nobody said it was easy {part 2}

{justin plays this on the piano and it's always been one of my favorites of cold play}

broken hearts are a funny thing, ya know? it comes just like anything else in waves or stages. my life though, still went on. my world didnt stop spinning but my heart was indeed hurt. bitter. non-talk-about-it-numb were the waves i fought.

 all those weeks leading up to thanksgiving, every night i would lay in bed and go over everything.
ever morsel of comments he made. comments i would reply back.

i was determined to not have this ruin the friendship that was at the heart of who we were.

 suddenly, in a matter of me dropping my coat and purse on the floor, i stood up to a new look on his face. something that day on thanksgiving seemed to wipe everything out of its place. my friend was gone.

the phrase from cold plays the scientist...."oh take me back to the start" never rang more true as i cried myself to sleep on the many nights that followed.

i could handle us not being more then friends. i knew it was a big risk. but really, the tragedy wasn't the "what will never be".... the tragedy is the loss of what was. the friend.
the way i knew he would look at me or put his arm around me when i entered the room.

i have no idea why he volunteered to come with me that day. or why with friends the so called "joking/flirting" comments would come up of us possibly dating, justin with a straight look into my eyes would reply
"ask tierra just why were not dating".........."ummm HELLO because you never asked JUSTIN" is what i wanted to scream.

when he left my aunts house that november day, it was quick with his foots treading backwards as he yells ...."see ya later. I make two turns to get out of the neighbor hood right?" and with my nod he nods and gets in his car. that was it. 

all through december and into january we didnt speak.
no phone calls. no texting. nothing....
though on december 12th i think it's funny how both of us in our different church wards, at the exact same time, were standing up at the pulpit to give talks in sacrament.

this past sunday, was the first time we saw each other. spoke words. hugged.

it felt, hard.

hard on so many levels that i had not planned for us to see each other at all that night.
i didnt feel like i was "ready."

this past sunday was our stake ysa get together. i had told several friends that i would be there but in the afternoon, another friend had called and asked if i wanted to come with her to go visit another friend. i thought "sure". i really didnt want to go the activity anyway, so off i went.

when seven o'clock came, my phone immediately started ringing from friends asking where i was and why i wasn't there yet to the activity. i decided to ignore them.

just as i was about to put my cell phone in my purse, it rang again. with a quick look, i nearly dropped my phone when i saw justin's picture staring at me as his number was ringing.

it's the picture i adore so much from his mission. i had added that picture to his number contact  when i had bought the new phone. that picture has greeted me so many times last year when we would call each other to laugh and argue about twilight or his speeding tickets.

with the phone call though, i ignored it too.

then the texting started. with him telling me "just. get. here."  and  " I will, see you soon".

i knew though, that it had to happen sometime, so i might as well get it over with. i told my friend to just drop me off at the church building.

as soon as i walked into the cultural hall, everyone was sitting at a table and i was trying to make a straight beeline to an empty seat FAR from his end of the table..... he get's up and cuts my path and wraps his arms around me from the back and whispers..."it's been awhile" with a light squeeze.

i would be lying if i didn't say the thought to swing my purse at his head for that comment and say "AND YOU KNOW WHY!"

but i didnt.

as the night went on it was just plain, odd.

i knew he was looking at me, watching me speak to the other girls at my end of the table and me trying not to look his way.
every now and then he would try to jump in with a comment here or there but i manged to just switch subjects or pick up my cell phone or something in my purse. oh such am i a girl!

as the evening went on, i asked everyone if they wanted any water from the kitchen. as i got up and was headed to the door a familiar voice exclaims "i think i'm going to go spend sometime and help Tierra"....

in my mind with a heart racing I was screaming inside "NO! DO. NOT. FOLLOW. ME!"

he follows me with his "so justin like" grin and gets the door. straight into the hallway all the lights were off and he trys to make small talk. small talk a? i can do small talk, so small talk we do as if that cold November day was nothing but a blurr on our friendship radar.

