Ten Thousand Golden Butterflies
Hi there, welcome to this, my secret page. I plan to use this page to share with you what is going on in my life, and now that you've found it, you'll be able to keep up to date with me.
I chose the title "Ten Thousand Golden Butterflies" from a song I wrote when I split up with a girl friend (cliche, I know). The song was called 'Today, Tomorrow and Forever' and the specific line in question was 'Ten thousand golden butterflies rose up and blew astray' which refered to the interesting feeling in my stumach and broken dreams.
The song was my first 'inspired' song and also the first of my compositons which I performed to a real live audience - although in truth I was only playing it for one person.
After the gig, she asked me for a copy of the lyrics (which I had typed up for Carl (lead vocals) as it was written just before the gig) so I gave them to her. I saw her a week later and she told me that when her mum read the lyrics she cryed - not bad for a first attempt!!!
The song was never performed or even rehearsed again, nor will it ever, I did have plans to re-hash it, but I think that it's safer left in the past, as a memory.
I have a dilema now, what things shall I post here? If I include things which refer to specific people, then they may see them - oh well, I suppose that's a risk I'll have to take!
The page IS designed to be hard to read but...Tip: if you highlight the text it's much easier to read (especially if the butterflies are flying).
Today was my birthday, well yesterday - it's 0:20 now. I've had a wonderful day - thankyou to all the people who contributed to that, I love you all (although I wouldn't tell you that).
The reason for me writting to you is that I do, at last, have something to share with you on this, the page which I designated for doing exactly that. I went to the cinema tonight with my friend from church, Thuy. We saw 'Something About Mary'. It reminded me so much of a situation I was in, actually it's an ongoing situation. In the story I am about to tell ,I'll mention no names!!!
At high school, my third year - which would make me.......13/14 I had a crush on a girl in my history class who sat opposite me. I never told her anything, but the way I felt for her gradually grew stronger and stronger so you can imagine how I felt when I spotted the words 'PAUL IS FIT' carved into her ruler! We would never speak, but constantly stared at each other, only to smile then look away when our eyes met. It sounds really really stupid, I know, but for me at that time, I was so happy to feel this way about someone and have a suspition that they felt the same for me that I was content to keep the situation as it was. However, I eventually decided that I would have to ask her out - I mean I was just so in love with her that 90% of my thoughts revolved around her, and so I waited for the right opportunity. After over a year and a half of this blissful waiting in anticipation (will I get my opportunity today?, tomorrow? or this week?) my best friend - the closest friend of my teen years (I can say that as of today!!) went on a German exchange, she also went on the same exchange. He came back and told me about this amazing girl who he'd never noticed before, so I asked him who it was, and shure enough - yep, you've guessed it!!!. Before this I 'd never told anyone about how I felt for her, and so I somehow faked a smile but really I was crying/panicing on the inside. I realised that I should come clean in order to be in with a shot, at least that way my secret would be out in the open. A few seconds after my smile had failed miserably and was beginning to hurt I blurted out, 'Oh, I fancy her too' (I can't remember the actual words, but I remember the exact spot on the bus journey home where he told me). We laughed. He'd desided that he was going to ask her out in the coming week so I made an agreement with him - if she turned him down then I'd go and ask her. I thought this last part was inevitable, because after all, she thought so much of me that she wouldn't want to go out with anybody else.
The day came when we would ask, it was lunch time - I played pool whilst he went to the girls' gym (she'd just had a hockey practice) to ask her. I waited there in nervous anticipation - surely it was my turn next, "but no, maybe I'll put it off 'till a better opportunity". I saw him coming back, I thought he looked a bit happy for a guy who had just been turned down, maybe he was playing it cool - but my heart sank. He walked through the doors of the common room with a smile on his face, his whole body bubbling with excitment, my heart sank even lower - I put my head down and pretended not to notice him come in. He stood at the side of the pool table whilst we played a couple of shots, I managed a weak smile but my mouth was trembling. Eventually he she, "She said Yes".
I looked at him and smiled as if it didn't matter, as if I didn't care, as if this was not big deal. But that was FAR from the truth.
I was dumb struck for days only pulling my self out of this state of dissillusion by the logic of "they'll split up soon - then I'll find the 'right' time to ask her myself".
I insisted on coming along on what should have been their first date together, I didn't do anything to try to put her off him, in fact I probably helped him out!!
I swore not to even think about making known what I felt to her until they had split up and so I spent the rest of my school days staying out of her way - never making the eye contact which had such a profound effect on me before, I just stayed clear - there was no way in the world that I was going to split them up.
When the time came for leaving school almost all the year had leavers books for their friends and fellow pupils to sign. I signed her's in physics on one of the last weeks of term. I wrote that I'd really miss her and that how lucky her boyfriend was and left my address and telephone number telling her to keep in touch. A week or two later, on the last chemistry lesson, she wrote in mine.......
