nixtress's Diaryland Diary

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blue eyed blond boys

I remember when I was younger, when I'd first met my exhusband and hadn't yet begun to date him, I had a male friend who'd been my friend for several years. We had a pack of us altogether, with that solidarity that the early teen years afford to everyone. And this boy and I were beginning to flesh out a new sort of friendship, the kind where you're incredibly more aware of the fact that one is of the opposite sex. He was blond, with blue eyes and this twinkle to him, sort of like my Ry has now. That inherent orneriness that just oozed from him. His family was like my family, small town bred and not going to go much past that. I'd go to his house, in the twilight hours while my mother was at the bar, and we'd sit in this old and rusted bench rocker on his back slab of concrete. We started out just as friends do, talking and goofing off, sometimes holding hands and sometimes daydreaming about getting out of that small town, and even just the future. And eventually, surrounded by the strange mixed smells of freshcut grass and oil from the car his father had been working on, he kissed me. That first kiss where your heart threatens to pound out of your chest, where you can't breathe and you're dizzy and the entire world stops spinning for those few, short seconds. And after, grinning like an idiot, pulse still racing, I sprinted home to curl into my bed, to dream those teenaged girl dreams of happiness ever after.

I broke his heart the day I broke up with him. He literally begged me not to, over and over. He kept promising I wouldn't regret staying with him, that he could make me happy.

My cousin will be going to calling hours tomorrow night, calling hours that her first love will be going to as well. Tonight she asked me how I faced my ex sometimes, knowing he was my ex and assuming he'd been my first love. And I realized in that instant that he hadn't been my first love. He was just the one who overwhelmed me. And I see through different eyes now and wonder what he was attracted to with a girl 6 years younger.

And I wonder what happened to that boy who kissed me first. The boy I know still lives in that small town, still lives in the house his parents once did. I wonder how he is, on the inside, if he's escaped the pitfalls that come with small town life. And I wonder what my life would have been like if I'd chosen differently. If I'd chosen that blue-eyed blond boy, the only blond I've ever really been interested in, instead of the man who ended up breaking my heart.

Life has a funny way of coming full circle sometimes. I guess you get what you give out. Eventually.

N.

10:11 p.m. - 2003-08-27

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