. And for the first time ever, we hung out, just the two of us. She had lyme disease, and had also been hurt when she'd fallen asleep at the wheel. That night we found out that we both had assumed for three years that the other wasn't attracted…wrongly. We had been intimidated by each other. It was too late to discover what we could have been, but for one night, the first-love college romance i was never to have was right there...two outstretched hands away. A romance that could have gone anywhere. I found out she'd always felt a bit of an "outsider" in a department that had embraced her…which was perhaps a fair description of me as well (my non-drinking setting me apart). With her it was earnest christianity, but unlike my romance with Chris, that wall seemed laughably leapable. But too late…she was engaged to some Fred fellow, and moving to Florida. Oh Steph. Here's a sigh for you, wherever you flew…

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