… Or “Ghosts of Girlfriends and past relationships!” [pt.1]
I should likely put a good, solid, all purpose disclaimer right about here, telling about how I’m not simply beating a now clearly dead horse by bemoaning the state of my emotions in regards to both my personal social, and love life, emotively gushing wounded musings like blood from a burst carotid, while deviously bashing some poor sorry little dicked goose headed jew-boy who has mommy or size or masculinity or identity or even drug issues or whatever, or while verbally crying about how my one and only and last is on a path to destruction, debauchery and ruin, and how much that hurts me, and how I can’t understand what happened and why she would do such things, knowing what they do to me, about how she has downgraded herself from my lost forgotten little princess to the neighborhood harlot, or how I’m really tired of all the bullshit that people put out when it ends up just making things harder in the end.
I really likely should put in that disclaimer saying that I’m going to do all of that, but then if I did, I wouldn’t be able to post, much less write, a good chunk of what is to follow, and I can’t have that now can I?
If you’re still reading this at this point, be warned, despite my promises made to certain people, who will not be indicated or named here and now, I am at the moment, suspending all my obligations to everyone, ever, and I am going full on disclosure mode, and whatever happens next, whatever I say here, is here, and I will not bend or break on this, I will vent, I will purge, I will NOT EDIT, and I will then ever again breach my word, my honor code, or my promises in this venue, context, and arena, never again, anything else after this post, will likely be edited to one extent or another before being posted, and the original locked away in my heart, mind, and computer hardrive until about the day I die, in which case, shit will be fucked up.
To use a favored expression; “You have been warned.”
Last chance to turn back, close the window, and maybe salvage your current perceptions of me, whatever they may be. Because trust me, if you’ve never believed a word I’ve said, or written, then believe when I say here and now, that your view of me, will shift, it will either go from holding me to some lofty ideal to holding in very low esteem, or you will find a new found respect for me or hell, maybe all of my rantings and whining and observations will at last make more sense.
Okay, since you’re reading this (I’m logically concluding that SOMEONE has the balls to, so to speak) then let me tell you; I’ve been fucked over one too many times to be as “understanding” as I’ve always tried to be, now not to say I won’t stop trying to be, but let us say that the margin for error for about 90% of the people I will ever interact with, has just shrunk in an expediential fashion. For you who have the wider margin for error, it is simply because I feel you have earned it, but please, don’t abuse it, we won’t like the results if you cross the line.
Alrightly then, where to start?
Well, to reiterate pretty much the overriding theme of this WHOLE dammed blog; I’m a human being, and I as a healthy and intelligent human male, am always trying grow, to learn, and to move forward, as best as I can, and know how to, until I either am shown, taught or learn for myself, a better way, and then I will do it THAT way, until the next chance for an “upgrade”, to borrow a phrase we all should know and love.
But how does one track such personal growth? Socially? Spiritually? Emotionally? Physically? Mentally?
Hmm, how about all of the above?
Okay then now the question becomes, “When” does one start to track such changes?
This is a tad more tricky, as you clearly cannot judge a two year old by the same standard as a twenty year old or someone who, for the sake of argument, has lived two-hundred years, you really can’t be fair about it.
Some might say that we as humans are not truly sentient until we have a sense of self, and a sense of the world around us, the point in which we become self aware, which is the basis of legitimate sentiency, others might say it is when we utter our first real words, attempting intelligent communication with the world around us, and others. And still others would say it is when we start to develop our sense of right and wrong, when we truly are able to understand our ever changing place in the world, and our relationships with the people and places and things that are so integral to our existence thus far.
To be as simple, and straightforward as I can be, I shall take all of that, lump it together, and come up with an age, that I feel is fitting to apply to myself, and go from there into what my main point is for this whole purging.
Five.
Five years old, that is as far back as I can clearly remember, when I set my mind to it, and allow myself to dig deep into my past, into my memories, and recall as much as I can about first of all, myself, and then the world around me.
I can of course recall further back, I can in fact recall a VERY few details of my 3rd birthday party, my earliest memories are centered around a large cardboard birthday card with candy streamers and a balloon in little pockets cut into it, I recall this because I recall REALLY liking the big yellow balloon, and the little Reese’s cup I got on the day of my party, which I will assume, was on my birthday. I also remember a chocolate cake shaped like a dog, and that’s about it other than singing and a lot of hot-wheels.
But lets get onto five.
I recall being five, and pretty much the center of the universe for my parents, and grand parents, my mom’s mother and father lived barely a quarter mile away, a good dozen blocks honestly, from where my parents lived, right there where Haltom City turns into the near east side of Fort Worth, an area affectionately known as the “Carter Riverside” area a place that is almost exactly, five minuets from the center of Downtown.
