I suppose there is some Freudian reason as to why I have put
off cleaning out the basement closet so long. I imagined the daunting task of
transporting the hundreds of Vogue magazines I had kept would be painful, but I
didn’t realize that all of my secrets from ages 12-18 were sitting here under a
pile of fabric and notebooks. As I sift through my adolescence in the form of misspelled
notes and frayed photos I can’t help but ask myself (excuse my Bradshaw plagiarism)…what
do I do with this massive pile of compact discs? How do I relieve myself of
this post traumatic episode that these ghosts of ex-boyfriends past is causing?
And…why did I have an open relationship in Junior High? So, you’re saying the commitment
phobia has been around for a while?
This must be the reason females have “boyfriend box” flame
parties. Can someone please escort me to the nearest bonfire before something
really goes wrong? I have just spent hours rehashing the fact that my first “real”
boyfriend in Junior High was madly in love with my charismatic personality
while the other 7th grade felines (including my best friend) chased
after him like all the other lions had gone off to war. I think I won out in
the end and at least managed to not play the body surrender game that damaged
the souls of my peers. He’s married now and she’s pretty wonderful so he must
have overcame my “dangling the mouse in front of the hungry cat” open
relationship philosophy.
High school came next and this phase stings like my heart
turned into an iron clad transformer that threatens to morph back to a junk
yard at the appropriate phrase. Journals. Receipts for guitars. Dirty, long
haired pictures. Real love. Real love almost
lost. More Journals. Cards from friends and family. Notes telling me I’m beyond
my years and I deserve so much. Journals confessing I want only one thing. I
remember sitting in my car in the high school parking lot senior year on a
Friday once class got out. I was heading to the hospital to spend the night.
There is no such thing as a curfew when your boyfriend is in the intensive care
unit. I watched everyone jumping into their vehicles, off to parties and
laughing. I couldn’t remember laughing. My life changed that day. I vowed to
survive until he could have a real Friday night. I’ve been surviving ever
since.
Freshman year of college soon followed. I found someone that
was fascinated with me again. Once he told me he wanted to marry me. I told him
to stop the car and I got out. His notes are the sweetest, most confidence
boosting words I have ever received. I trampled him because I didn’t think it
was possible to love once you had been hollowed out. I hope his cut wasn’t as
deep.
That’s when the notes end because I learned to speak aloud
and I learned to let things go. I met someone that lived in the moment and he
was the Fluoxetine to my day. Today the answers are still unclear and they are
not found on tiny folded sections of college ruled paper. Today the best you
can do is open up some space in your transforming heart to see what comes next.
Do not seek what comes next, but be the most courageous and honorable version
of all the lessons of those that came before today. Let the rest flutter away
like Vogues in the wind…that you can find piled at the end of my driveway.
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