Let Go

When I was in high school, I was pretty.  I didn't know it then.  I look at pictures of myself from that time and think, man, I had a good figure, great hair, but I thought I was overweight and strange looking.  That my hair was too big, too blonde, my hips too wide, body too...developed.  The girls who were sought after played sports, had flat chests and wore size two jeans. I was bookish, curvy, and a size twelve.  I wasn't big, I just felt that way--conspicuous--like all eyes were on me.

And, because I was self-conscious, I didn't date much.  I also thought most boys my own age were stupid--which admittedly, may of them were--I'd been reading since I was three and made it through the entire College Prep List by the time I graduated simply because I wanted to prove I could.  That wasn't sexy or alluring, it was just weird.  I had friends, I even had a couple of odd relationships that you might call boyfriend-girlfriend, one junior and one senior year.  They each ended tragically--the former when he paid $5 to enter a building I was in watching a friends band play just so he could break up with me, the latter about three weeks after I had sex with him (my first time) so he could take someone else to prom.  Winners, those guys.

In retrospect, and I can only say this in retrospect, I was probably a lot to handle.  Emotional, clingy, desperate to be loved.  But still, they were pretty dickish, right?

And I had male friends.  Lots of them.  I was the girl they all wanted to talk to about their relationships, the one they told their problems to, problems with parents and teachers, friends and girlfriends.  And, when we were at parties, after a couple of drinks (almost always them, not me), they wanted to kiss me.  To tell me how pretty I was, how they wished they could meet a girl like me, how they would so date me if it weren't for some girl whose name ended in an 'i' or an 'ee' or a 'y'.  And I, emotional, clingy, desperate to be loved, let them kiss me, kissed them back, always thinking on Monday morning they'd see me at school, remember our fumbling liplock from Saturday night and know, in that hazy moment in the SVHS hallway, that I was the one they really wanted.

But, as these stories always go, that didn't happen.  Instead, there was awkward avoidance (theirs) and hurt sulking (mine) that had to smell like sulphur on a hot day, the slow smoking pain of adolescent rejection rising like so much smoke off the burnt orange carpet.

That feeling of rejection, of being someone's secret, of not being good enough to like in public has haunted me for twenty years.  I've felt less than, humiliated, unwanted, and plain old shitty about myself for so long that now, at an age when I finally feel ready to embark on a real relationship, I'm scared to death that I'll wreck it because I can't quiet that fifteen year old girl in my head who says not to trust, that it's too good to be true, that--come Monday--none of this will matter.  But in my heart, I know it does matter.  That love can exist, that something good can be true, I know it can, I just need to let myself live in that knowledge.

So, I need to let go of that voice.  I need to let go of that girl.

Here's hoping I can.