"Dearest Paul,
I'll miss you very very much but we must stay in touch. When you are very famous you must call me and invite me to your mansion (might be spelt wrong - who cares!!)
Perhaps I should have asked you out when I was in the 3rd year (don't tell *******) - we will never know!
lots of love and hugs and kisses
********X
{Address & Telephone number}"
As she gave me the book back I saw a smile on her face which I recognised from somewhere. I read her message and then looked at her, standing nearby looking at me, when our eyes met we both smiled. Our eyes where fixed for longer than I can remember them being before, but the same smile comunicated in exactly the same way it did over two years previously. "Thanks", I said gently, "Thats ok", she replied. I shook myself from out of the dream and carried on with my mischeivous pranks, but all the time feeling the strange exciting feeling of bubbles in my chest. Every so often I looked over at her, sometimes to see her looking at me - then we'd smile and look our separate ways, or else I'd just take in the site of her until she'd look at me - then we'd do the smily thing again!
I saw her briefly in exams but lost contact for six months when I moved to another college. Sometime during that period I decided that they where never going to split up. In those six months I (1) got a girl friend, (2) joined a band - Gallifrey and (3) split up with the girl friend. I had a gig with the band (the gig mentioned above) so I decided to invite her and her boyfriend (my friend(this may get confusing, but bear with me)) to the gig.
A couple of days after the gig, she decided to split up with her boyfriend - I naturally thought it was because she'd seen me again!!. I saw her a week later at a careers fare and I spent the day with her - I even carried her carrier bags full of prospectuses to her coach for her!
I thought that I should give it a little more time so that my friend wouldn't think that I'd gone out and snached her away from him. But at last, for the first time in 3 years I had another opportunity to approach her - and I wasn't going to mess this one up! However...
After splitting up with my girl friend I came out in a horrific rash of acne all across my face - when I say acne people get an impression that it was just spots but this was a full blown desease of alien origin - you have never seen anything like it, believe me.
Because of this I wouldn't see anyone outside of college for about a year, I ventured into town one or two times - always at quiet times and only if I NEEDED something, but these trips were always cut short by me having a panic attack and having to go back to the car via the quiet streets and by cutting through the quiet shops(I felt I could hide behind the isles). I remember vividly the look of horror on childrens faces - it made me want to cry. So naturally if I didn't want to see anyone at all because I didn't want them to see what had happened to me then the last person who I was going to see was her.
So I waited and waited and waited..... gradually the scars healed (both mental and physical) and it wasn't until I got to Leeds to study music that I began to regain my confidence. I took a step to get in touch with her this summer (1998). I phoned her but she was still at University but her parents said that they'd get her to call me. I thought that I shouldn't really get excited about her calling me, after all, when her mum told her that "someone called Paul phoned for you" she probably wouldn't realise who this Paul was - she'd probably forgotten all about me. But sure enough, a couple of days later, I arrived home and my mum told me,"******** phoned, I said that I'd get you to give her a ring back". So I did, after about a couple of hours of playing it cool! I didn't know what to say to her (we'd hardly ever spoken before) so about 10 seconds into the call, when we'd met with an unpass of silence, I said, "What are you doing tonight?", she replied, "nothing", so I asked,"do you fancy going to the cinema or something?". She accepted my invition and so I got directions to her house and we went to the cinema.
We went to see "Sliding doors", a love story! I felt really awkward at the cinema, the fact was that we were just there as friends and so no affections were shared. We went back to her house and stopped up watching MTV and talking about school times, catching up on how all our friends were and what had happened to them. We talked until about three in the morning (her parents were away for the week) then I left and she thanked me for getting back in touch with her.
A few weeks later she came over to Burnley and we went to the cinema again, to see "Aragedon" this time. The film was weepy at the end (Bruce Willis dies to say the Earth!) and she cried. I wanted so much to do something, I'm not so sure what - hug her? I don't know. I realised it was just false emotions stimulated by the film, but I really wanted to be there for her...I did nothing and we laughed about it.
I got a postcard from her when she went to the lake district for a holiday, I was so happy when I got it. It touched me so deeply to think that she'd thought of me.
She's phoned me a couple of times in Leeds, and everytime she does it just makes my week. She sent me an e-mail to get in touch with me and since I've sent her an e-mail explaining exactly how I USED to feel about her (well that's better than just saying nothing) but she hasn't replied to that - she was ill and had a lot of time off University and besides, she told me that she rarely gets to a computer to check her e-mail, but I'll wait for the reply.
She phoned me yesterday to wish me happy birthday, which turned my birthday from a good day to a magic day.
But, we're still just friends. I wish that I could tell her face to face how I feel about her, but I don't want to risk any friendship we have. She means such a lot to me that to ruin it all by gambling for more would not be wise..... on the other hand, maybe it would be a calculated risk?
I'll go to check my e-mail today, as I do every day, in the hope that this is the day that she's read my message and replied. I scan through all the new mails in my 'inbox' for her name, then, when I see that it is not there, I read the others.