he tells me he's planning on going back to Brazil in june and stay a month while i chat about being the new beehives leader and plan on going to visit friends in California. i have to admit, it was nice.

nice to hear his voice and watch the way he walks and note how taller he is then me.
it felt like i had my friend again. my old friend justin whom i adore.

but wait, my heart hurts. hurting as i try to keep telling myself that all those looks and comments and him grabbing my chin to look him straight in the eye to come dancing on thursday, don't mean anything.
just justin being him and charming his way. but nothing serious.

i am not the one for him. at least not in his eyes.

as we all started to get in our cars and me in my friend allisons who was taking me home, she parked next him. he tells me to come listen to some new songs he just knows i will love. in which i do. i laugh and tell him i better get a copy of those and try to get in the car. "wait, one more" he states and plays the Latino version of "stand by me" {see below}

i smile really big. that's always been a favorite song, and with the Hispanic flair, i adore it. he smiles back and says "i knew you would like that one"

i laugh and say "again, i better get a copy of that, maybe that could be a valentine gift to all of us girls" with a wink. he's says "no problem" with that sly smile back.

and just like that everything gets scraped under the rug. when i got home that night, i wondered "should i just let it be like that?" "let it all go?"

it's so very hard right now. how do you stop liking someone, have feelings for someone, who doesn't return them in anyway? someone with a quick charm of the mouth who can pour words of honey out so easily? i still think keeping a huge distance from him is my only way of getting over this.

like i said at the beginning, the tragedy is the loss of the friendship we had. i can never let it go back to that. i
know what i want though for him, and that is for him to find whatever it is he's searching for. i hope he will believe in himself more. and i hope he will continue to be that young man whom i admired the night of the church Halloween trunk or treat that was so tall and confident. whose eyes were so solid on things that really matter.

justin, if your reading this....just continue to be you. be that young man that always gives a firm handshake when someone enters the room that i've seen you do so many a time.

as for me, because of you, i will always be your friend and i will always, stand by you.
{the bachata, Spanish version of stand by me. the last song he played me this past sunday night}

back to my november {part 1}

 

the day was thanksgiving day. the feeling was uncertainty. my happiness was of things that could come to be.
everyone has been asking me of what happened to the boy mentioned in this post.

justin, is his name.

some of you might remember this post. the night to where he grabbed me up to dance and it was just the two of us in the middle of  the floor with white chinese lanterns hanging from above. he dipped me that night.
it was truly one of the best nights and moments of my life.

for a moment, let me take you back. justin and i have known each other for a long time.  i'm smiling just thinking back to how both of us have stories of the first time we met and neither one of the stories are the same.

my version is that it was two months prior to him leaving on a mission for our church. he had just been called to serve in brazil and i thought that was so fascinating. a lot of my friends and i were at the home of justin's cousin and we were all up stairs getting ready to watch a movie. earlier that evening, we had all been at the YSA talent night at church where justin had just played the drums. that was my first time i remember seeing him. the boy who had played the drums was now sitting directly in front of me. i don't remember much of what was said except i remember telling him how i liked his playing and that i hoped he had a wonderful mission in brazil. that it must be exciting to leave to such a far a way place. i remember he was very tall with light brown/blond hair with alittle bit of a pudgy face. with the look of a little shy, maybe alittle unsure of himself but defiantly ready to leave and get out of town.

justins story, "verison" states back way longer then i ever thought and one that no matter how hard i try, i can't remember. he always likes to tell how i was the shortie 17 yr.old and he "already way taller" at 15, had asked me to dance at a youth church dance. that i was in  purple dress and we danced twice. it's funny, i remember that gosh awful purple dress ....{smiles}!

"THAT"...is how we met, he states.

