That's awful that they made up lies about legality of your piece just to knock you down in the competition. I never understand people who stoop that low. I get wanting to win, but it destroys the integrity of the competition if you're not facing the best. How can you really declare yourself the winner when you know you sabotaged better competition?
What's crazy is that their brothers could have been fighting alongside my relatives. I know my paternal grandfather was in the Battle of the Bulge. It's interesting that they used their own experiences to insist marriage for you shouldn't occur until your 30s. Most people of their generation were the opposite...thinking there's no war going on so you should be married and starting families by early 20s. People get so hung up on age. The only time it really factors into my opinions is when you have a big gap. I guess in some ways it's an omen that they weren't like that...otherwise, they'd be pushing you to solidify things with that guy early on.
It was a totally arrogant move that would have actually been appealing and attractive to me IF he'd followed through and asked me. I don't mind an outward power play like that if the guy follows through. The key is that he has more balance with me outside of the public eye...like let the public know I'm yours, but make sure it's a 2-way street in the actual relationship. Instead, he proved that he was a coward in a sea of cowards. I would eventually find out that a lot of my guy friends and acquaintances were actually madly in love with me but were terrified of taking it to the next level after getting to know me. Like I suddenly became very real and even more likeable as they got to know me beyond outward appearance. In any event, the last 2 months of college involved people I perceived to be plutonic coming out of the woodwork nearly every day pretty much begging me to make a final try at a relationship before college ended. The only reason "marking his territory" guy really stood out is because I actually had developed feelings for him. He and I got together over homecoming that fall (after graduation). We had a lot of chemistry, which I could tell from our interactions back in the spring. I just figured it would be a long weekend fling, but he started crying when we were saying goodbye...told me how much he loved me...sobbed and sobbed about not wanting to leave me...insisted on getting my phone number...said where he and I were living at the time really wasn't that far and that we could try to make this work. This still ranks as the most bizarre ghosting of my life. After his spring marking territory ghosting, he actually did call me at home after we got back from homecoming. I was kind of surprised because I wasn't optimistic considering his fear-based track record. I remember thinking "OMG, we're actually going to try and make this work" and I was surprised how happy it made me feel. I wasn't home but he left a message with my mom. I called him back a little while later but he wasn't home. I left a message with someone that sounded like his mother. He didn't call back that night or the next day, so my guy friends suggested one more try. Like what do I have to lose? I'd probably never see him again, so if he got scared again and intentionally failed to call back, it's not like I'd be seeing him around campus. So, I called him, left another message and never heard from him again. It's probably an omen. For as good as our chemistry was over that weekend and in previous conversations (not to mention he helped protect me one night when there was an issue at his fraternity), that weekend showed he was too submissive for my long-term tastes. While not the exact words, his friend basically shared that I was his fantasy girl and anything happening with me was wildest dreams territory. If he had more courage during the school year, it had the markings of me walking all over him and being done with him in 2-3 weeks. Still, I'll never know. So, I got hurt because he was too scared to make his supposed wildest dream a reality and see me as a human being with feelings.
Yeah, it sounds like she was screaming for help. It's wild that the knife story wound up being real, but it sounds like it was just another example of her begging for help in her own destructive way. Who knows about the babies. If they were delivered that early, it's possible they didn't make it. Who knows...but she sounds like a sad story.
Yeah, it was really strange that they made up the lies. I mean, there's an entire protocol for challenging a piece you think is illegal, and they are supposed to come to your coach and ask for the source material. That's WHY the coach always carries the source material to tournaments, so they can prove it's legit if someone challenges it. But the State president of the speech organization also had a dog in the fight. One of his teams was one of our top competitors. There were basically 3 teams that were always in the top three. Ours, one of his, and one from Greybull who had won the previous year with a different piece. It was pretty much going to be between our three teams. I suspect that the challenge came from Greybull, because they wanted to defend the title and we were making it hard. And Cheyenne went along with it, because it benefitted them to knock us out. Then they only had to beat one team instead of two. And since we had been kind of going back and fourth where we would win in one place, and take second in another and one of them would win....it was kind of a toss-up. It could have been any one of us. But Cheyenne is known for having the best program...they are WAY bigger than Greybull or Wright, and they actually make cuts for their speech team, where ours was "anyone can join". I think they didn't want to be beat by some podunk little nowhere town. So the coach who was in charge didn't follow protocol. It's a shame....it's a high school competition, not the nobel prize. There's nothing but a trophy and bragging rights involved. Why not give us the chance they have both had? And even if we had come in third, no one in our school had ever placed at state before....it would have been amazing just to make it into the finals even if we hadn't placed. How petty that grown adults begrudge a couple of 16 year olds a chance to stand on a stage and be recognized for having some talent. So immature.
