This is a story I wrote this semester for Creative Writing. It's my own original work, but I've used metafictional devices from How to tell a true war story. (That was our assignment) I changed all the names, even the dogs' because I have no intention of sharing them, because this is a true story. There are many true stories out in the world, but you do know that most of them, no matter how true, always have the writer’s perception of what happened? I’ll tell you a story. It’s a true story, it did happen. It happened in 2009, the story I will tell is about my first trip to the US. I left Norway the 11th of November and arrived the same day. The flight is not important, so I’ll just skip that. I landed in Boston and I saw someone I hadn’t seen for 6 months, my girlfriend. It was very surreal, because I loved her so much. When I saw her, she was standing next to her mother; my girlfriend’s sparkling smile expressed all the things that went through my head the second I spotted her. Anyway, this story might be strange to understand for some people, because not everyone has had a long-distance relationship. My girlfriend, E, (at the time) is beautiful. She has dark hair, green eyes and is the perfect height. We have different opinions on things, but that doesn’t ever matter because when you love someone, you tend to ignore the differences. Though I don’t want to waste your time only writing about her, I want to write about my experience with the US. After landing in Boston and seeing my girlfriend, I drove with her and Kat (her mother), to New Hampshire, to look at the University of New Hampshire. Seeing the university was an absurd experience, I had never imagined a university could be so big; it was unlike anything I had ever seen, it seemed to be the size of the town where I grew up, granted where I grew up wasn’t very big. Though after having visited another university, I realize it was in fact not that big in comparison. We visited UNH of course not for me, but for E. She actually lived outside of Olympia, Washington at the time. She is actually a student at UNH now though, which is very understandable, it’s a beautiful campus and a very good school. After visiting UNH, our trip continued to California. We flew there via Arizona, where her mom continued to Washington, and we continued to the sunny California. When we got there, we were met by E’s grandmother, a very nice old lady. We drove from the airport to her grandparent’s apartment and spent a night there. The day after, we drove to her uncle’s house, where I met him, her aunt, and her two younger cousins. We were met with a very good meal and tons of hospitality. Here we actually spent three days. The first day we just watched a movie and relaxed, I was exhausted from my trip. The second day though, we spent in Disneyland and California Adventure land – two places that are awesome. I guess they are more or less the same park, only split in two so you need two different tickets in order to get in. Anyway, I had never really been to many amusement parks, and I had never taken any of the more “crazy” rides. I had for example never been on a big rollercoaster, but sure enough, I went on a couple here. I would never have gone on any of them if it wasn’t for E. She loves thrill rides, and I, being new to the experience, just went along with her – though I must admit, I was a bit nervous when I noticed that the rollercoaster had loops in it. But when we got in the rollercoaster, it was actually a lot of fun. I’ll add some cliché here, and say that our relationship was like the rollercoaster. Also, we went on the Hollywood Tower of Terror. This one I was also nervous about, being the chicken that I was. But after taking these thrill rides, I loved it. They are so much fun! I guess you can call it an experience that made me into what I am today. After spending the day at California adventure land and Disneyland, we slept once again at E’s uncle’s house. The next day, we left for Washington. It was her grandparents who drove us, and it took us two days. It was actually a fun drive, even though it took a while, I mean, I got to see a lot of California, and actually quite a bit of Oregon too! When we finally got to Washington though, we basically just fell asleep, and that was what we did that day – drove and slept. When I visited E, she had to go to school unfortunately, so I didn’t get to spend as much time with her as I wanted during the days, but it was ok, because I got to spend some quality time with her dog! A beautiful, huge, Great Pyrenees named Vivo, though E usually calls her boo-bear or something lovey-dovey like that. I can definitely see why, it’s a very lovable dog. It’s a lazy and very fluffy dog that you can’t help but love. When E came back from school one day, I remember she was really upset. She talked to me about why she was upset. “My swimming coach is a ****ing idiot!” Yeah, she was very upset. Anyway, she continued to explain that the coach had screwed up registering her as a Varsity swimmer, so she only got registered as Junior Varsity. We talked, rented a movie, made food, put on the movie, “watched” the movie and just laid there. I remember that we just laid there and I held her in my arms. I just laid there and looked at her beautiful, pale, smooth skin as she closed her eyes to sleep and snuggled herself closer to me, I felt her warmth surround me even more than earlier. After 10 days in the amazing US, well, at least I found the few places I visited to be amazing, it was time for me to leave. When we drove to the SEA-TAC airport in Seattle, it was raining, the day was beautiful. I’m a fan of rain you see, and it wasn’t that heavy either which made it oh so perfect for our goodbye. The rain was falling as I held her face in my hands and kissed her passionately. We stood with tears in our eyes, as we said goodbye. Little did I know I wasn’t going to see her in real life until just two weeks ago*. I’m not sure whether this is a love story or not. To some people, it probably seems like a love story. To me, though… I don’t how I should characterize it. The story may seem like a typical love story where the guy loves the girl, and the girl loves the guy, and even though that’s true, I still think it’s more a story of my adoration of E, a one-way love. I don’t even know if this makes sense as I’m writing it. For it to be perfect, I would have to write it all over again. Actually, I don’t believe it could be perfect. Maybe to me it would be perfect, but not to others. I mean, this is a memory, not a love story, and to me – it’s perfect. To you, probably not. *When I wrote this it was 2 weeks, now it's 2 months Anyhow, whaddayathink?
Nice, romantic, and EPIC. This is a true story, and I can tell. And I like it. You're a brilliant writer, so keep it coming.