When justin came back from his mission, i had NO idea the night of my ward chili dinner/trunk or treat in 2009 that the tall, very slender, verrrrrry attracted guy with his head held high and laughing smile was the same guy i set right in front of two years prior with the pudgy face. let alone, a guy that had asked me to dance when i was seventeen years old and could even tell you the color of my dress.

he was there that night as an invite from another mutual friend and was walking all around our cultural hall talking and  laughing.

and i, was watching him.

i still had no clue to who he was but attracted, i was, to this reaalllly tall, good looking young man.

2010 was a year for all of us to start getting together more often, me and my friends. slowly the story of who he was and me remembering the night of the boy who played drums came back to me.

after the summer, moments and comments being made between the two of us sent my head and my heart spinning on what could this possibly mean? nights......so many many nights of me up late with friends on the phone going over what was running in his mind and why he was making certain comments that made my heart leap that this.....this just might be something worth pursuing.

as thanksgiving was approaching and the cold chill of november was starting to form on the earth, he volunteered to come with me to my fathers side of the family thanksgiving dinner. i did not ask him.

as the day came and my mind went wondering if this meant anything at all, i was excited. hopeful. but yet, i was not going to push him. we were not a couple. i had not told my family that we were a couple nor had i presented ANY false idea that we could be to my family. he was simply a friend. a good friend. one whom i have come to really like and admire. i like his charm and his cut-to-the-point sarcasm in the way he handles situations. the way he handles questions in general to our church. i love the way he makes every girl feel like they matter, i included. i loved how when someone enters a room he doesn't know, he stands up and presents a firm handshake to introduce himself.

he did that the day we arrived at my families dinner.

but then, something horribly went wrong.

a twist of silence that came from him the moment we set down to eat  left me feeling crushed and bitter as he barely spoke ten words to me in my aunts home. the feeling in the air around the dinner table as if he wanted to bolt. to leave. to have nothing to do with me. i couldnt understand why? i hadnt done anything? i had not introduced him as a boyfriend or anything else for that matter! my mind was racing. i didnt eat any food. my heart was barely hanging on and i found myself pacing the house so not to make things worse if i was to go sit beside him.
he stayed for one hour and the silence was loud. so very loud. i was numb after that.

after that day, all the friends & cousins were wondering what happened? why wasn't i calling them immediately to let them know how it went? it took me almost two whole weeks after thanksgivng before i really told anyone. even my aunt whom i live with, didnt know until i could finally let it out without crying.
all this time since that november day, i, have been nursing a very broken, bitter heart.

the best way to describe everything now is, is through these lyrics...."The story of Us" by T. Swift

I used to think one day we'd tell the story of us
How we met and the sparks flew instantly
People would say, "they're the lucky ones"
I used to know my place was a spot next to you
Now I'm searching the room for an empty seat
'Cause lately I don't even know what page you're on
Oh, a simple complication
Miscommunications lead to fall out
So many things that I wish you knew
So many walls up I can't break through

Now I'm standing alone
In a crowded room
And we're not speaking
And I'm dying to know
Is it killing you
Like it's killing me?
I don't know what to say
Since a twist of fate
When it all broke down
And the story of us
Looks a lot like a tragedy now
Next chapter

How'd we end up this way?
See me nervously pulling at my clothes
And trying to look busy
And you're doing your best to avoid me
I'm starting to think one day I'll tell the story of us
How I was losing my mind when I saw you here
But you held your pride like you should have held me
Oh, we're scared to see the ending
Why are we pretending this is nothing?
I'd tell you I miss you but I don't know how
I've never heard silence quite this loud

Now I'm standing alone
In a crowded room

And we're not speaking
And I'm dying to know
Is it killing you
Like it's killing me?
I don't know what to say
Since a twist of fate
When it all broke down
And the story of us
Looks a lot like a tragedy now

This is looking like a contest
Of who can act like they care less
But I liked it better when you were on my side
The battle's in your hands now
But I would lay my armor down
If you'd say you'd rather love than fight
So many things that you wish I knew
But the story of us might be ending soon.....


justin and i havent spoken or seen of each other since that dreadful thanksgiving day ......until this past sunday.