Disclaimer: I had this episode planned and partially written before the news broke about the missing tourists trying to explore the wreck of the Titanic. I am not trying to capitalize on a tragedy.
As finals approached for the 1998 winter quarter, Titanic was the biggest movie in the world. The movie, a fictional love story set against the backdrop of the historical 1912 sinking of the British ship Titanic, had been the highest-grossing film of 1997 despite having been released just two weeks before the end of the year. It won many major awards, and it was still the number one movie in theaters now, almost three months after its release. As is often the case with major successful movies like that, the soundtrack spawned a hit pop song, “My Heart Will Go On” by Céline Dion. Like the movie, the song went on to become one of the most commercially successful songs of all time.
I had never seen the movie. Nor had I ever heard the song; I did not listen to that crap.
I never thought of myself as much of a moviegoer. Going to movies was something people did with friends, and I had never had much of a social life until recently. Something did not feel right about going to a movie by myself, so if I wanted to see a movie, and plans never came up to see it, I just did not watch it.
However, although love stories were not my preferred movie genre, I was intrigued by Titanic. I wanted to see it for the special effects; the filmmakers built and sank an actual replica of the Titanic. That was impressive in its own right. But I had no plans to do so.
One Thursday, I had a bit of free time on campus, so I walked into the Memorial Union building, looking for a place to sit and do math homework for the next two hours. I walked through the doors of the east entrance, near the bookstore, and began heading toward the Coffee House at the other end of the building, where I planned to look for a place to sit. But before I even got to the Coffee House, I found something more interesting to me, something about five foot five with straight brown hair halfway down her back and smiling blue eyes.
“Hey, Sadie,” I said, waving.
“Greg!” Sadie replied. “What’s up?”
“Just looking for a place to sit and hang out until my next class.”
“Me too! Come on!” Sadie walked in the same direction I was about to go, and I followed her. It was a relatively nice Fake Spring day outside, sunny and pleasant, typical of the week or two of nice weather that Jeromeville always got around this time of year before it turned cold and dreary again. The indoor tables were not excessively crowded, as they would be on a rainy day. “How about here?” Sadie said, gesturing to a table near the far end of the Coffee House.
“Looks good,” I said. Sadie sat facing south, toward the window looking out at the Quad, and I sat across from her. “How are you?”
“I had a midterm this morning. It was kind of hard. I don’t think I did very well.”
“What class?”
“History. I didn’t study as much as I could have. I’m pretty good at BS’ing essay questions, though, so I might have done okay.”
“Nice,” I replied. “I’m not good at BS’ing.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Like, if I have a paper to write, I have to start planning it at least a week or two in advance. I need time to go to the library and do research, and usually half of what I’m looking for is already checked out. And I need to think things through.”
“Wow.”
“And with essay questions on tests, I have to do a lot of studying in advance, to the point that I’m ready for whatever they might ask. Believe me, I wish I could BS a paper like you can.”
“You probably have a better GPA than those of us who BS papers, though.”
“That’s true. And, as a math major, I don’t have to write papers as often.”
“Yeah. That too. When do you write papers, anyway?”
“Classes for general ed requirements. And the English classes that everyone has to take,” I explained, “although I took AP English in high school, so I only had to take Advanced Comp. And this quarter I have Ed Psych, as a prerequisite for the teaching program next year.”
“Yeah, I guess you would still have to write papers.”
“Next quarter I’m taking Fiction Writing. For the teaching program, I need to have a certain number of units in English, no matter what subject I’ll be teaching, and I’m one class short. It can be anything, and Fiction Writing looks like the most fun option.”
“That does sound fun! Have you written fiction before?”
“I write stories for fun sometimes.”
“That’s really cool!” Sadie exclaimed.
“Would you ever want to read some of my stories?”
“Sure! I mean, I don’t know how much time I’ll have now with finals coming up, but maybe once that’s out of the way.”
“I’ll send you something sometime after finals, then.”
“Thanks!”
“Anyway, I was saying, Ed Psych is the only final I have to write for this year. I have two math classes with regular math finals, and no final for my internship at Jeromeville High.”
“How’s that going, by the way?” Sadie asked
“It’s good, but it’s been eye-opening,” I explained. “When I did this last year, it was with a class of pretty much all college-bound kids. These kids aren’t all like that. A lot of them aren’t motivated to work as hard, and they don’t pay attention in class.”
“That makes sense. But you’ll probably get a lot of that when you’re an actual teacher someday.”
“Yeah. Speaking of internships, you’re leaving for Washington, D.C., soon, right?”
“Yes! I leave the week after spring break. I’m so excited!”
