Vignette - Elizabeth

If you haven't already, you should read the intro first. This colour indicates the text is directly excerpted from my journal.

I had probably seen Elizabeth quite a few times on our third floor hangout, but the first mention in my journal of her was on the Friday afternoon of March 6, 1992; I had driven Marek (a friend from the third floor group) to a few different spots on the west island. ...and then we drove by Elizabeth’s house, just to show Marek where his hypothetical girlfriend lives.

In turns out that they’d spoken with each other, committed to the relationship, but it had to be ‘on school grounds only’ because her parents were not to hear a word of it. I later found out that her parents were perhaps 20 years older than my own parents; this seemed to play a part in how dramatically over protective they were of their daughter. She was not permitted to wear pants, there was no TV in her house, she couldn’t receive (or presumably make) phone calls, and she had to go home immediately after school.

I wrote this: The reason why her parents are so restrictive, I imagine, is that Elizabeth is quite pretty, on the verge of being stunningly beautiful, and so to protect her…

Jump to early April, and Elizabeth and Marek, in her car, and a classmate of mine in my car drove into Ste-Anne’s stopped at a Couche-Tarde, and Marek decided to take a walk to the water, Elizabeth hung back with me. She said that Marek was really too quiet, and that she was a little bit tired of having to deal with someone who said, ‘uh’, when you asked them ‘how are you?’. And then she said that she liked being single at this point in her life, and so led me to the conclusion that she and Marek were no longer.

That same day, went into the evening, I was with Marek and Elizabeth; she was free to go out because her parents were away that weekend. She still needed to be covert about entering and exiting her home, because she has neighbours who have a good relationship with her parents, so they spy on her for them. We went out to eat, watched a movie, putzed around the city for a while and then I drove first Marek home, and then Elizabeth.

On the way from Marek’s house to hers, we got a chance to speak together alone for the first time (excluding those brief moments at the Couche-Tarde). We spoke of plans for university, and of life to follow.

I learned she was going to go into nursing, and was keen to move out as soon as she was done university, and work as a nurse in a different country (ie, far from her parents).

During the drive it was mostly her speaking, though I occasionally added in remarks. It was only fair, afterall, for when it was three of us, I did most of the talking, filling in gaps that otherwise make both of them embarrassed.

In mid April Elizabeth went to a Bible Studies camp in Calgary, however, her parents took the train there (and would take the train back) and she was going to fly. This meant that She had the Monday night, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and then next week’s Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights to go out and do whatever it was she wanted to do. Each night she went out with someone different, and I am hoping that either next Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday will be my night, but I won’t get my hopes too high, for she has already had a night with me and Marek last weekend.

It didn’t turn out that I got any night with her. On one of the nights I saw her outside of the last class of my day and chatted with her; the person she was waiting for was late and she was getting antsy. I suggested I could go with her, but she wanted to wait for the other guy.

On Saturday, May 2nd, after handing in an assignment, I headed to the third floor, and played with a tennis ball I had been bringing to school over the last few days. Elizabeth later came over, and tried to get the ball from me. A wrestling match ensued between her and I in which I won the first round, she the second. She is really quite strong, for she has been rock climbing for one year and a half, and so has just about as much upper body strength as I do.

After, I followed Elizabeth to the gym for a rock climbing competition. Upon arrival, I signed up, did two climbs, tried a third and couldn’t do it, and then sat down and watched Elizabeth climb. She is really good at climbing, has been doing it for quite some time, and was the only one in her class competing. I was in the beginners male class, and she was in the female’s advanced class of climbers. I was competing against 10 others in my class, she was alone in her division.

After that with her and another friend we walked out onto the grounds and that is where I unexpectedly and was happily surprised to see Jennie.

There are no more entries about Elizabeth, likely because the semester ended, and she was restricted such that I would only ever have seen her at school. I think the principal reason why I wanted to include her in this list is just to show that I was getting better at meeting and talking to girls. The one spot in what happened above that I think I could have done something different is that evening and night that I hung out with her and Marek, after dropping Marek off and before dropping her off, I could have suggested we go to Chenoys (24hr resto) to grab a bite and spend some more time getting to know each other. I expect I was probably quite knackered given I had worked the morning that preceded that night, but none-the-less, it seems it would have been a really good opportunity to have at least asked.

I think a mobile device might have helped here as she was very limited by her parents, so I could have had a more on-line (by text message) relationship with her. I suppose, her parents probably wouldn’t have allowed her to have a mobile device, so that may not have worked anyhow.

This is the last vignette. I guess if I was to summarize my experiences of these four years, I would say there were some definite gaffs, numerous missed opportunities, some amount of growth, some regrets, and certainly some good times. I think my biggest takeaway is that simply asking the question, 'when can I see you again?' is something that I should have used many times. It took quite a few long nights to get them all down; listened to quite a few songs to figure out what I could use. There were a couple of nights that I awoke at around 3h40 and couldn’t go back to sleep as the next vignette was on my mind. On one of those nights I actually got out of bed and worked on that vignette as I knew I wouldn’t able to fall back asleep. I may still see about reaching out to some of the people I’ve mentioned, if not the Subject of the vignette, perhaps some of the ancillary people.