04.11.03
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My first updated post in a long time
There are many reasons for not updating a journal. I’m not going to go into them here, but trust me, it’s certainly not helped by how busy I am at work. A few of you think I’m lazy. I’m not. That’s enough about that, though. I was really touched by what posted the other day — the story of our friendship. But, there are certainly two sides to every story, so I would most certainly like to tell mine. 
Jessica and I have known each other for a very long time… back to the 6th grade, as early as I can remember. We sat near each other in Mrs. Farenholz’s class, a class where we never really did much because we were always busy working on “modules” or in other words, the newest technology that allows a teacher to avoid teaching at all. I remember that during my budding “artist” phase where I thought I could draw comic characters, I drew a picture of Jessica. I was trying to be nice, but I found out years later that it was hurtful. I didn’t mean it to be though. I was just an awkward, tactless child.
Somehow, we got past that though. I remember those long phone calls with Beth and Jessica too… It really wasn’t because of any “crush” like you might define it though. I just found Beth to be funny and intelligent and that was really the most I could appreciate out of a girl even at that early age. I remember Jessica playing Amy Grant and the Newsboys over the phone and talking about how Pearl Jam was really a dirty name for semen. She was, in a nutshell, a religious freak. And it kind of scared me, but it made me think too.
I remember her calling me one time to tell me how upset she was with her awful birthday presents (ask her about the star jumpsuit) and I remember going to her house to practice lip-syncing “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”. I remember her dad giving me a ride home and not remembering who her dad was, so I thought I had accepted a ride from a stranger.
With so many things I remember, there are a few things I forget too. The only conflict with Jessica that sticks out in my mind (although there were many others) is the time that we drove around in the wrong direction on the 610 loop after seeing a play with our GT English class. After reading Jessica’s post the other night, I spent an hour awake in bed trying to sleep, but I couldn’t, because I was thinking about my relationship with Jessica and why we fought so much. I think it’s because neither of us knew ourselves, so it was harder for us to be friends. I don’t know necessarily that we know ourselves now, but we’re much closer to it, and that seems to me to be why the animosity is now gone.
With that said, I don’t remember exactly why Jessica and I drifted, and I don’t remember the encounter in the hall that reignited our friendship, because my mind refuses to allow me to see any gap in our friendship. Steven + Jessica = Forever. There’s no hole in the timeline from my perception.
I have been stricken with guilt for a long time about my freshman year at UH, because Jessica lived only a few floors above me, and I barely ever saw her, except every now and then. What an awful waste of time that was. I really regret that, and I always will. It’s perhaps one of the most foolish, selfish, stupid things I’ve ever done.
But I’m so proud of Jessica. For me, she’s always been like an oracle. You know how there’s just this one person in your life that you think knows everything? Sort of like when you’re a child, and you assume that your parents are omniscient? That’s how I feel about Jessica. She has a way of understanding things on a universal level that I feel too shallow to comprehend sometimes. I always used to almost want to be more “cool” and “sophisticated” and not listen to the Spice Girls, because I wanted to live up to that intellectual level.
My fondest memory of her, believe it or not, is not the prom. It’s sitting at the Wortham Center fountain, taking our Taco Bell trash and playing like it represented different Baywatch characters, and floating them down the fountain. That was a childlike moment that I will never forget… one of my personal favorites.
Jessica, I am always going to be there, and in your life. I’m glad you consider my a lifelong friend. I’m glad we both know about each other’s dorky phases, because now we have a full understanding of what it’s like to grow up. Who’s the h3p-est kat of all? Jepsika!
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