“And what will you be doing exactly? Something in the House of Representatives, was it?”
“Yeah! Working for the Congressman who represents our district back home. My parents have helped out on his campaign before. He’s great.”
“Good!” I said. I knew enough about Sadie’s political leanings to know that if she liked this guy, he must be good, and I probably would agree with the way he voted most of the time.
“Mostly just office work,” Sadie explained, “but I’ll get to learn a lot about how the process works.”
“That’s really cool. I’m excited for you.”
“Thanks!”
“Keep in touch after you leave.”
“Yeah! I will!” Sadie replied.
We continued talking as time passed, about everything from classes to future plans to high school friends back home, of which Sadie still had many. “I don’t hear from any of my high school friends anymore,” I said. “I guess I wasn’t super close to them to begin with. I didn’t really do anything with friends until I was a senior, old enough to drive. Plumdale is spread out, and I lived kind of far from everyone.”
“That makes sense. I lived near a lot of my friends from high school. They all went off to school after we graduated, but we still try to get together when we’re home on break.”
“That’s good. I wish I had that. I made some new friends senior year too, and then all of a sudden they were gone after we all moved away.”
“That’s too bad, but it happens,” Sadie said.
“One of those new friends I made senior year, I saw her here once, walking across the MU. It was the weirdest thing. She was younger, she was still a senior in high school at the time, but her boyfriend and her brother both went to Jeromeville, and Plumdale High had a day off, so she and her friend came up to visit.”
“And you just bumped into each other? That’s weird.”
“That was the last time I ever heard from her,” I said, nostalgically and wistfully. I had not thought about Annie Gambrell for a long time, until now. “But, I don’t know, maybe it’s for the best.” I lowered my voice, leaned in a little closer to Sadie, and explained, barely above a whisper, “I had a big crush on her, and she had a boyfriend.”
“Oh yeah,” Sadie replied with a slight chuckle. “That’s rough.”
“Story of my life.”
“Aww.” Sadie yawned, and continued, “Sorry! I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“I hate that.”
“My roommate and her boyfriend got home late from the movie theater last night. They went to see Titanic, because I guess he had never seen it. And then they came home and woke me up, and they stayed up in the living room talking.”
“That’s annoying,” I said. “I’ve never seen Titanic either. I want to.”
“It was so good! I saw it once when I was home for Christmas. I want to see it again.”
Every once in a while, an opportunity would drop into my lap perfectly. And some of those times I would actually get brave and take the opportunity. “Do you want to see it with me sometime?” I asked. “Will you have time before you leave for D.C.?”
“Yeah!” Sadie exclaimed. “I have a lot to do before I leave, and finals are coming up, but I should be able to work something out. I’ll figure out my schedule and get back to you.”
“Perfect!” I said.
“Oh crap,” Sadie said, looking at her watch. “I need to get going. I have class.”
“What time is it?” I wondered aloud, while looking at my watch. Almost two hours had passed since Sadie and I had sat down in the Memorial Union. “Wow. It doesn’t feel like it’s this late.”
“I know!”
“It was really good hanging out,” I said. “Hope your class goes well. And keep me posted about the movie.”
“Yeah! I will! It was good talking to you.”
“You too!”
As I watched Sadie walk away, I thought about how this was not the first time this had happened to us, getting lost in conversation and losing track of the time. Sadie was one of those rare people whom I could talk to for hours, all while feeling that no time had passed at all.
By the middle of the following week, I still had not heard back from Sadie about going to see Titanic. I wrote her an email one night during a study break:
To: srrowland@jeromeville.edu
From: gjdennison@jeromeville.edu
Subject: movie
Hey! How is studying going? Are you ready for finals? I think mine will be ok. Ed Psych is the one I’m most worried about, mostly just because it’s not math, and I’m going to have to write an essay, and you know I don’t BS essays very well. :)
What’s your schedule like? Are we still going to see Titanic? How is all of the preparation for your internship going? Good luck with finals, and I’ll see you soon!
gjd
The next day, I checked my email frequently during study breaks for the whole time I was home. I got excited when I saw that I had a message from Sadie, but I became considerably less excited as I read the message:
From: “Sadie Rowland” <srrowland@jeromeville.edu>
To: “Gregory Dennison” <gjdennison@jeromeville.edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 13:46 -0800
Subject: Re: movie
Hi Greg! Unfortunately, I don’t think I can. I just have too much to do this week, getting ready for finals and packing for DC. Sorry! I hope you have a great finals week! Good luck!
I wrote back later, just making small talk about life and finals and stuff, and asking Sadie about her upcoming internship back east. Finals came and went, I went home for spring break without my computer or access to email, and I returned to Jeromeville a few days before classes started. A couple days into spring quarter, almost three weeks after my last message, Sadie finally wrote back.
