This is a draft I had left over from a few years ago....
Let me start by saying that I was the typical high school teenager. I had low self-esteem and no sense of what life was about. I did not have the right clothes or drive the right car (I had no car for that matter) and I did not hang-out with the "in" clique. In fact, I am going to warn you all that I was raised more by my five oldest brothers than my mom or dad.
I feel that this has been a huge hurdle for me for the majority of my younger life (unlike now, where I realize I have life by the balls and am squeezing unmercifully). About the only thing I had going for me were my boyish good looks (thanks dad!!).
My junior year in high school, I was dating a girl that I had known since we were freshmen students. Annette was a lot like me. She came from a family that was not one of the hobnobbing clans from the north side of town. We always debated whose family was more dysfunctional (I see now that her family wins hands down). We were both used to hand-me-downs and sharing anything we had with siblings. She was (and is still) sweet. Unfortunately, I was full of the raging hormones with which most high school aged boys were inflicted.
I got hit up at my locker one day, by a cute girl that I knew from my geometry class. Christy was a sophomore and did come from the other side of town (but that matters not to the soldiers of hormone). She thought I was cute and funny and she said all the right things (I don't really remember what she said as much as that I remember that she was interested in me). So we made a date to get together and spend some time getting to know each other. That was my first mistake.
Well, the weekend rolled around and I made my way across town to where she lived. I stole up to the front door and rang the bell. Christy came to the door and let me in and we settled into the front room on the couch. To my amazement, she was home alone and was waiting for me to show up. Her parents (and siblings?) had gone out to see a matinee movie and we would be alone for a few hours. It did not take much for me to realize that she wanted to play. First we kissed. All the regular kissing moves and then two new ones (to me).
What transpired after that is not important (a lady never tells and a gentleman never asks), but let us just say that I got my feet a little more wet than I had had them before. Those wet feet turned to cold feet and I managed to talk my way out of doing anything that most boys my age were dying to do. That was my second mistake.
The rest of the weekend was apparently uneventful, because I did not suddenly take up journaling so I could record the unremembered memorable moment. But when I got back to school the next week, things had changed.
Somewhere in the five days of classes between Sunday and Saturday, Annette had a conversation with Christy. I, being the more than averagely dumb boy, didn't take into account two things. One, that high school is small and everybody knows everybody through somebody else. And two, these two girls might actually share a class together. That was my third mistake.
Well, they did share a class together and when Christy was telling her friends in class about the cute boy and what they had been doing and WHAT HIS NAME WAS, Annette overheard the whole thing. Needless to say, there was hell to pay, but that doesn't make this story go away. These two girls compared notes and decided that I needed to learn a lesson. So as I waited patiently at Annette's car for her to come out for our lunch date, I see both the girls walking up to me with smiles on their faces. Oh, I wish I had a crack or crevice or somewhere to crawl off to at that point, but no. I got to ride stuck in between the girlfriend and the girl friend. And it wasn't some nirvana setting where the three of us would go roll around in a pile of sweaty teenage lust doing things that boys daydream of, no it was hell. Torturous. Uncomfortable as all get out. They made me twist in my discomfort for the entire lunch period. I even got to pay for the lunches (fair enough).
But as fate would have it, I could salvage nothing from either one of them. I was never to share time with Christy again (not so much a problem for me, as she just didn't interest me as Annette did) and I lost Annette as a girlfriend for the rest of our school careers. We ended up dating again (off and on for twenty years) but much later. And letting her go was my last and worst mistake.
Let me start by saying that I was the typical high school teenager. I had low self-esteem and no sense of what life was about. I did not have the right clothes or drive the right car (I had no car for that matter) and I did not hang-out with the "in" clique. In fact, I am going to warn you all that I was raised more by my five oldest brothers than my mom or dad.
I feel that this has been a huge hurdle for me for the majority of my younger life (unlike now, where I realize I have life by the balls and am squeezing unmercifully). About the only thing I had going for me were my boyish good looks (thanks dad!!).
