irving, jason

[jason andrew irving]

JASON andrew IRVING .
twenty-two, college student, the danger magnet

- - oh hey there, i really like your name.

My full name is Jason Andrew Irving and to be honest, I actually really like it. It just sort of has a flow to it that I like. There’s no real story behind it, my parents picked out a name they liked before I was born and that just happened to be it. When it comes to nicknames, it’s really only Annie who calls me anything other than Jason, and that’s perfectly fine with me. She’ll call me Jay sometimes and really, I’m not sure if I’d like hearing it from anyone else.

- - hmm, you look like you're twenty-one. am i right?

I was born on January seventeenth in the hospital where my parents work at in New York. It’s one of the larger hospitals just a little outside of Colonie. I guess I was rather eager to see the world; I was born three weeks earlier than my actual due date. Yeah, it was considered early, but I wasn’t really underweight so it was all good. Other than that, it’s not really an extravagant story. My mom was in labor for about ten and a half hours, my dad at her side the entire time. When I finally arrived, it was eleven sixteen. At night. My poor parents had a long day. The first of many long days with me in the hospital, haha.

- - so i'm guessing you're in college then? or are you going the job route?

As of right now I’m attending the University of Utah and working my butt off - I just started my last four years or medical school. When I’m not there I’m usually studying back at my house…well, usually. Especially now. This semester just started and some of it is already giving me a headache. I don’t exactly love school, but I don’t hate it. Besides, it’ll give me a good job once I finished. The campus is nice, even if my classes are huge. Five years of school and I still can’t get use to having lectures in a huge lecture hall with what feels like six hundred people. This is only my third year here at U of U, I spent my first two years at New York State University. After high school, my three best friends and I all went there and rented an apartment about ten minutes from the campus. When I left New York, I spent a summer on the road and I ended up making some good friends in the short time I planned on spending here in Salt Lake and I figured I needed some place to go to school for the year, so I applied at the U. That’s how I wound up here at U of U and I have to say, I really like it here. Oh, I almost forgot, I’m studying to be a pediatrician. My parents are both surgeons and I’ve always seen myself in the medical field because of that and I absolutely love kids.

It sounds crazy to a lot of people, but I’ve never had any sort of job; I never had to work. I mean, I’ve groomed horses for my friends at a couple horse shows I didn’t take my horse to, but other than that I never worked. And really, I didn’t consider that working, either. It was more having fun than anything.

- - well that's good. if you don't mind me asking, how is your love life?

I have nothing against people who aren’t, but I’m straight and it’s not something I’m going to change. I mean, I’m engaged to my girlfriend that I’ve been with for about a year, guys aren‘t suddenly going to become attractive to me. I’m rather open about it I guess, I don’t keep it a secret or anything. It’s not like Annie and I only act like we’re together when it’s just us.

Other than my fiancé, I’ve been in three other relationships in my entire life. I started dating my first “girlfriend” when I was sixteen and I found out about two weeks later she hardly had any interest in me, she just was interested in my family’s money. Obviously, that didn’t last much longer after I found that out. I sulked around for a few days, feeling like a failure at the whole dating thing like most teenagers would and then I moved on.

My next relationship after that happened not long after I turned eighteen. I started going out with one of my best friends that I had been incredibly close to for four years. That was absolutely wonderful. We dated for two years and went to college together, though she was a year younger than I was, and lived in the same apartment with two other of our friends. One was in my grade, one was in hers. She was the first girl I ever fell in love with. She went on vacations with my family and me and living together was wonderful, even with two other guys in the house. She was the first girl I ever had sex with; she was staying at my parent’s house for a week during the Christmas break before my nineteenth birthday and my parents had taken my four year old brother to get his picture taken with Santa and, well, we had the house to ourselves and what started out as cuddling on my bed, like we had many times before, turned into much more. From there, nothing really changed. We went back to our apartment during the school year and lived with our friends there, sharing a bed. Not much happened there, obviously, since we weren’t the only two living there, and during the summer we lived at our parents’. Well, for about a year everything seemed fantastic and then we just started fighting all the time and it was just awkward. We had spent six years knowing each other, two years dating without ever getting into a fight and when we did, we found out we couldn’t fight. So after my last day of my second year at NYSU, she came to me in tears and ended it. I didn’t know what to do so I left. I grabbed what was left at the apartment (I had been taking things back to my parents’ since it was the start of summer) and then drove over to my parents, finished packing up there and left.