I recall driving in the car with mom, of watching her drive, of watching where we where going, of Mac Donald’s Chicken Mc Nuggets and coke, French fries and barbecue sauce, and happy meal toys, I remember driving from one end of town to the other so my mom could talk to her long time friends, and I could either play with their kids, or be baby sat by them, if they where old enough (most of them where) I can remember going to church, and playing in the nursery, and then later singing songs and getting candy in kids church, I can remember thinking that the senior pastor, was in fact, God himself, come down to visit, and talk to everyone, to tell us all he loved us, but that we all needed to listen a bit more to him, and to what he had told us in the Bible.
And I recall little Mary Paulsen. Pretty as a picture, with eyes that where bigger and bluer than mine, and short little golden locks that where always free and down, rather than tied up like all the other little girls who had yet to have their hair cut. She had a wonderful laugh, and a great smile, I remember thinking to myself, more than once “she’s soo…. Uhh… what’s the word mama uses? Handsome! No… That doesn’t sound right… What word does the teacher use? Pretty? Yeah! That sounds right, pretty… She’s so pretty!”
I have never been afraid of girls, ever, unlike all the other boys my age, I didn’t think girls had “cooties” or where weird or strange or evil. Oh they where a mystery, a magical mystery that I could never exactly puzzle out for myself, but given the way all my fellow males acted around and about them, I was in a way scared to ask all the questions I had bouncing around in my thick little noggen at that time.
To this very day, I wonder how I might be different, where I might be now, if I had taken the chance and asked someone my questions as such an early age.
Mary Paulsen. My first crush.
That lasted all of maybe a year, because I remember that just before my 6th birthday, Mary and her family left the church for some reason, I never knew why, nor did my parents, as far as I know, no one knew why, and I never had the nerve to ask, they just didn’t show up for church one Sunday, and they never bothered to return.
I felt strange about not seeing Mary sitting next to me anymore, I had gotten the nerve up to talk to her, and found that she was very friendly and nice, we talked about our favorite TV shows on PBS, and we even talked about the bible stories the teachers would tell us (riveting and deep theological stuff, like who cleaned up after the “pets” on the ark, such is the spirituality of a five year old I guess) but that was really it, she could never say my name right, she called me “Caleb Mac Donald’s” nine times outta ten, and on the tenth time she would just call me “Caleb Maaahhhck elllll” which is likely an underlying reason I now finally have picked my own preferred nickname, and it is Caleb Mac, which speaking of nicknames, I’ll touch on that little subject sooner or later, but anywho…
I still don’t know if she ever did say my name right, but I didn’t care, she was pretty, and she treated me nice, and I liked her, but that was it, I mean, I was five, I didn’t hardly know come here from sic em’ or how to say “screws” as opposed to “twisty nails” or “muffler” rather than “car chimney” I had zero idea about what a “carburetor” was exactly, but my dad was always talking about them and cars, so I figured they where pretty important, and that one day I was going to fix one, all by myself, and it would work great, and make my car louder, and faster, and my dad would be proud of me, and love it.
Mary Paulsen, I thank you, for being the first female other than my blood, or close friends of blood, for showing me that girls can be nice, silly, and talkative.
FASTFOWARD!
Okay, so now lets go ahead a few short years to seven going on eight.
My younger siblings, twins Margaret and Andrew, had been born towards the end of winter, early February in fact, and my mother was trying to recover, from doing what all the doctors had told her was impossible seven years ago when she gave birth to me, and delivered my still born twin Abigail back in the middle of fall of 1985.
Well the stupid doctors didn’t count on my mom doing it AGAIN at the end of winter in early 1992, only this time, both twins survived, premature, and with some issues that come with that, but alive dammit, and that’s what mattered, to her, to my dad, and to me.
When you are six years old, and an only child, you are likely the luckiest person on earth.
You are also the stupidest person on earth.
I was just lonely enough, being home schooled, and not living in the goddammed church every time the doors opened, and having most of the kids in the neighborhood my age going to day care and school, that I wanted a playmate or two or three, in fact I felt that three was the perfect number of little siblings to have running about under foot, so I could boss them around, and play army and hot-wheels and the A-Team with them, and to help them with their school work when mom wasn’t looking.
But stupid me, I expected them to pretty much fall from the sky, sleep a few days, grow up some, and then play with me. No joke, I remember thinking that.
All of that from a kid who’s parents told him straight up, that Santa Clause was an overly exaggerated story about some old guy in Europe who liked to give kids toys around Christmas time, to celebrate the birth of Jesus. That’s right, I didn’t grow up with Santa Clause, or the Easter bunny, or the Stork, or any of that.