My junior year in high school, I was dating a girl that I had known since we were freshmen students. Annette was a lot like me. She came from a family that was not one of the hobnobbing clans from the north side of town. We always debated whose family was more dysfunctional (I see now that her family wins hands down). We were both used to hand-me-downs and sharing anything we had with siblings. She was (and is still) sweet. Unfortunately, I was full of the raging hormones with which most high school aged boys were inflicted.
I got hit up at my locker one day, by a cute girl that I knew from my geometry class. Christy was a sophomore and did come from the other side of town (but that matters not to the soldiers of hormone). She thought I was cute and funny and she said all the right things (I don't really remember what she said as much as that I remember that she was interested in me). So we made a date to get together and spend some time getting to know each other. That was my first mistake.
Well, the weekend rolled around and I made my way across town to where she lived. I stole up to the front door and rang the bell. Christy came to the door and let me in and we settled into the front room on the couch. To my amazement, she was home alone and was waiting for me to show up. Her parents (and siblings?) had gone out to see a matinee movie and we would be alone for a few hours. It did not take much for me to realize that she wanted to play. First we kissed. All the regular kissing moves and then two new ones (to me).
What transpired after that is not important (a lady never tells and a gentleman never asks), but let us just say that I got my feet a little more wet than I had had them before. Those wet feet turned to cold feet and I managed to talk my way out of doing anything that most boys my age were dying to do. That was my second mistake.
The rest of the weekend was apparently uneventful, because I did not suddenly take up journaling so I could record the unremembered memorable moment. But when I got back to school the next week, things had changed.
Somewhere in the five days of classes between Sunday and Saturday, Annette had a conversation with Christy. I, being the more than averagely dumb boy, didn't take into account two things. One, that high school is small and everybody knows everybody through somebody else. And two, these two girls might actually share a class together. That was my third mistake.
Well, they did share a class together and when Christy was telling her friends in class about the cute boy and what they had been doing and WHAT HIS NAME WAS, Annette overheard the whole thing. Needless to say, there was hell to pay, but that doesn't make this story go away. These two girls compared notes and decided that I needed to learn a lesson. So as I waited patiently at Annette's car for her to come out for our lunch date, I see both the girls walking up to me with smiles on their faces. Oh, I wish I had a crack or crevice or somewhere to crawl off to at that point, but no. I got to ride stuck in between the girlfriend and the girl friend. And it wasn't some nirvana setting where the three of us would go roll around in a pile of sweaty teenage lust doing things that boys daydream of, no it was hell. Torturous. Uncomfortable as all get out. They made me twist in my discomfort for the entire lunch period. I even got to pay for the lunches (fair enough).
But as fate would have it, I could salvage nothing from either one of them. I was never to share time with Christy again (not so much a problem for me, as she just didn't interest me as Annette did) and I lost Annette as a girlfriend for the rest of our school careers. We ended up dating again (off and on for twenty years) but much later. And letting her go was my last and worst mistake.
Now I am back home, helping my mother, taking care of my house. I just moved home from Austin, Texas; where I had moved to be closer to my kids and to Annette. But when I got relocated to Austin, Annette broke the news to me that she was in another relationship and just couldn't bear to tell me (until I was standing on her doorstep).
Finis. Kaput. Over. Done. Bye-bye. Ciao. Adios, y vias con Dios, mi amiga. I swear all my love to my latest and best girl-friend ever, Mary Jane. I will stray no more, and always be true. I work as hard as I can so that I can go home to her waiting arms each and every night.
Lately, though, I have been up to this...
and this....
and even wrote this recently...
Ode to John
By stu pidasso
17Nov2013
We are
all just temporary
Like
the sighting of a garden faerie
Gusts
of wind swept across the land
Bubbles
chased by laughing child’s hand
We are
butterflies and flutterbies
Sent
to give smiles and heal cries
Spur
of the moment lover’s lies
Whispered
softly to fawning eyes
We are
raging flames in bonfire
Fleeing
skyward from funeral pyre
Sparkling
morning dew on grass
Specters
briefly haunting looking glass
We are
the fading wolf’s midnight moan
cacophonous
busy signal tone
smoke
drifting from extinguished match
sea
turtle eggs at beachfront hatch
We are
melodic mocking bird song
Here
for the time, but not for long
So do
not live a life cautious and wary
For we
are all just temporary
for this guy...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment