Driver Eight

I Want A Refund

Who is it that first came up with the idea of the prince/princess story?  I mean really, do we want to sell our daughters such a false bill of goods?  I keep wondering why we perpetuate the myth of the all-knowing, all doing, “perfect” man.  The mysterious, intelligent drifter.  The home town boy done good.  The driven, handsome, successful man searching for the woman of his dreams.  He finds her in the most unsuspecting places.  I rekindled love from high school whom he hasn’t seen for years but has secretly harbored love for.  The driver of the luxury car that has just rear-ended an unsuspecting single woman looking for love.  Honesty, it’s such a crock of shit and somehow most of us women fall for it, on some level, hook line and sinker.  So what is it about the completely impossible fantasy mate that writers/directors/actors keep shoving down our throats?  And why do we keep eating it up?  How is any real man expected to compete when our fantasies have been filled with such impossibly perfect models of perhaps what we should be looking for in men?  It’s impossible.  So I want a refund on the fantasy sold to me that will never come true.

Squid

So I’m not quite sure how it is we came together.  I think it was my sophomore year as he was a Senior and older than I.  He was quite the preppy upperclassman who had formerly had a very preppy, cute, tiny girlfriend.  I remember the break-up as most people in the school couldn’t imagine him without her and visa-versa.  But we were at the same party – and I honestly cannot remember if I knew he was going to be there or if it was completely coincidence.  I want to think there had been rumblings that perhaps there was a liking between the two of us that had not traveled very far amongst people. 

We were at a party at a house not too far from where I live now and every now and then when I run past there I remember that night.  I remember sitting in the family room and talking to him and being so nervous.  I remember when he asked me to go into one of the bedrooms in the back of the house and I could barely even move.  I wasn’t sure what he had in mind…and much to my relief he wanted to talk.  And we did talk.  For a while, from what I remember.  But  I also remember that we kissed.  And I don’t really remember if we “dated” but I wore his number on my powder puff jersey.  And he came to my house a couple of times.  And we even wrote to each other briefly after he went off to college.

It was, in a word, amazing.  I felt like a celebrity in a sense because he was older and popular.  And for a brief moment in time I felt popular too.

Carolina on My Mind

Lately I’ve been examining regret in my life.  It’s kinda funny because I didn’t really think I had much of it.  And maybe I seem to have more now that I’m in a funk so maybe it isn’t really true regret.  Maybe it is just longing for a different outcome.  I don’t know.  But on my mind lately is a trip my family took the summer before my freshman year of high school.  My family of 5 loaded into a motor home along with another family of 5 and trekked to South Carolina.  It was actually a pretty fun trip – there were three girls in our family and three girls in theirs and we each had someone relatively close to our age to hang out with.  Although the two youngest probably didn’t have as much fun as us older girls did. 

It was the first time I drank beer.  And we almost got busted by our parents.   It was also the first time I had a summer crush.  Well aside from summer camp crushes which are an entirely different animal.  Anyway….there was this guy Rob who was at the same resort as us and I can’t remember what the relation was to the other boy – it was his cousin perhaps?  I don’t know.  But this Rob was, in a word, charming.  A big, bright smile and the personality to go along with it.  The “other boy” was much more quiet…what I remember of him was his brown hair and brown eyes.  And he was going to the military school that the movie Taps was either based on or filmed at.  If I had to pick someone famous he would remind me of it would be Josh Hartnett – although I’m sure he was quite cute, memory has a way of twisting things to make them a bit better, or worse, than was real.  I think there may have been a third boy too.  A burly blonde oaf of a guy with a wicked sense of humor.  We befriended these boys who, as I remember, may have been a bit older than us.  Certainly older than I.  They were the ones who bought the beer for us.  We snuck into a pool and I believe the funny blonde mooned us when he jumped off a diving board.  I think he dove once and came close to the edge of the pool….scaring the bejesus out of us all.

But Rob.  He was so confident and funny and paid just the right amount of attention to make you think you were maybe someone special.  What I didn’t realize is that was just his way.  His slight teasing and flirty nature didn’t mean anything more than what it was.  But I thought it was.  And when he took interest in one of the girls in the other family, my heart was crushed.  I felt ugly.  I felt completely rejected and useless.  But the worst part…..was the “other boy” had taken an interest in me and I was too stupid to see it.  And when he inquired if I wanted to take a walk on the beach with him I declined.  Because he wasn’t the one I wanted.   So I sulked….and I may have even cried a little.  And I missed out on an opportunity.  It was the beginning of a pattern for me I think.  Liking boys that wouldn’t like me back and missing out on some boys who did like me.  Who may have been good for me.

Yin and Yang

One of the many things I love about my kids are their differences.  If either one were the same as the other it would not be a good thing.  I love that Sophie loves to snuggle.  I love that Henry is a goof to the bone.  I love that Sophie has an imagination that doesn’t quit.  I love that Henry seems to need someone to play with.  I love that Sophie will never turn down ice cream…neither will Henry for that matter.  But one new thing I learned to love today that while Sophie allows me to indulge in musical guilty pleasures along the lines of Taylor Swift, Henry equally loves to crank it up and scream along to AC/DC.