CHAPTER 3 – IT’S ALL ABOUT TIMING (AUG 99)

Time to move to Boulder and begin the next phase of my life and her to Iowa to do the same.  Oh, but first let me execute one of the greatest moves in relationship history…

We go to dinner, nothing different there, apart from the fact that this is the last time we’ll see each other before the exodus from hometown USA begins.  I’m the first to go,  I did my goodbye celebration with all my friends the day before becauase I wanted to spend my last night home around her.  The leadup to picking her up was full of excitement and angst, I love seeing her but was unsure about what happens with us next.  ‘What happens next’ dominates my thoughts through the day.  I picture my future with her not in my life and feel regret.  Why the fuck did I not just do something????

We eat and we talk.  I’ll miss you, have fun, etc, etc.  She bought me an astronomy book, to make sure that I’d think of her.  I bought her a necklace for the same reason, she cries.  I drive up her driveway to drop her off.  We just sit in the car, not wanting to face the goodbye that is surly moments away.  There is a silence that precipitates me to begin saying what I had failed to say for nearly two years…

I just say ‘I love you, I always have’….. she replies ‘I love you to…but’.  My heart instantly goes from elation to siting in my stomach the moment that ‘but’ comes out of her mouth.  I am immediately beating myself up for not having done this when I should have two years ago.  She interupts my self loathing with ‘why didn’t you say anything before? what can we do? we’re leaving and going to be a thousand miles away from each other’.  I reply ‘I know, I know, I know and I suck….’

We hold each other for several minutes, she kisses my cheek, gets out of the car crying and I drive away (balling moments after I do so).

CHAPTER 2 – COURAGE ABANDONED (FEB 98 – AUG 99)

All of a sudden we are best friends ( Hurray!!<sarcastic tone>).  We spend a ton of time together, talking on the phone, and the assumption around school is that we’re a couple.  But we’re not, I have total performance anxiety with just saying what needs to be said in these situations (girls).  For all my outwardly appearing confidence, I am terrified of failing or being rejected.  What would everybody think???  Who gives a shit, but that was – and to a certain extent still is – me.  So we tread this path, I pass every opportunity to just man-up and speak my feelings.  This sets the stage to simultaneously bring us ever closer while allowing me to slowly torture myself (awesome).  Time and again I watch others step up and do what I can’t, this sucks.

CHAPTER 1 – Boy Meets Girl (Jan 97-Feb 98)

Days from turning sixteen and officially becoming a bad-ass, I entered the windowless, white painted concrete cell that housed Mrs Pitluck’s US Government class.  As is common when you attend a massive high-school, the first day of each semester is a rush of seeing and meeting people that you never even knew existed.  In typical fashion (partially because it’s what I do, and partially because I’m a big pussy) I sit back and observe the situation; who is there, where they are, what they are doing, which social dynamics are in play and why.  It’s the staging of the chess board.  Soaking it all up my strategery comes to a sudden halt.  A girl, who I recognize, but don’t know is stretching out in her chair two rows over from me.  She’s wearing a white shirt with a blue button-up (though un-buttoned) light blue sweater.  I’m struck, my standard programming has frozen and the rest of the room fades from my attention(which is odd for me).  Our teacher of Napoleonic stature calls attention and institutes her assigned seating chart.  Assigned seating chart, who the hell does that? Oh that girl is now sitting next to me…. I love seating charts, they cut down on distraction and shenanigans, I fully endorse them all.

<insert cute noise here>, her pen explodes.  I dive to the ground and collect the pieces in a in a flash. “thank you” she says.  “DUUUHHHHHH” I mumble, but recover with a typical witty (though always somewhat sarcastic) comment summarizing the situation and her cute noise.  She smiles, we exchange names and I think I just experienced one of the embarrassing situations described in sex-ed (just kidding, but not really).

Girls like pricks right? — In the library to research project for Pitluck’s class and we happen to sit at the same station of megalithic PCs (more like I made sure we did).  Since our first meeting I’ve gathered intel and learned she’s dating a dude on my Football team, and of course he’s a prick.  Unfazed by her having a boyfriend (b/c I’ve labeled him as a prick) I proceed, but do so in only a semiconcious, near-blackout state.

All I remember was consciously deciding I would try to be cool during our first chance at an extended conversation, and my disbelief about the situation as it ended.  The editing department of my brain must have been on strike because I was a total dick, and she left seemingly appalled (hell, I was appalled).  I just stood there in disbelief as the library emptied out.

And once again the Cubs don’t get to (nonetheless win) the world series…

17 and officially a bad-ass, though my plaque hasn’t arrived yet — ‘Yes this is J’, (who the hell is this? I think).  Oh my god it’s her, I hadn’t talked to her in a year (Vietnam-like flashbacks of the ‘Library Incident’ flood my head), why is she calling me?  She called me to help work out a problem, she indicates that she heard I am good at this.  What am I a friggen hitter?  I will be, is that what you want? DUUUUHHHHH!!!!

She has a date with a guy this coming Friday that she doesn’t want to go on, and wants to know what she should do (red carpet, right?  oh shit! I’m color blind though…).  I eventually get the message and say tell him you already had plans with me (this dude is really going to hate me – this is a funny separate story – later though).  We make plans and then talk for three-hours.  I’m literally running around the house like it’s going out of style.  But I am being me, unapologetically geeky me.  We talk about history, aliens, space, culture, everything.  I’m just beyond words with shock and happiness…

INTRODUCTION

65million years ago a comet (or asteroid) impacted the Earth and set off a series of events that culminated in the dinosaurs being wiped from the face of this world (or so the popular theory says).  A body the size of a small city, left over from the formation of our solar system some 4.4 billion years ago, hit near the town of Chicxulub, Mexico and forever changed the course of our world.  While this impact annihilated nearly all that was, it was also necessary to set the stage for our world to come into existence.

This impact was going to happen, it was just a matter of time.  All the moving parts necessary for this traumatic event to occur were cast into motion the moment the solar system began.  It was going to happen, but nothing saw it coming until the sky lit up, the ground shook, and everything changed in an instant.

It was always going to happen…