Oh wow! That's cool to think our relatives could have known each other. I had 2 uncles who fought in WWII in Europe. Both my parents had a brother who fought, but I don't know if my dad's brother was in the battle of the bulge. We didn't have much contact with my dad's family growing up, even though the brother in question lived in our town, and his sister only lived in Gillette, 40 miles away. We would go to one of their houses once every other year for Thanksgiving and that was it. I saw my mom's family more, and they lived in Illinois! But both my parents were "oopses" and so they were more than a decade younger than their siblings, and my mom was 37 when she had her first child, and my dad was in his 40s already. So there was a HUGE generation gap in my family. Mom's brother never talked about the war....we know he was injured and came home with PTSD, and we didn't find out until his death that he had fought in the Battle of the bulge, where he was most likely where he was shot. Dad's brother we just had no real relationship with...I know he served, and he was in a cavalry unit, I think? I know my grandfather served in WWI, and that one I'm pretty sure was cavalry, but I don't know if they still did that in WWII? So I may have that mixed up, but I know he served in Europe, I just don't know exactly where.
As far as my mom telling me I couldn't date until I was 30, I think she was just extremely jaded. She had had a bad experience, and my mom was not someone who could admit to having faults or making mistakes. If something went wrong, it was always someone else's fault. She completely blamed their divorce on my dad, when really, I don't think they ever should have gotten married. They didn't know each other well enough and they didn't lay any sort of foundation, like talking about where they would live, or what their jobs would be, or how many kids they'd have and when. So I know mom said she figured they'd adopt since they were older, and my dad refused to take on someone else's brat. But that's something they SHOULD have talked about before getting married, and they didn't. And mom would never admit that she had poor judgement in that, so it was all dad's fault, and I think she just really didn't want me to get married at all. She didn't really have much positive to say about marriage in general, and there are a lot of things she said that make me think she really just thought I'd be better off single. I think it caught her off guard that I didn't ask her permission or talk to her about dating at all. My whole teenage life, whenever we'd be with family or visit friends, people always ask "How's school? Have you got a boyfriend?" etc, and whenever someone asked if I had a boyfriend, my mom would angrily respond with "She'd BETTER not!" before I could even open my mouth. It was very clear that dating was not something that was allowed. And when I was 17, she finally told me I could go out with GROUPS that included boys, as long as it wasn't the SAME boys every time. She really didn't like it that my friend Nikki had a boyfriend and held hands with him in public. To her, that was very inappropriate. Just sitting next to someone of the opposite gender was inappropriate to her. So I think she just really was so bitter about her own experience that she tried to keep me from even really associating with someone that I might develop feelings for. I think she thought she could prevent me from ever getting married if she didn't allow me to date, and I think she saw me taking care of her in her old age, living with her and being obedient to her, and it made her angry that I took that away from her.
Wow, that's really strange how that ended for you. I mean, if he was in tears not wanting to say goodbye....was he just a good actor or was he really fickle? I don't think it would have been an attractive move to me for someone to announce I was going with him....I guess MAYBE, if I really liked him and he then asked me out. Maybe...hard to say, because I was never popular and I wasn't the kind of girl that guys fought over. I guess I would have been flattered that someone showed interest....I mean, there were a couple of guys who asked me out to a dance one year, but since I wasn't allowed to date, I turned them down. And I asked permission to go to senior prom, because my date fell through, and 2 days before, a guy who had gone to school with me our whole lives, but had transferred to an alternative school wanted to go to our prom. I had the tickets, he couldn't go unless he went with someone from our school, so he asked if I wanted to go together, just as friends....then I didn't have to skip it or look pathetic going stag, and he could spend that last event with his friends. We danced together exactly 2 times I think and I didn't see him the rest of the night. But I had to ask my mom if it was ok to accept, and that it wasn't really a date. But I just wasnt someone guys were lining up to go out with, so maybe it would have been intoxicating to have someone make a bold move like that. You must have been miss popularity!! Was it fun? Or did it make you anxious?
Yes, she was screaming for help. And the babies MAY have died at birth...it's hard to know with her. I do know they marched her to the doctor as soon as they could and made her get a norplant thing....the little rods in your arm. She showed me how you could see the rods under the skin...it looked like it would have been very painful to get!! I don't even think you can get those anymore because of the risk of them breaking in your arm, or something. But they weren't going to run the risk of her going and getting pregnant again, which she probably would have. She had REALLY wanted those babies and had been planning to keep them. I know there was a fight because her family wanted her to give them up, and the foster family was saying she couldn't live there with the babies, and she kept saying she was going to go back to the boyfriend, and who even knows if he wanted that. So I think when she didn't get to keep those babies, she probably would have gone out looking for any guy who could give her another just so she had someone to love her. She wasn't the most stable. The whole thing was very very sad, and had she treated me with respect, I would have overlooked the lying and the stories and I would have been there for her. We'd probably still be friends today. But it was such a toxic situation and she just kept getting nastier as time went on and it was obvious she didn't want to be my friend anymore. I did learn a lot from it though, and I think it kind of happens to everyone, doesn't it? That someone you thought was a friend in high school turns out not to be?
Admittedly, I do this in the summer when it's very hot out and I don't want deal with an oven or the stove top. I'm not not that hungry when it's really hot outside. Other times, it's carrots and hummus or cheese and crackers. When I do make a vegetarian meal, my husband usually makes an excuse that he needs something from the supermarket and comes back with a crumpled up, empty fast food bag. Most of the meals I cook do have meat, so it's not like he's being denied meat, I just like meatless meals here and there.