Authors: Izabella St. James
I attended Resurrection Catholic Secondary School, a beautiful new school with wonderful teachers, where I wore the classic uniform of a kilt, white shirt, and black knee-highs. I had a tight-knit group of girlfriends without whom I would not have survived the turmoil of teenage years. Besides playing on the soccer team after school, note-passing and gossiping about boys were our favorite school activities. I was the last one of my friends to lose my virginity. I felt so left out when, during our lunch hour, they would talk about their experiences and compare notes.
I had been waiting for the perfect guy, my first love. And then it happened. His name was Deon. He was a skater boy, with a long mohawk who listened to Metallica and wore Sex Pistols shirts. He dropped out of school, but he was gorgeous and I loved him. My dad was not crazy about him, but we found ways to see each other. I wanted him to be The One. One night when my friend Pamela was sleeping over at my house, we snuck out at around midnight in the dead of winter and walked to his house, which was a few miles away. We brought my mom’s butter knives for protection, a fact that still gives us a good laugh. It took us more than an hour in freezing temperatures to get there, but when I got to his house, it was he who wasn’t ready, although he was not a virgin. Ironically, he liked me too much to have sex with me. Soon after that he moved to British Columbia, and I had to move on, but I always regretted that he wasn’t the one. I decided that I could not wait until someone “special” came around again—that could take years! Out at the all-ages night club my friends and I used to go to, I met a boy who was a great dancer. The way all of the girls liked him and cheered for him made him the hot commodity. His name was Joey and he was another bad boy type; I decided he was going to be the one. Not more than a month after we started dating, I snuck off to his house and we did it. He didn’t know it was my first time because frankly, I was too cool to admit it, and he was too immature to notice. I told him Deon had been the first, because in my heart, he was. And that was that. We were driving somewhere when I broke the news to my mom; I had always been honest with her and I could not keep the secret to myself. It was the first time she had been disappointed in me. I hated to hurt or disappoint her, but I learned then that there would be times in my life when I would have to make my own decisions and not always please everyone.
During the rest of my high school years, I dated several guys, but I was highly selective as to whom I became sexually involved with; I was more preoccupied with my grades. Boys were a fun distraction, but school and learning were my passion.
I graduated high school with an academic excellence award for an average above ninety percent, as well as a special award in geography and other achievement awards. My friends were surprised; they didn’t know I was such a nerd, but I loved learning and I loved school. Ever since I was a little girl, my family and I had thought that I was going to grow up to become a doctor. My dad never missed an opportunity to give me some early practice by having me bandage his finger or anything else that I was capable of doing. This dream came to a crushing end when, in my high school science class, I was unable to dissect a frog, let alone graduate onto dissecting the baby pig. I wasn’t even able to lay it out on the table and consider the idea. I left my class and took a zero on the assignment. That was it for me. I realized I could not be a doctor. That left me with the only other traditionally prestigious and respectable profession: I decided to become a lawyer.
Although there were two universities in town, I didn’t even bother applying to them. Kitchener was a great place to spend my adolescence and a great place to raise a family, but at eighteen, I had outgrown it and I was itching to get out of there. I longed for more culture and new, diverse experiences. In the past, it had been my parents who moved around until they found a place where they could build their life; now it was my turn to look for a place of my own. I researched Canadian universities and found out that McGill University in Montreal was rated the number one school that year. With my grades, I could go anywhere. I turned down scholarships at other schools and chose to attend the esteemed McGill in French-speaking Montreal in the province of Quebec. I was not afraid to go to a city I had never seen and where I did not know a soul; after all, I had done it before, albeit not alone. I was sad to leave my mom. She is my best friend, and our bond and our love is so strong that I didn’t know if I would survive being away from her. It broke my heart to live so far from my parents, but I had to do it for myself; I had to grow up, have responsibilities, have the freedom to develop my own character. My parents drove me to Montreal and helped me settle in at my all-girl residence. I cried when they left. I missed my mom so much, but we spoke every day on the phone, a custom that continues to this day no matter where we are in the world.
