(W5) K and I

It was the summer of 2005, I was 17. Two days after I got back from a leadership conference in Boston, Julia, one of my brother’s friends, came up to me and said. ‘I saw Katie and she wanted to say hi.’ I was a little confused as to what she meant so I said ‘Oh Hi’ and continued on.

A week later my brother was took Julia to ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,’ for her birthday and invited me alone. Sitting in the backseat of my brother’s new Ford Focus ZX3, I brought up what Julia had said. She told me that Katie had come over to visit, and there was a photo of me at one of my brothers parties. ‘You know him?’, ‘Yeah he is Marc’s brother.’

In February of 2003, a friend of mine was in the local Gilbert and Sullivan Society. After the last performance I helped to tear down the set, something about a cast party intrigued me. The people that I had seen performing, were trading inside jokes all around me. It was like ordering soda in Presque Isle, Maine if you were born and breed in Atlanta, Georgia; they were using a completely different form of the English Language. Well, Katie and Julia were both performers in said play. I had met and rather enjoyed the company of Katie.

I asked Julia if I could have Katie’s number. She texted Katie, then she read the response out loud ‘Does he really want my number or is he just being a smartass?’ I wanted to respond so Julia dialed the phone, as it rang my heart crawled its way up my throat.

When she answered I said ‘You know I don’t think anyone has called me smart before.’
‘Well I called you a Smartass’
‘I can over look the last part.’

The conversation took three minutes and Julia wanted her phone back and I got the right to call Katie back. For the next week we spent at least three hours a night on the phone. After that she came to visit and we were officially a couple.

She lived in Portland, so there was a three hour bus ride in between us. The first time I went to see her my sister covered for me, she took me with her when she went to go visit one of our aunts. The day that I arrived in Portland, was the day that Katie’s cell phone bill arrived in Portland. One way or another she was over a thousand dollars off what she thought her plan allowed. I was excited to be there, she was mad at herself.

It did not take long for me to enjoy having her on the other side of the bed. There was only one time that I fought for space of the bed. She got up in the middle of the night, and the sleeping me sprawled out and was not willing to give the space back.

The long distance was a little hard, but suited me fine. I had a part time job, ran cross country, a puppy and had a full course load for my senior year. For my birthday my mother got me a phone for my room, the plan allowed for any calls in the state.

I started to get real tired very night, my legs would burn and tingle. I went to my doctor to see if I had mono, the doctor said it was very unlikely, and that I just was doing a lot. I agreed my plate was full and I continued to run cross country and school and work and walk the dog and take into the early morning with my girlfriend.

The cross country season ended in late October and I slept when I would have been running.

In December my girlfriend lived the winter vacation at my house, the day after Christmas she headed out to New York City with her friend to go see the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. She came back to surprise me on New Years Eve.

I felt like I was on top of the world, even though I felt physically exhausted all the time. I took her to a Gilbert and Sullivan play, and at the cast dinner my doctor announced his retirement.

For a few weeks I was in a funk, I was depressed and tired. I decided to find a new primary care provider, my transcript of the last appointment to my old doctor did not make it to the new one. When I mentioned that I thought I had mono, the doctor also thought that it was unlikely that I had mono. My symptoms and family history pointed toward the early stages of a bipolar disorder. I was placed on a low dose of a bipolar med.

I got more tired, I would sleep through my classes and during any free time. My phone conversations got shorter, but we still talked everyday.

In March Katie sprained her ankle, she tore every tendon in her ankle. I started to fear the end of the relationship and it soon came. I got to Portland in mid April and she told me that she wanted a break and we were not a couple. I was pissed that I wasted forty dollars, to ride a bus for three hours, only to get dumped.

A month after the end of the relationship, I was sleeping all the time; anytime I did not have to be at work and during most of my classes. I went to the doctors and had the test for mono, it turned out that I did have mono for all of my cross country season.

-NFC