When the "Right Time" STILL Isn't Right

When I bought my first new car, I wanted an alarm installed because of where I lived. Terrible, terrible neighborhood. My dad sent me over to a friend of his who owns a pretty swanky shop that does all kinds of high-end installs of car electronics. I definitely didn't fit in there, even with my brand new vehicle.

Dad's friend. Jesus. I don't know how they met but - holy shit - is one of those people who is so charismatic and captivating that you can't stop thinking about them. The fact that he's drop-dead gorgeous didn't hurt any. We became friendly. The flirting got so heavy that one of his workers excused himself from the office, saying it made him feel "awkward and uncomfortable to witness the closest thing possible to verbal sex."

The sexual tension was a tangible sensation, stretching from my chair, across his desk and right into his lap. Even now, when I pull up the emotional file in my brain that outlines every single response I had as I regarded his lingering glance, my chest becomes a little tight and I feel anxious.

I knew he was married. So was I. I knew he had a kid. I didn't care. He didn't either. At first. 

(sidenote: I had never even thought about cheating in a marriage. In fact, I couldn't even remember for sure if I was married during this whole thing bc it's SO unlike me, but the timing of the car solidifies it. And I never connected with another man throughout the remainder of my marriage either. The jackass didn't deserve my faithfulness, but I gave it to him anyway.)

Before things went too far, he just kinda disappeared. I didn't give chase because I knew I was fucking up too. The emotional affair lasted less than a year but here it is, 15 years later, and I still feel the exact same way when I think about him.

He found me on social media about 6 months ago. It started the same way they always do through that medium: "innocent enough." I am not even going to lie and say that, when I saw his company name pop up on my screen, my stomach didn't flip over, deflate, and then right itself, quivering. Every comment, every DM was carefully constructed to suggest interest, but not too much, with a hint of arrogance, but not too much. I wasn't exactly trying to get him hooked, but I was. And I did.

When we moved it to text, I got that familiar feeling when his name came up in my messages. His actual phone. The same one he's had all along. The same one I thought about texting over and over throughout the years. This guy never left my head. I mean, every time I get in my car I have to turn off the alarm, so it's not like I was going to forget about that.

But he's still married. His kid is off to college at the end of this school year. The plan is that she's going to leave after the kid graduates high school. I don't know if she's aware of this or not.

The situation with them is simple. He was married, he cheated. She got pregnant, wife divorced him. Because of his background, he refused to let the kid grow up without both parents there in the same house. He got married to the Other. They've been together this whole time. It's been good, it's been great, it's been terrible, but mostly just not good, he says. He told me he learned his lesson the first time, which is why he's remained faithful this whole time until I came back into his life.

He figured I'd forgotten all about him; wondered why I didn't get back in touch to catch up. And now he sees a light at the end of the tunnel, and he wanted to see if we still have it.

We do. If it's so incredibly intense and we're holding back, I can't imagine what it would be like otherwise.

I see him again for the first time in 15 years tomorrow night. I'm scared shitless. I don't know why. I NEVER get nervous. Usually, I'm like a "chew em up and spit em out" kind of person. This one? I don't know. We've both changed and grown and, apparently, regressed. But I'm just as eager to drop his jaw this time as I was before, and I have no idea why.

When I was younger (and I mean much, much younger), it was almost a game to see if I could get the married guy to leave his wife for me. If wives knew how easy it really is, everyone would be paranoid. With this guy, though, it was different. Maybe because I was married myself, maybe because it's hard enough to work an affair around one schedule and 2 would be even harder? Maybe because I was pretty sure I was going to lose.

I'm not sure I want to get started with this until Kid is fully out of the house. I mean, I'm no stranger to Spousal Confrontation and although I'm out of practice, I'm still a pro and I can't be caught off guard anymore, but it'll be more of a problem for him than it ever would be for me. And he really doesn't need the stress or the ruin of the life he's worked so hard to build for him and the kid. Hell, even SHE didn't have to work for almost the entirety of the time we've not spoken.

Nevertheless, I've been instructed to wear a dress - which I don't really do - and plans are still TBD, but I can't sleep right, I can't think straight, I'm freaking out about my weight and my hair and absolutely everything. 

Over a guy I need to put on pause until June, if not forever.

But those smoldering eyes...they just pierce me in all the right places. Smoldering is about right. I see things crashing and burning pretty quickly after takeoff. That's when most of the accidents happen, right? 

Obviously I make the same mistakes again just to make sure they're still wrong, which makes me...
. .

Biggest Embarrassment...Or Moment of Shame?

I was watching one of my favorite YouTube channels this morning. They're short drawn animations that are kind of Seinfeld-esque in that he takes normal things and turns them into funny, yet totally accurate and relatable voice-over commentary. He's young; probably only out of college for a few years. As you can imagine, most of his subs are young. I am not.

He had this one episode where he showed his most embarrassing moment. It was a funny one, and probably pretty bad at the time. Like most, he was able to look back and laugh. Which got me thinking...what was MY most embarrassing moment? I thought about it for a while and came up with about 15 moments when I'd wanted to crawl under a rock. But then I started thinking about it more.