Everyone always says your college year are the best years of your life, and they are right. My time at McGill was the absolute best time of my life. Founded in 1821, McGill is widely regarded as the “Canadian Harvard.” William Shatner of Star Trek fame graduated from the school in 1952 with a bachelor of commerce; there is a social activities building named after him. I was attracted not only by the prestige of the university, but also by the beauty and
joie de vivre
of Montreal. People really enjoy life there, not just amazing summer events like the jazz festival, comedy festival, and the Grand Prix, but every single day—even in very cold weather. I loved the school, and I adore the city.
My first year at McGill, I met three of my best friends. Laura and Gena had lived with me at the all-girls residence. My first memory of us going out together was on my birthday; we went to a male strip club. We were 18 years old and without parental supervision for the first time. I don’t remember whose idea it was, but Laura and I had a great time giggling with embarrassment. Our second year, the three of us moved into a beautiful two-story townhouse on Durocher Street. We would sit at the kitchen window and philosophize about life, God, and everything else as we watched the world, especially the boys, go by. We were legends in the “McGill Ghetto,” as the school neighborhood was called, three tall (at 5-foot-7, I was the shortest) blondes living together.
My third best friend at McGill was Niki, a tall beautiful brunette, a cross between Cindy Crawford and Geena Davis. She was the first person I met at McGill on my first day. I was lost and looking for orientation. Despite being new there herself, she was calm and collected and showed me where to go. After that I saw her in several of my classes, as we were both Poli Sci majors, and we became friends. She was Greek, and that only made me like her more. Her mom makes the most delicious almond powder cookies, and I was lucky enough to receive a couple of deliveries. I remember Niki and I always grabbing coffee before our political theory class, discussing how we should go to Los Angeles and become soap opera stars as we waited for the lecture to begin. That was always our Plan B. One day, I convinced her to join the U.N. club and introduced her to my friend Guy, a cadet from West Point, since I was dating another cadet at the time. I had met them at a conference I attended at Yale. I was responsible for a long and complicated romance between the two, causing her a lot of heartbreak and confusion. But she never held it against me. She was the more responsible one; she looked out for me. I was the one who was always getting myself involved in boy intrigues and waiting until the night before to write a thirty-page research paper. I always waited until the last minute, staring at the heap of books that awaited my attention—it was then that I became inspired. I even had the procrastinator’s creed poster on my wall “I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.” There was a method to my madness however, as I always managed to pull it off and get an A.
My roommates and I had a party at our house once, and all but two of our guests were men. We didn’t know how to deal with it, so we got drunk. First year of college was a year of many experiences. We got cheap “Baby Duck” wine at the local
deppaneur
(the “dep” is like a family-owned 7-Eleven or convenience store, and can be found only in the province of Quebec), which was great because we were eighteen years old; the drinking age in Ontario where I lived is nineteen, and you can purchase alcohol only in special government-operated stores, the accurately-called Beer Store and Liquor Store. Not at all like in the States, where in some states you can purchase alcohol at a grocery or drug store. This opened a whole new world of trouble for my friends and I: the first time we got drunk; the first time we threw up in public; and the first time we woke up and didn’t know where we were exactly, only to run as fast as we could to our 7 a.m. Spanish class, whose teacher was not amused by our appearance.
It was also a time of experimentation, the first time I smoked pot and laughed hysterically while bingeing simultaneously on Doritos and Tim Horton’s doughnuts. Our experience with psychedelic mushrooms was at a party, where we sat paralyzed, staring at everyone, completely convinced that the girl in front of us was a peacock, and our friend’s new date looked like an oversized gnome, and in fact we even told him we thought so. College was a time for growth, but also fun. There were ski trips that never saw any skiing and a great trip to Laura’s native Bahamas; there was the time I worked as a shooter girl at a nightclub called Angel’s, where guys bought me more shots than they bought themselves, and many other fantastic memories.
There was never a shortage of men in our lives. It was during my second year that I met and dated Keith McPhail. He was a gorgeous, fun, loving person. I remember I was shopping for a watch of gold and silver so that I could wear it with both types of jewelry. A few days before my birthday, Keith called me from a party—it was 3 a.m. He said he had something he wanted to give me and was coming over. I protested. I was in Montreal, and he was in London, Ontario. It was a nine-hour drive! He showed up ten hours later to give me the beautiful, expensive watch with a gold and silver bracelet, that he had bought me. He was outgoing and adventurous; he was training to become a pilot. We broke up because of the demands of my studies and his training, but we became best friends. He visited me many times afterward, flying himself and even my friends to Montreal. He always told me he would come back for me one day with a big diamond and ask me to marry him.
