Michael Holleron

Pogue
Interpersonal Communication
11/15/13
Second Order Change
My experience with second order change came from the first girl I ever fell in love with.
We met our freshman year of high school in our biology class. It seemed almost serendipitous
that we ever even noticed each other, with me being the weird band kid and her being a
cheerleader. We did notice each other though, and it led to looks with plenty of non verbal
communication, it was mostly her reaching out and me just missing signals from across the
room. It was a few weeks before i had the courage to talk to her, and it all came down when I
asked her to dance at the winter Royalty dance. She said yes and we began a relationship
about two weeks after. She was the first girl that I consider to have had a true relationship with.
We dated for a year and in the middle of it we were at our happiest. I felt what I recognize now a
true love, an experience outside of initial phases of puppy love. It has been a feeling that I have
only had two times since. Her name was Katie, and by the time it was all said and done I had
destroyed most of what we had built with a simple action that had nothing to do with lost
feelings. We had spread apart with my physical actions, and herself emotionally, which was
probably the only way things worked out.
After we initially fell out, things did not seem to change so much except in one place, our
forensics course. We both ran a duet together that pitted us against each other within the script.
within the lines our true anger towards the end of our relationship was able to blossom and be
spent away. It added a real factor to our acting that people who judged us enjoyed, and allowed
us to vent frustrations. From the outside looking in we were using our lines to the fullest effect
the script allowed, but to us we were using it as a way of verbally fighting without discussing the

demons that were really inside of us and the sour taste we had leftover from the relationship.
We performed different duets over two seasons earning wins and qualifying for the state
championship level. The final season of our high school forensics career saw us in separate
events, with different partners as well. We split due to the strain that was becoming apparent by
not being able to say what we actually wanted to. The final year was full of cold remarks and
passive aggressive non verbals, coming to a climax during our final show in the theatre
department. It was then that what was felt was said, and the air cleared. We went our separate
ways and experienced partial second order change, with anger still flaring and a feeling of
separation being needed. We wouldnt fully understand the effect of each others impact until we
moved into college and became the full versions of ourselves.
Our freshman year in college was the turning point in our communications with each
other. The separation had healed some wounds and eventually led to us opening up to each
other. Although communication was tentative at first and involved a lot of apologies (mostly on
my part), we started to finally mature. She became someone who I could turn to when lost or
stuck in a rut that would just listen and offer advice. We began to talk about our relationship and
how we had felt towards each other during and after it. As the verbal communication expanded
we became more and more open to the idea of healing. Free to speak about anything under the
sun with no inclination of trying to restart the old flame. Truly losing the barriers we set up with
most people to each other. Our barriers had dropped during our relationship, been erected
again after it, and dropped once we began to enter the second phase to full second order
change. When we talk anything in our life is open to be discussed without fear of judgement
from the other. This process happened over time within our college careers and probably
peaked itself during our junior year. At that point the problems had been pushed behind us and
we remembered what we were able to bring out in each other, which blows my mind to this day.
Not many people have the ability to completely lose feelings and allow a platonic relationship to
fully blossom. We left each other with feelings of mutual satisfaction, like we had reached

another plane of existence to each other. Beyond that of romantic or even that of close friends,
we experienced a level of friendship that I cant even properly describe, it just needs to be seen.
Katie changed the way I could look at people and their relationships toward myself, and others.
It opened a way of thought that I had not experienced and have only had happen a few times
since at best.
We have now reached a point in our relationship where it seems the other knows when
someone is stressed or feeling out of themselves. Even when I am not thinking about her she
seems to message me at points when I am feeling low, and I feel that the same things happens
when I get a random feeling of needing to talk to her. Its across miles and in between
conversation, with no non verbal or verbal communication until one of us initiates it to the one
that is feeling low or even excited. I am currently still in college trying to graduate and find a job
in the future. Katie has graduated from The University of Kansas and has found her niche in
transplant nursing. She struggled between many fields and recently messaged me about how
she was trying out the field of transplant nursing, citing my family and their involvement on a
personal level with organ donation. When she told me that my spirit felt happy for her, a knowing
feeling of excitement and truth washed over me, knowing exactly that she had found her place
in life. It was an amazing message that I read and spent multiple hours trying to craft a response
that really described the feeling I had of her knowing what she would be happy with. I asked her
if I could write this essay even, because it would be inappropriate to reveal the details of how we
came to where we are without permission. She agreed, which allowed me to place into words
my most important second order change process, the one that allowed me to recognize second
order change as a whole, and the single most mature relationship that I have ever developed.
We split, broke away, became one, hid our resentment, and finally grew to see the positive
aspects of our lives with each other. If we never saw each other or spoke again starting
tomorrow, we would still see the memory in a positive light, true second order change with
experience to teach us the path for the rest of our lives.