From: “Sadie Rowland” <srrowland@jeromeville.edu>
To: “Gregory Dennison” <gjdennison@jeromeville.edu>
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 19:34 -0500
Subject: Re: movie
Hey! Sorry it took me so long to write back! I’ve had so much going on. The trip here went well, and I’ve gotten situated here. Today was my second actual day of work for the internship. It’s been great so far! I love it!
I had to pack in a lot during my spring break, trying to get everything ready and seeing all my friends and family here before I left. It was good, but mostly just hanging out and catching up with people. The weekend before I left, I went to the beach with a bunch of my friends, and we had a great time. Oh yeah, this one guy I dated off and on for part of high school, he and I reconnected while we were here, and we got back together! We’re doing long distance now, obviously, but it works out perfectly because he’s busy with school, and he’s going to come stay with me in DC for three weeks in the summer because he’s never seen the East Coast. And he’s moving to Jeromeville in the fall for grad school, so then we’ll be together!
How was your spring break? Did you do anything exciting?
-Sadie
Of course it had to end this way. It always ended like that, I liked someone and she met someone else. But at least Sadie was still a good friend, and she had access to email in Washington, so we could stay in touch while she was doing her internship with the House of Representatives.
Or so I thought.
I replied to Sadie’s message and told her about my spring break, but Sadie never wrote another email to me that entire spring or summer. When school started again in the fall, Sadie was no longer going to Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, and I never saw her hanging out in the Memorial Union anymore. I did see her once, in November, while I was walking across campus on the way to class. She was walking in the opposite direction, with a guy who appeared to be the boyfriend she had told me about in March. They looked like she had somewhere to be. I waved, and she said, “Hey,” and kept on walking.
And that was the last time I ever saw her or spoke to her.
I never saw Titanic, with Sadie or with anyone else. It was for many years the highest-grossing film of all time, yet I have never seen it. For a while, the thought of seeing Titanic brought back sad memories of not being friends with Sadie anymore. Then, several months after that happened, I heard my friend Jed Wallace give his opinion about how Titanic was a terrible movie, and everything he said made sense to me. Jed’s thoughts, combined with stories I heard over the course of that year about creepy old ladies going to see Titanic ten times on the big screen because they thought 23-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio was so hot, turned me against the idea of seeing the movie. By the end of 1998, never having seen Titanic had become a badge of honor for me.
I also never did get around to sending Sadie any of the stories I had written. In light of the emotional shock of being turned down from seeing the movie and learning about Sadie’s new boyfriend, I just never brought that up again.
I have learned over the years that sometimes friends naturally grow apart, and that it does not necessarily represent failure on my part. But I still find it discouraging. I remembered what it was like to not have friends, when I was younger, so every friendship felt exceptionally valuable to me. It especially hurt to grow apart from someone like Sadie, since I always felt like we clicked so well. Of course, she came back to Jeromeville with a boyfriend, and he may have had a problem with her having a lot of guy friends. It is natural that Sadie’s friendships with guys would change when a boyfriend came along. But I still did not like it. I wanted my close friends to stay close, and while I thought Sadie was a great girl, I had no intention of trying to steal her away from her boyfriend. I could do nothing about it when people grew apart from me like this, except to do everything in my power to make sure I did not grow apart from the people I cared about when my own circumstances changed.
Readers: Have you ever abruptly lost touch with someone you thought was a close friend? I’m sorry… tell me about it in the comments, if it’s not too painful to talk about.
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Don't Let The Days Go By 
First, you should see Titanic. I know, I know…but do it. It’s cheesy and silly, but iconic. It’s one of those films you should see for the cultural references if nothing else. Also, it’s just good.
Second, I’m so sorry about what happened with Sadie in this episode. It’s so sad! I wanted so much for it to go differently. I’ve had this happen too, when you lose touch with someone you really like with no explanation. It’s painful. I wanted to hug young Greg in that moment.
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I’m king of the world, draw me like one of your French girls, those are all the cultural references I need to know. I’m good. 😝 Part of me agrees, it’s such an iconic movie that I should see it, but part of me also kind of likes the distinction of having never seen it.
Like I’ve said before, I’ve grown apart from so many people in my life, it’s almost become just what I expect people to do eventually.
In fact, my reply a few minutes ago to your comment on the hot redhead episode, about the people you stood in line with and didn’t see again… when I replied, I thought your comment was about Sadie, not about her, because people just disappear out of my life. That’s just how it is. Although it is nice that there are a few people out there who I get along with who have not disappeared.
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