Spare me the comments and sympathy “Awwes” please, I’ve never felt left out due to that, I’ve always felt well informed thanks to my parents, at least, in a number of areas.
Annnywhozit.
I was still pretty lonely at times. That and with my mother in bed rest, she wasn’t exactly chasing me around and playing with me like she used to, she was busy recovering and caring for two small babies with mild health issues.
Miss Christi Shimko was the answer my mother came to.
A casual friend of my grandfathers (my mothers father) from church, miss Shimko and her family lived close by, and they also home schooled their children. What could be more perfect?
Ahh… Amanda Shimko, my first REAL friend, and after a fashion, my first crush, sorrta.
Amanda had long golden blond hair, and like me (and Mary before her) pretty blue eyes, and she was also pretty nice to look at, even with a dimpled chin, which I honestly thought was pretty cool, and even “cute” although by the age of seven, I was developing a farley strong sense of what was “cool” for a guy, and even had a small seed of machismo implanted thanks to hours of syndicated 80’s TV consisting namely of the A-Team, Knight Rider, Magnum P.I. the Fall Guy, and MacGyver, and even some Star Trek: The Next Generation, when my mom happened to be gone or asleep when it came on (mom’s a former Trekkie, and as such, had pretty much banned it from the house, but if a seven year old boy wants to see a spaceship blow something up, he will find a way to see it) so as such, I was, without realizing it, mimicking the various versions of the male persona that I was exposed to.
I can recall more than once, playing with my legos and hot-wheels (yes at the same time, geez I’ve had ADD my whole life, what do you expect?) setting up some bit conflict on my bedroom floor, and then launching into some Jean Luc Picard like Speech, yup, that’s right, at the age of Seven, I had started pulling Patrick Stewart speeches outta thin air or my ass, depending on who you ask, and if you REALLY wanna know, ask the now long dead cats we always seemed to have back then, I for sure gave them a stern emboldening speech about gaining victory over they who stood between us and success.
Other times I was the cool tough and cocky Michael Knight, talking into my little red play wrist watch, calling for K.I.T.T. to “pick me up!” or “Get me outta here buddy!” when I wasn’t beating the ever living stuffing outta my stuffed animals or jumping my black firebird hot-wheels car off of any and everything, making turbo-boost “whooshing” noises to the point my mother actually put tape over my mouth once. True story.
And then there was the A-Team, dear god there was the A-Team, I would impersonate all four of the guys at will, and many times, I would get it spot on.
Huh, maybe its all the dammed TV that is to blame for my ADD after all… that and my love of performing in front of people.
Amanda… right… hey its like 5 am here and I need sleep, don’t judge until you’ve read the whole dammed thing!
Amanda, well, not too much I can say other than she was really pretty cool, yes, even for a girl, and yes, I have forgiven you Amanda for falling on me, sitting on my face, and knocking my two front teeth down my throat, and freaking me out. Hey, I was bleeding from the mouth for like ten minuets! Oh well, they had been loose for a week before that anyways. ;p
Amanda and I never had any really “romantic” like feelings I don’t think, I know I liked her a bit more than just as a friend, but by the time we where both ten, that was pretty much it, we had, due to life and circumstances, gone our separate ways, and that was, and is still cool with me, I just kinda wish we could have restarted the friendship legitimately, later on in life, but oh well, facebook buddies is better than nothing right?
Carrie and Mary Watson
Oh holy fuck…
Well what the hell else does one say about not only his first kiss and first grope, but also his first flash, and first “naughty” dares?
When I was eight, and my youngest brother was barely 6 months old, my family moved for what was both the first, and at this point, last time, ever, we moved some six or so miles from the near east side, to pretty much the dead center of the east side, into an area called “Meadowbrook & Eastern Hills” just a block south of the Eastern Hills High school where my dad went and graduated from, back forever ago when the earth was still cooling and the paint had barely dried in the bathrooms and the lockers still worked worth a damm.
Two doors down from our new house, lived a family with two girls, about my age, Carrie was a year younger, and Mary was two years younger than her, Carrie was a thin, athletic and spunky long haired brunette with big shiny chocolate brown eyes, and Mary was perky, giggly had the same brown eyes with sunny blond hair that was still trying to get long.
After some teasing and awkwardness, we became fast friends, and with that, Ryan, their old friend from practically birth, who lived two doors down from them, and was my age, uhh… well the three of them welcomed me to the neighborhood, and we all became friends.
As time went on, I still had not lost my liking of girls, oh I acted like other boys, but that was to avoid being made fun of, but then, get me somewhat alone with a girl, and we would just kinda click, I wasn’t scared of them, and I liked to talk, they thought I was cute, and sweet, and they liked to talk. The fact that the subjects we liked to talk about where rarely the same, somehow didn’t faze or hinder us. Oh for the world to be like THAT again…
By the time I was eleven, Carrie and I had an unofficial mutual crush that was festering, thanks in large part, to Mary also having a crush on me, and me slowly growing sick of her, but I tried to be polite, and some times I had to admit, Mary was cute, but, I had my heart set on Carrie.
Oh my god, that first kiss, in the play house in her back yard…
It had started with a kiss on the cheek, she kissed me, and then I kissed her, nothing too over the top or shameful, but then the dares got more… trumped up…
She and I had absolutely NO clue what the hell we where doing, but we’d seen it done on TV and in movies, so I guess we both figured, that all we had to do was close our eyes, pucker up and touch, and the rest would work itself out.
To quote both of our favorite classic TV show’s carries (AKA the Little Rascals); “AAAAAAAAANANNNNND HOW!”
I can still to this very day, feel her tiny soft and warm lips brushing against mine, I can still taste the cheap peach chap stick she had been wearing because she’d bitten her lip eating noodles the day before. I can still feel the tremble in my own lips as we touched, and above all, I will remember the arc of electricity that seemed to flood my head when we pushed our faces into each other just a touch more, and I will never for get it, or the look on Mary’s face when we left the play house.
It was the very first time I’d ever seen a jealous female up close, and for some reason, it did in fact scare me, and for the first time, I had a fear of girls.
Thankfully, I guess, my mother realized that while sweet girls, both Carrie and Mary, where pretty much allowed to do whatever the hell crossed their mind, and she didn’t think that was good for me or them, and so she started to curtail how much time I could spend with them, until, once again, life progressed, and changed, and they went on to other things and I moved onto other things and other people as well.
So thank you Carrie and Mary, for everything, from tag, to kisses to stupid childish dares, Carrie, you where my first crush, and Mary, you where my first Chrush-ie, that I was aware of at least, so yeah, thanks.
Fastfowarding again here to 14
Rachael Henderson
Okay, now realize that I had up unto this point in life, been home schooled, mostly by my mother, but also by Miss Shimko, and at this point, my parents where receiving increasing pressure and ridicule from their own peer group over my schooling, and, given that I was behind in some areas, and likely had a learning disability (found out during this period that I had ADD and Dyslexia) so my mom and dad enrolled me into a local private school that had high marks in helping kids with learning disabilities.
I was meant to be going into the 8th grade, but I was pushed back into 7th because of some of my deficiencies in Math and English.
At this time, not long after my 14th birthday, that I met Rachael, and in a school where uniforms where mandatory, let me tell you, she pushed some of the rules and regs, shamelessly, without ever breaking them.
Rachael and I had 4 classes together; Speech, History, Study Hall, and P.E. out of a seven class period day (not counting lunch) that wasn’t exactly uncommon, but it did give us enough time together, both in class, and out, dealing with studies and homework, that we became fast friends. This was when I was in my skater/biker phase, and she was in to a whole punk rock EMO phase, before it was soo dammed cool, and so we hit it off pretty quick and easy.
For the semester I was enrolled at that school, I can honestly say, she was likely both the best, and worst thing that happened to me there.
Given that the principle and the one teacher who had a personal vendetta against me, where in the midst of a lesbian affair, and conspiring to make my life hell (when a kid comes home from school and cries himself through 3 hours of homework, then tells his mother he just wants to die, I’d call that hell) with BS disciplinary actions, ignoring my complaints about two other students who also had it in for me, and then running my slightly chubby ass into the ground during P.E. to get me “into shape” despite my complaints about past injuries being bothered by it, well… IT was hell on earth, and I'm glad my parents pulled me when they did, because I was ready to kill people, with my bare hands if needed. True story.
But then Rachael was there, and she was a bright spot in a very dark place, and while not my first kiss, she was someone special to me for a very few reasons.
She was the first girl who really took an interest in me, aside from the normal teasing “your cute tehe” stuff, and she was the first girl who ever kissed me with tongue… she was also the first girl to “inspire” me…
Yeah, I think I'm going to forgo the eloquent diplomacy for this next part.
Rai was my first partner, my first romp, my first fuck.
Yes ladies and gentle people, at the somewhat tender age of 14 and a half, I lost my virginity.