A few weeks after I ended up in Salt Lake, I started dating one of the first girls I met here who was my age. It was nice for the couple months we dated, but it just wasn’t right. I’m not one who rushes into saying ‘I love you’ or saying it if I don’t mean it and I knew I loved her, just not in that sort of way; it was more of a best friend, sisterish way. That was hard; it was the first relationship that actually meant something to the woman that I had to end. And we had become fast friends when I moved here, so it hurt even more to know that I hurt one of my friends. After a while things seemed to smooth over, other than the feelings that she still had for me, but we still stayed the best of friends.

For the past year I’ve been in a relationship with Anabel Bailey who’s also a student at the U. We met in the school bookstore about two months after Dahlia and I broke up when I was looking for something or another and she needed a sweater. She was quite forward and asked me if I wanted to go get coffee and we became fast friends. There was just something about her I liked. We moved on rather fast, but it’s definitely been worth it. About six months into our relationship I was in a really bad car wreck and after I got out of the hospital, Annie moved in with me to help take care of me. Once I could actually do things on my own again, she stuck around and, hey, I wasn’t complaining. Actually, about a month afterward the first surgery I had, we took our relationship farther, to the more, err, physical sense if you know what I mean. Having her around was fantastic; it was nice to have someone to fall asleep with again, especially someone who I really loved. And we could actually fight, which was nice. Well, not nice, but being in a relationship where you can shout and slam doors and by the end of the day everything’s back to normal, it’s a good thing. Well, a couple months after the wreck, I still wasn’t comfortable with the scars I got from the two surgeries I had to go through, even around Ana and she figured I needed to get some help since it was more than just the scars I was having problems with. She suggested we take a break and if you’ve seen her, you know she’s beautiful, so I was worried that maybe another guy might make a move on her and she might realize he was what she wanted instead of me. Well, three days after she moved out of my house, my ex before her came over since I hadn’t been answering my phone or my texts and she was worried. I was in my bed sulking and she came upstairs. We started talking and then she kissed me; like I said, she still had feelings for me. I was hurting and stupid and I took that too far. That day, Ana decided to come over to talk and when she walked in, she saw my ex sitting on top of me, topless and us making out on my bed. That started what had to be the lowest two months of my life. Anyways, two months later, things changed and she asked if we could try again. Two months later, here we are, living together and engaged. I honestly couldn’t be happier. Hmm, it seems like it's a two-month thing going on.

- - ah, i see. i hope i'm not getting too personal, but are you particularly religious?

Well I was born and raised in a Christian household, not that it was strict or anything. We went to church occasionally; it was unusual for my parents to have the same Sunday off, so sometimes when they did we’d go. And Christmas Eve and Easter we always went. After I started dating Ana, her mom didn’t want me to be with her since I wasn’t Catholic and I couldn’t have that, so not long after that, I went through what I had to and I’m now Catholic.

- - you know, i just noticed, but you really are quite attractive.

For the most part, I’m perfectly fine with the way I look, though I’ve been told (mainly by Annie) that I’m rather good looking. I’m about the average height for a guy, right about five foot ten, though the way my hair sticks up sometimes I could probably pass for five eleven. I guess I have a more athletic sort of build even though I haven’t really been running as much as I use to. My hair is longer and it’s a really dark brown; most people seem to think it’s black. I usually leave it curly because I really like the looks of my curls, but I have been known to straighten it sometimes, usually if it’s doing something really annoying and I have the extra time. My eyes are also a dark brown and they’re like a book to read. Thanks to that, it’s pretty much impossible for me to hide how I’m feeling. As for my style, I just wear whatever it is I like. I tend to wear tighter jeans and for shirts I’ll wear anything from plain, v-neck shirts to a bright colored shirt with a blazer over it. It all depends on my mood and what I’m doing, really. I do have glasses, but I tend to wear my contacts more often.

