Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure.

Sometimes it’s so hard to speak about the past when you’re seeing it from such a new angle. What was once so innocent now makes you cringe with regret. The nights I once spent laughing with friends and running through the sand seem more like dreams now. I will try and explain the events of that summer as I saw it then but I must speak slowly because every moment I force myself to retell become so painful. I think that this last year was a scab that I wouldn’t let heal. I kept picking at it and watching it bleed. I spoke so often of what happened that I couldn’t move on with my life. And all though I can still see the scar I believe that even that is beginning to fade. So hopefully this will be the last time I tell this story. I don’t want to forget any of it regardless of how sad it can make me, because I have learned so many lessons. I’ve grown so much with my mistakes and it has made me who I am now. Yes I am somewhat bitter, but so much wiser. And best of all free from all of it.

There I Was Waiting To Be Rescued

It was with a pocket full of stardust that I started the last summer in Dirtona. I had someone new to idealize. I had a perfect prince-like figure to place on a golden pedestal (or perhaps a pedestal of golden painted starbucks straws). I felt as if I was always reaching up at the image I thought I needed the most. That there were moments I almost held it. But every time I thought I was making progress what little hope I had dissolved and was blown away with the wind. It was always back and forth. Two shy and carefully executed steps forward and a then the eject button that would always catapult me 10 steps back. One of my favorite memories was when the prince was house-sitting over the summer. But this was no ordinary house. This was the gorgeous river front home of two very wealthy doctors, with many pricey items adorning their home. It wasn’t just me who fell for the smiles and perfect lines…I believe that the prince had be trusted by adults all his life. If I was a doctor with a million dollar house on the river I would think twice before letting a friends son “house sit” for a month. Because in young man terms house sit is merely a synonym for “throw a bunch of parties and try to not break too much”. Over the course of this month PC and I seemed to be playing house. We’d go grocery shopping together and get food for the house. We’d throw parties that always ended badly. They’d start with me dancing like a lunatic to an 80’s mix cd in the living room and the boys playing quarters on the 3,000 dollar wood dinning room table. Sometimes things ended with me drunk and crying on the dock in a little black dress because I knew PC was in a bedroom with a girl who wasn’t me while I waited for him to come to his senses to come find me…but he never did. Sometimes the boys would get too rowdy and stuff would get broken…well actually that happened every time. I’d cook and oh god would I clean! I was there every morning after parties helping him clean up. Telling him he was patching a hole in the wall incorrectly, and occasionally doing the laundry when his friend spilled root beer snaups all over a white blanket. We’d stay up late talking and watching movies. He’d pick out the red gobstoppers for me out of the movie candy. It was for a very short time like I was living my sick urban American dream. It’s a funny thing when you start wanting something you’ve made fun of all your life. It’s like going into the store you hate the most and trying on clothes that you end up loving, but you still pretend to hate them because they stand for everything you don’t. PC and my pretend marriage was an Abercrombie and Fitch polo with matching denim mini and cable knit sweater. It made me sick and cost too much, but fit together perfectly. I was playing the little house wife. But like with most house wives there was no real romance…at least not between us. Get the Prince drunk enough and he’d screw any blonde that landed on him. But not I, I had too much pride to ever try. There was always tension in the air. Words flew throughout the spaces of our lives. And I felt so passionate about him. But it seemed like it would be forever before anything would happen. I waited. I was always waiting. There was one afternoon that we sat for hours playing cards in the living room. It poured all day outside. And I watched the river through the huge windows that wrapped around the house. The gray afternoon kept us safe and tucked into our little house. Those were the best times, when it was just the two of us. When it seemed there was no one else on the planet. I’d never been as content just sitting and doing nothing then I was with him. I’d be reading a book next to him on the couch as he watched TV and neither of us spoke. Not because we were mad or didn’t have anything to say, but just because we didn’t have to. The company was a million words for me. My silence said “I love being here with you and I wished you’d seen what a good thing is staring you in the face.” And his silence said “well I have a secret that’s about to break your heart.” Not exactly what you thought he was going to not say huh? Yeah I didn’t see it coming either.