Rachael was also a virgin, and no it wasn’t out behind the school gym, see, she lived about two blocks from the old Baptist church that the school was in, and one day, when the Jr. High and Sr. High grades had a half day, we went to her house, because my mom didn’t get off work until 3:30 and wouldn’t be at school to pick me up until around 4, so, being out at noon, we hung out at the school for a little bit, then went to her house, at her suggestion, and when we got there I was like “lets study for the history test next week.” She agreed, and we went inside, her mom was cleaning things up in the kitchen, greeted us, and then got us some juice boxes, and sent ups upstairs to study.
Well, we did in fact study some, but, before long, we where stealing kisses from each other, and making out lightly, before her mom called up to us to tell us that she had to go to the grocery store for some things, and would be back in an hour or less, and that we where to keep her door open at all times.
After shouting a good by, Rai and me went back to reading our text books for all of two minuets before we pounced on each other and commenced to lip locking on an epically awkward yet sweet scale.
I honestly don’t recall what exactly happened next, but what I can clearly recall, is Rai fondling me and teasing me and giggling a lot, before she wiggled my shirt off of me, and started to rub and kiss my shoulders and arms and then cuddled up close and rubbed me all over while she kissed my neck.
To this day, a good kiss on the neck sends lightening down my spine.
Before very long, we where pretty much naked, on her floor, making out like crazy people, and then, next think I knew, she had a condom on me, and we where rutting painfully slow.
Rather than going into all the details, lets just say, before very long it was all over, we where panting on her rug, holding each other close, and kissing, and I was wondering just what exactly had happened, and if we could do it again.
We had just started to clean ourselves up when her mom came home, so I rushed into the bathroom, and dressed while Rai hid the evidence and pulled her clothes back on, and her mother was none the wiser.
That was at the end of February, start of March, by the end of April, my parents had pulled me from the school, and Rachael and I did our best to keep our relationship going, under the pretense of “friends” but by the time I was 17, my parents had moved us from one church to another, twice, and I had next to zero free time, and it took its toll on our relationship.
Fucking Brian… Whatever his last name was…
Rachael asked me what I would say or do if she told me she had cheated on me, I told her I would be very hurt and upset, she said she was sorry, and then confirmed something Id heard three days prior; she and Brian what’s-his-face had hooked up, more than once.
It hurt, crushed me really, but I kept up a brave front, and in the end, I realized that Rai and I had started to drift even just before I was pulled from school, and before I suddenly didn’t have time for her any more, the fling with Brian, which was still cheating, no matter how you might try to gloss over it, was basically her punching out of the relationship in a selfish and thoughtless manner.
Huh, not the last time that would happen to me…
About two or so years ago, while at college, I ran into an old class mate of mine from the private middle school I had gone to, and he and I caught up briefly on old times and class mates, and he told me the news that a few weeks prior to our random meeting, that Rachael and her boyfriend, faïence in fact, had been killed just south of the Red River (the border between Texas and Oklahoma) on Interstate 35, they had been heading north into Tulsa to visit his family, when the small truck they where in had a tire blow out, they spun a bit and crossed the median, onto incoming traffic, and where hit by an eight-teen wheeler, almost perfectly head on, and killed instantly.
At that news, I had both a sense of loss, and a sense of relief, as barely a year before she had died, Rai and I had reconnected, and had foolishly tried to have a romance again. The result of that was little more than frantic sex, preceded by reminiscing, and followed with awkward fighting.
While she is dead, and cannot read or hear any of this, I feel that she can somehow know my sentiments and so I will vent them anyways.
Thank you Rachael, and I’m sorry, you where my first love, my first heartache, my first ex, my first failed retry, and my first big mistake, and for all of that, I thank you, and I apologize for hurting you like I did, because I know I hurt you, and I am most sorry for never making sure you knew that I was sorry, and that I didn’t hate you in the end, like I said I did when we last spoke. That will haunt me likely, for the rest of my life, and that’s something I’ll have to deal with one way or another.
Okay at this point in time, I’m 18, single, kinda bored, and into church still, although my enchantment with it is quickly waning.
Margo Laslo, and Hanna Smith
Two fun, stupid, and pointless mistakes, detours really, and honestly not worth going into detail about here, so I will say just a bit and move on.
Margo, if nothing else, you where both brutally honest, and a nice hump, for that, I thank you, you goofy blunt tongued lush.
Hanna, I don’t even know why the hell either of us bothered with the other, aside from physical attraction, but you weren’t willing to give, and I wasn’t about to take, and aside from that, we had nothing in common, so thank god that only lasted two whole weeks and three trips to Mac Donald’s. Hope you found someone good for you, honestly I do.
I’m now 19, starting college, and becoming perfectly happy in being single, at least on the surface, if not somewhat deep down.
[Cont. in pt.2]
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