After the wreck that I was in, I have a bunch of scars all over my body from it. There’s quite a few on my arms since that’s basically where all of the glass fell when it broke, though there’s only one that’s really noticeable. It’s on my right arm, a couple inches down from my wrist, right across that vein. It’s a couple inches long and it‘s kind of jagged. Like I said, there’s a bunch more on my arms but that's probably the only one you'd really notice. There’s another scar about an inch and a half long on the left side of my forehead, a little bit above and in front of my temple. It’s from where my head cracked against the side of my car. That one you’ll probably never see since my hair almost always covers that side of my forehead. Along my left side are two long, thin scars that basically stretch from my hip bone all the way up to my armpit. Those ones are from the surgeries I had to go through afterwards and no, unless you’re Ana you will not see them. I don’t like them at all, so even if you see me at the beach or a pool or something, I won’t take my shirt off. Other than that, I have a few smaller scars in random places, one on my foot, from where I accidentally did something stupid or tripped over myself and needed stitches. That tends to happen a lot with me. Oh, there's another on my thumb from where I sliced it open when I was cutting up mushrooms for dinner one night. Poor Annie, haha. I'm not the most coordinated person, so most of my scars are from me just being myself.

- - so what kind of things just brighten your day?

What do I like? Annie, obviously. Hmm… I love to make other people laugh. Believe it or not, I considered being a comedian. Well, sort of. It was more of a joke because I never thought the life of being a celebrity, even a minor one would be fun. Really, why would I want the whole world knowing when I changed my socks? Music is something else I enjoy. I can play piano and guitar and I‘m pretty good at singing. I was a big choir kid back in high school. Let’s see…Oh, I love to take long drives, even though I’m kind of a nervous driver now. It’s getting better, but I do get a little jumpy at times. Running has always been something I enjoy doing. It just makes me feel good whenever I do it and it’s also a great stress relief. Anytime I’m stressed out or upset, I’ll usually go for a run. My family and friends means the world to me; I love spending time with them, whether we‘re sitting around watching a movie and playing a board game or going on a road trip. The thought of actually having my own family is definitely something I like; there was a little time there when I didn’t think that was ever going to happen. I love kids and even though I know it’s going to be a few years, I can’t wait to be called ‘dad’. I love New York and not just New York City. It’s where I grew up and I love it there. Starry nights are beautiful and they definitely bring back some good memories. Mmmm I love to cuddle, too. Curling up on the couch and watching a good movie and then forgetting what you were watching is awesome, too.

- - anything that just makes you frown?

I hate alcohol. That’s definitely something I will never get into ever again. I mean, I never understood why anyone would want to drink it to start with; I don’t see how it can make anyone more fun to be around. It just made me more depressed. And really, not knowing what you did the night before? Just like waking up with a hang over, it sucks, end of story. Now that I’m done with that mini rant, let’s see…what else don’t I like. I guess I’m a pretty easy going guy, there’s not much that I don’t like. Well, rap music isn’t all that great. It sounds more like noise than real music to me. I hate getting into fights; I always feel really bad afterwards, especially when it was over something stupid. I guess it’s kind of the same, but I also hate hurting people. Not that I’m the kind of guy to just go up and punch someone, but like saying something or doing something stupid and it ends up making them feel bad. I hate it when I do that. Oh, it might sound kind of random, but I hate the sound of breaking glass. When my car was hit, the glass completely shattered and now anytime I hear that sound, that’s what I think of and believe me, it is not in my top ten favorite memories. Speaking of the wreck, I hate not being able to do anything. Sitting around doing nothing is one thing when it’s my idea and I can go out when I decide I’m bored, but being confined to any area for any length of time without being able to go anywhere is awful. When it comes to dating, I absolutely cannot stand girls who are super clingy, though I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It kind of annoys me just to see it, when I’m out, too. Another thing I hate to see in relationships is a guy who uses a girl or who cheats on her. Why put her through that kind of heartache when she finds out? I guess I should put myself on this list, too. After what I did to Annie and getting into alcohol and everything, I’m definitely not one of my favorite people.

- - now, tell me a bit about you. your personality and such.

I am definitely an outgoing person, though high school might have done that for me. When I went to private school, I was a quieter kid, but I guess I was just kind of intimidated by some of the kids‘ attitudes there; they were just so stuck up. Like I said, I love making people laugh, so I tend to crack jokes, especially in a tense situation to try to loosen things up a bit. I‘m a total klutz and I‘ve ended up in the hospital for tripping over my own two feet multiple times. I‘m not the kind of guy to use anyone for anything; the one time I did that I felt horrible afterwards. I still do, actually. It‘s kind of hard for me to let things go, too. Not like an actual argument, but afterwards, I tend to brew over what I said and why for way too long and I usually beat myself up over it (not literally, haha).

- - huh, sounds like we should hang out some time. so what are you looking forward to in life?

Like I said, it’s hard for me to let things go; I want to get over my past. There are times I still get nervous while I’m driving, especially when there’s a car on a side street that doesn’t look like it’s going to stop at its red light or stop sign. And not just that, but I still can’t bring myself to forgive myself for cheating on Ana, either. It’s getting better, especially since I know she’s forgiven me, but it’s still there and it still hurts knowing how much I hurt her.

On the, er, brighter side, I just want to finish college and get my job. Once I do that, I can stop mooching off of my parents, haha. Well, that and I’m sick of being in school; I still have four more years to go. I cannot wait to have my own family, but that’ll come after I’m out of school. I mean, Ana and I will be getting married at some time in the near future, but there’s no point in having kids now while I’m spending the majority of my time doing something school related and shoving them off on Ana while I’m studying. That’s not how I want that to work at all.

- - oh that's neat. so i'm sure there's something that makes you a bit paranoid, right?

I’m afraid to get in another car accident. Two doctors and a surgeon told me I shouldn't have made it to the hospital after the one I was in. Besides, not only is it nerve wracking, but when it’s bad enough, it’s painful. I have never been in that kind of pain before in my life and I don’t want to be ever again. That first week I was out of the hospital, laughing hurt. I’ve fallen off of horses before so I know what it’s like to get banged up, but that was a thousand times worse than my worst fall. Surgery is another thing that I really don't want to go through again; the anesthesia made me feel like I was dying when they first gave it to me, that whole fading out of consciousness thing and both times when I woke up, it made me sick. And it’s not just that, but it’s not just going into a deep sleep like a lot of people think it is, there’s a reason you have to be monitered the whole time.

It sounds kind of stupid after everything that happened, but I'm absolutley terrified of hurting Annie again. If I ever did something like that again, I couldn't live with myself, plain and simple. I would never do it intentionally, but you know how those movies go. A girl makes a move on the guy and before the guy can push her away his girlfriend or fiance or wife walks in on them. Sure, that's a movie, but the thought still scares me. I don't want to ever see her hurt again.

- - are you hiding anything? it won't leave this room, i promise.

Well, not a lot of people know why I left New York; it doesn’t often come up in conversations and it’s not something I announce. My ex girlfriend and I had been dating for two years and the last month or so came to the point that being around each other was just stressful and we’d end up fighting, but we could never fight well. She finally decided it was best if we weren’t together and that was the first time I had really been hurt. I didn’t know what to do, so I just picked up and left.

I don’t really like to announce that I still have nightmares about the car wreck that I was in, either. It makes me feel like I’m weak and I do not like that. I mean, if I can’t push that out of my mind, doesn't that mean there's something psychologically wrong with me?

I guess my infidelity is a secret, too. I mean, I don’t go around bragging about it. Quite the opposite, actually. I hate what I did, I don’t want anyone to know about it. And after that, well, I turned into an alcoholic. For two months there wasn't a day where I was sober. I'm not proud of that and I really don't want to know what kind of damage I did to my brain and my liver.

- - wow, that is juicy. so your family, what are they like?

Ah, my family is fantastic. There’s my mom, Sophia Ava, my dad, Jacob Anthony, me, of course and my younger brother, Dylan Ray. Both of my parents are highly paid surgeons and they both come from wealthy families, even before their jobs. They’re both in their mid-forties and still loving their jobs. Saving lives is something they love to do; I suppose it’s slightly ironic that their first born tends to trip over his own two feet and land himself in the hospital on almost a weekly basis. Nah, not that often, but I’m there a lot. Fourteen years after I was born, Dylan was born. He’s a great kid, I absolutely adore him. I hope my own kids are like him.
/justify]

- - i guess that's about it. before you go though, could you tell me a bit about your life thus far?

Billions and billions of years ago, depending on what you believe, the earth was just beginning…haha kidding. That’s a bit too far back.

Yes, I grew up in a wealthy family, you don’t need to know that, I promise. I’m not some stuck up snob who’s going to go on and on about how much money my family has. I grew up in a nice area, a little neighborhood where all of the mailboxes were identical, I’m sure you can think of that kind of neighborhood by you. There seems to be one in every town. The only difference in this one was that everyone here drove BMWs, Mercedes, Volvos or Cadillacs and yes, there were a few stuck up snobs thrown in there.

I went to a private school until I was fourteen, then I begged my parents let me go to the public school that wasn’t full of rich snobs. I was so glad to get away from some of those kids. At the public school, I made three great friends, one who later went on to be my girlfriend of two long, happy years. We were like a family. We actually ended up all going to the same college and renting an apartment nearby, the four of us squeezing in there somehow. It was fantastic. I know you’re thinking “Oh, three friends. That’s not a lot.” Don’t get me wrong, I had more friends, but those three were special…in more ways than one.

Anyways, back to the timeline of my life in a very brief manner. Not much happened in my life until I turned fourteen. Fourteen was a big changing year for me. Public school, yes, we went over this. That was also the year Dylan was born. Big age gap, I know, but it’s completely worth it. Dylan’s adorable, I loved babysitting. Fourteen was also when I discovered something else I was really good at. You may laugh, but that’s when I started horseback riding. I loved it and not to brag, but I was good. My parents bought me my own horse a few years later and we always did pretty well in competitions; she’s now owned by Dylan since I couldn’t drag her around when I was traveling.

Sixteen was my first girlfriend, but that ended up being a flop. She only wanted the money, the stuff. Eighteen was when my first true relationship started with one of my best friends. After knowing each other for four years, things seemed to go fantastic and I really, really liked her. To make a long, painful story short, we didn’t fight often and what ended it was the fact we didn’t know what to do when we did fight. We had one fight that lasted way, way too long and that’s what finally ended our two year relationship. That’s why I left New York and basically spent the summer traveling, trying to find some place that wouldn’t remind me of home and that’s how I wound up here.

I guess other than what I‘ve already covered, there weren’t any major significant moments in my life up until a couple months after I moved here. Meeting Ana was definitely one of the most amazing things in my life. I suppose when it comes to the significant parts of my life here, I need to include the wreck. It’s not an every day occurrence to be rushed to the hospital to be told by your doctor and your surgeon you shouldn’t be alive. Nobody actually saw it, but someone near by heard and ran over to see what had happened and called the ambulance. I guess the way the car was smashed, they thought there was no way I was still alive. They were surprised to find out that I still had a pulse. It wasn’t pretty; they had to cut the door off of the car. Obviously drunks don’t pay attention to stops signs or the speed limit. From there they figured I’d go into shock from all of the blood I lost since I guess I was bleeding pretty good both internally and out and I’d die on the way to the hospital. I guess I did go into shock, but it was shortly after I arrived at the hospital which was better than in the back of the ambulance. Well, luckily for me, I proved them wrong and I’m still here. I’ll be honest, there’s not a lot I actually remember. The initial impact of the car and then I blacked out. I woke up in the back of the ambulance and, wow; I thought I was dying. That was the first thought that I remember that went through my mind. After we got to the hospital, I passed out again and I guess that was when I went into shock. When I finally came back around, I was in the ICU room that was mine for a while and I was told I needed surgery as soon as possible. Thank you badly broken ribs and internal bleeding. That was the first of two; the second was because a couple of my ribs weren’t healing right and I was still in pain a few months later. I don’t really want to get into why, but a few months later, because of the sugeries, Ana and I ended up taking a break which led to me nearly sleeping with my best friend which led to a real break up with Ana which led to me drinking. Yeah, that wasn’t a fun chain of events. Long story short, Annie ran into me when I was getting wasted, took me home and decided to set me straight. I would definitely be dead by now if it weren’t for her. Well, after that we slowly started to be friends again and after her dad passed away, she did some thinking and we decided to try our relationship again. I guess good things do come out of tragic events.

Obviously, the most important thing in my life right now is my engagement to Miss Annie. I don't think there's a lot I have to say about that other than I'm quite thrilled.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

hola! it's me, emily. i've been making people smile for eighteen years, though i only started pulling the puppet strings three or four years ago. oh, and did i mention i'm a big fan of joe jonas? yep, i am. well, that's enough about me. oh, wait, one last thing: SPRINGFIELD!