You don’t choose for who you fall

I am really scared & excited right now. I can't believe tomorrow will be the first day of my career. I am Gemma Rhode Anderson , Gemma for my friends & Gem for my parents. I spent my entire life, which is not much by the way, just 20 years , playing with my best friend Emily in the backyard of my house back in the hot & humid weather of Texas. Although, people aren't very fond of spending their summers in Texas, some part of me always liked summer. I have really fond memories of my childhood but whenever I try to think about my childhood the only memory that crosses my mind is of Emily & I literally spending the entire day in our tank tops & shorts, playing games which didn't have any rules and talking about stuff that didn't have any meaning.

Me thinking about my childhood is interrupted by my phone's ringing. I pick up the phone just to see my mum calling me for like the hundredth time in the day, and I am not even exaggerating. Okay , maybe I am a little. So realizing that I have to pick up my phone or else she will go in a full anxiety mode, I answer the call.

"Hey mom, seems like you missed me a lot today!" I chirp into the phone.

"Oh my god, I have been worrying about you , the entire day. You know you could have at least texted me that you have landed safely. You know this is the first time you have gone anywhere without me & your dad. I was so concerned for you." , she says the entire four sentences all in one breath .

"I know , mom . I am really sorry. I was just really busy the entire day. Like I just got here , in my hotel room 2 hours ago and since then I have been busy packing and preparing for tomorrow. I was just about to call you. And about me , coming here all alone, let me remind you ,Texas and LA are just 3 hours away from a plane ride. So mom, you have to stop worrying about me that much. OKAY?" , I say with genuine concern for her. She really worries about me a lot.

"Yeah, honey. I 'll try but I am not promising anything. By the way have you eaten anything."

"I was just heading to the cafeteria, mom."

"How is it that whenever I ask you to do something, you are just going to do that." My mom says, which I am sure she's saying with a smirk on her face.

Realizing that I am too tired to win this argument I just say," Mom, I am just going to eat, I promise. I have a lot of planning to do for tomorrow, so I'll just keep the phone down now, okay. Take care of dad & yourself. Love you mom. Byeee & good night."

My mom somehow senses my tiredness and she decides to finally hang up the phone before telling me that she's proud of me and she wishes I have an awesome first day.

I am the only child to my parent's, and it would be safe to say that they've showered me with love & affection worth for 3-4 children. Somehow, they managed to be firm and loving at the same time. They never spoiled me. They always try to give me what I need before thinking of what they need. And since they've been the greatest parents that anyone could ever ask for, I've tried my best to be the best daughter they could ever ask for.

So, tomorrow is my first day of officially flying an aeroplane as a commercial pilot. I had been learning to fly a plane since I finished high school and finally after a year and a half of personal training and proper documentation and stuff, I'll start my career tomorrow as a pilot for Alaska airlines. They have transferred me to LA for a year, and after working here for a year I can go back to Texas, to my home, where I belong.

I have literally worked my ass off, to get here, not in LA . Here, as in becoming a pilot. So, I've decided that everything else can wait. And by everything else I mean boys & relationship ...duhh. I wanna have a stable career first. Some people can say I am career oriented.

But I guess me being career oriented isn't the only reason why I am not looking for a relationship right now. See , if you are in a relationship, you'll have to experience heartbreaks. Its not like I am saying that relationship's are all about heartbreaks. They aren't . Its just that love & heartbreak go hand in hand. No relationship is smooth .Every relationship has its own highs and lows. And I am not sure that I'm ready to face another set of lows with another person right now. I just feel I'm too young to fall in love & I've already experienced heartbreak .

I got my heart broken by Tristan Aldrin. Who is Tristan, you might be wondering. Tristan is the guy on whom I had a crush on since I don't know maybe 7th grade. I deliberately used 'I don't know' because I honestly don't know. You know its almost fascinating that you fall for someone without even realizing that you are falling for them. I never wanted to fall for him because some part of me always thought he was way out of my league. Not because I'm ugly or anything. I think I'm pretty to some extent but I never thought that he would be into someone like me. So yeah , I didn't want to fall for him but guess what, I did. Why? Because you don't get to choose for who you fall.

So I spent entire high school crushing over him but I never told him that I had a crush on him. Like whenever we used to talk ,I used to be all giggly whenever he said something even when it wasn't funny. He was always around because he & Emily were good friends. So I had come to terms with the fact that he would never have feelings for me like I had for him. And I guess I was fine with that because its not like everytime you have feelings for someone , everytime you care about someone , they reciprocate that care & affection. So yeah, like I said I was fine.

But that was until 6 months ago, when he confessed his feelings for me. I know you would be like duhh...that's what happens everytime right? Like you spend your entire high school crushing over a guy and then when school ends you get to know that, that guy had feelings for you all along but now you cant do anything about it. But we did something about it. When he got to know that I liked him, he asked me to be his girlfriend , and I of course said yes.

We spent the last 6 months , spending all the spare time that we had that we got after working at our respective internships. He never took me out on a date because we were both always busy . Some part of me desperately wanted to go on a date but it never happened .

When he got to know that I was being transferred to LA , he decided to break up, saying that long distance never works and we'll eventually end up breaking up so why not break up now on a good note. As I had nothing else to say, so I agreed. Not because I wanted to break up but because I had enough self respect to not to cling to someone who thinks I am not worth the wait , or the problems that come with long distance relationship.

But little did I know that heart doesn't have any self respect . it will keep on missing the people that you love even if they don't love you back. Don't get me wrong, I didn't love him or anything but I liked him....a lot. I did. But I ll try not to think much about him now as I have a career to look forward to. Like I said I'll TRY.

Ya, so although I had awesome parents, an awesome best friend and an awesome boyfriend, I still felt a little empty. Like something was missing. Its not like I used to be sad . I wasn't sad. I was fine. I felt like I was supposed to be fine as I was surrounded by such incredible people but I don't know , for some reason that loneliness stayed with me.

Maybe I was surrounded by such incredible people that I always tried to live up to their standards. I tried my best to make them happy, but somewhere down the line, I forgot how to be happy.