After Keith, I dated mostly athletes—football players, to be exact. One in particular affected my life for a long time. Ryan was a quarterback at the University of Waterloo, and I met him when I was home for the summer. We had an instant attraction and spent a fun few weeks together until I had to leave for McGill. I thought we would continue in a long-distance relationship, and we did for a while. Our relationship was so intense that he drove nine hours just to be with me for a couple of hours. With the distance between us, we slowly grew apart, and then I found out he was seeing an older girl at Waterloo; he needed someone who was there to take care of him during football season. I was upset but I had to let it go. I had met someone new as well. Sean was a great guy. I only wanted to be friends with him at first, but he was such a wonderful person that I decided to give the relationship a chance. He was a caring person; he brought me food, took me out, and did amazingly kind and romantic things to make me happy. He was always there for me unconditionally.
But I was too immature to appreciate him. Every time I went home, I saw Ryan. It could not be avoided because he worked as a bouncer and bartender at the bar my friends and I always hung out at when I came home, Loose Change Louis. We just couldn’t resist each other. I had never had this illogical, intense desire for anyone and never felt the way I did when I was with him. I did not understand why; I hated myself but I couldn’t stop it. I loved Sean, but I was attracted to Ryan and there was no middle ground. Ryan had a girlfriend as well. We had an ongoing affair for more than two years, which ended very badly for everyone involved. Sean found out and called Ryan’s girlfriend to tell her what was going on. It was brutal. I was confused; I didn’t understand why I allowed it to happen. I learned a painful but valuable lesson about love and lust. I swore off men. I didn’t even look at guys for more than a year.
Despite all the fun I was having, it was at McGill that I found my intellectual footing. I started off with a double major in history and political science, but after two years, I found it too restricting. I had taken a couple of literature and philosophy courses and wanted to explore other subjects. I wanted to be a well-rounded person; I didn’t want to just know history or just know politics. McGill had the perfect major for me: humanistic studies. This major allowed me to continue my studies of Spanish, philosophy, geography, and classical music. I developed a love for English literature, Baroque art and classical music. I also studied American history and fell in love with the principles and ideals upon which the United States of America was founded. I also longed to take some drama classes, but I put them off. My main extracurricular activity was the model U.N. club. I went on delegations to Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, and the real U.N. in New York City. I was an internationalist and an idealist. Having been raised in Poland, Greece, and Canada, I felt like I was a child of the world. I dreamed of being a diplomat, with the ultimate goal of becoming an ambassador. I decided to become a lawyer specializing in international affairs.
But school was not the only place I learned; life provided the most challenging tests and taught me the hardest lessons. My very last semester at McGill, I went to Kitchener-Waterloo for spring break, and when I arrived back in my apartment, I had several messages on my answering machine. My friend Pamela asked me to call her immediately, and I knew something was wrong. She told me that Keith, my former boyfriend and one of my best friends, was in a plane crash and was dead. I didn’t believe it. There must have been a mistake. I felt paralyzed. I have known people who had died but never anyone so young and so vibrant, and so close to me. He was flying a plane with his girlfriend as the passenger, and I guess it was a snowy night in Maine. It was determined that for some reason he thought he was flying at a higher altitude than he really was and he crashed into a mountainside just a few miles from the airport. I spent the night crying, and when morning came, I went right back to Kitchener for the funeral. As much as I was hurting, I knew his family was hurting more. I wrote a poem about Keith, for his family and for myself, and I bought some flowers and spent some time with his family the night before the funeral. I went back to school afterward, but I was not the same person. There is a song titled “Surrounded” by Chantal Kreviazuk, which Pamela turned me onto, that reminds me of Keith: “I was there when you shone as bright as Bethlehem from afar, I was there when you were young and strong and perverted and everything that makes a young man a star, oh you were a star.” Whenever I fly, and I frequently do, I think of him. I’m scared of turbulence, so I speak to Keith and ask him to keep me safe. He is my guardian angel in the skies.