Mine were pretty heavy. Where do you draw the line between embarrassment and shame? I'm not really sure, experientially-speaking. To me, they feel almost the same.

Many years ago, when I was a pre-teen, I was a model. Most of it was print ads for department stores, but I also did some runway stuff. I didn't care much about the - publicity? - that came with it, but I loved trying on all the outfits and getting all primped and fancied-up by the MUAs and designers. That was my actual motivation. I guess it was to counteract my rock bottom self-esteem.

There was this one show we did at the mall, for a store long since out of business now, that catered to smaller sizes and not only had clothes that were hip but also styles that were office-appropriate; not something common back then at all. Still isn't, really, so I've heard.

This show had a friggin' choreographer. I'd had to work with her before and I HATED her. God, she was such a bitch. Oh, no...a simple runway show wasn't enough. They wanted to make it a *show*. So they had us in all kinds of formations and places on stage, we'd each take turns doing the catwalk and (here's where it gets tricky), something else after.

The choreographer changed routines over and over. After she'd had us do one, she'd decide she didn't like it and change it up. She must have changed the presentation 5 times. Because of her indecisiveness, we had to go with the last one she tried, with the trial run being our only practice.

Then the mall opened for the day.

With this being a late summer show, getting ready for back-to-school shoppers, the mall was pretty crowded. That wasn't the issue. After a couple of minutes of us taking our places on stage, several familiar faces appeared right at the front of the crowd while the announcer was explaining who we were and so on. They were "popular" girls from school. Ones who bullied the living fuck out of me; the kind that would probably get them arrested today.

I was full of dread and pretty nervous at that point. I mean, some of the other models on stage were "work" friends of mine, but they were a totally different life and knew nothing about my school situation.

The show started and everything was going fine. We were all going in the right order, and so forth. The girls from school actually looked impressed, dare I say, jealous? Their smirks were gone as I did my fancy little turn at the end of T-shaped stage where they were standing. But I was still nervous, self-conscious and, honestly, scared as hell.

Aaaaaand, then it happened. Instead of doing the last routine the choreographer had decided on, I did my *specific* thing from the time before that - one we'd also tried out before. So I took a second walk down the row and back. And then I walked right off the stage. Other models had gone back to their spots after their one run, but in reverse order from their starting points, which is what I should have done. 

But I was so nervous, I forgot. To make it worse, some of the models noticed - duh - and started whispering a little. The other girls continued to do what they were supposed to do, but no one filled in my space. (I later learned from other performance-related things that they didn't do what they should have, which was to fill the empty space to make it less obvious.)

To make things EVEN worse, when I went through the curtain at the back, the choreographer asked me if I was going to be sick. I said no, why would she think that. She raised her voice - I'm sure it was even louder than the music - and was screaming at me that I ruined the show and kept telling me what "an airhead blonde" I was and on and on, belittling me and, eventually, making me cry once the shock wore off.

Even when the show was over and the music had stopped and the other models were filing off stage, she was still yelling at me. In front of the other models, in front of some of the parents, in front of the mall coordinators, and at a volume so loud that everyone else could hear.

I was so embarrassed and couldn't believe I'd been so stupid. How could I have forgotten something like that, especially when 2 other models had gone before me? I tried to justify it by thinking that it was because we'd change the routine so much, or that all the cameras flashing confused me, or that I didn't get a clue because I was starting up in front and only 2 other models had gone before me and I didn't notice they'd moved because we'd been shuffled around so much.

But it didn't matter. The damage was done.

I can't even begin to explain what happened when school started. I got it even worse from those girls than I had before, and it wasn't like they ever let me forget it.

Even though companies had inquired about booking me, I wouldn't do it. My agency wasn't even a little concerned about the incident. "Something like that happens all the time and, hey, you didn't fall down - and that happens even more often." 

That runway show was the last modeling gig I ever did. I regret turning those down, now. But at the time, I couldn't stand the idea of getting up in front of people and being seen after that. I've only been on stage 3 times since then: crossing it for 2 graduations, and the lead in one pep rally performance the teachers put on for the kids - and the only reason I agreed to do it was because I was the only one with dancing experience, I was the only one who wasn't obese, and I got to be in a full-on disguise to look just like the musical performer whose song we were dancing to.

The only reason I got outed as the lead dancer was that a kid came back into my classroom after school - she'd forgotten her purse - and saw me taking off the wig. She told everyone it was me. The videos the kids had taken ended up all over YouTube. But, you know what? I nailed the fucking performance, the kids loved it, and I got compliments for weeks. They saw me in a whole new light, and it was pretty damned cool.

I'll never model again; too old, too fat now. Perhaps I've gotten over my fear of being in a  brief spotlight...and who would have thought 1300 ruthless teenagers would have been the ones to get me through it...

Because of the crazy dance moves in heels, my ankle is...
.

Regrets... What I Never Did

So many people lament over things they've done that they think they shouldn't have. I have a different take on it, now that I'm getting a bit older and think about how not taking a chance stunted my list of experiences. Here are a few.

1) Joe
Joe was my first love. I met him in the summer between 6th and 7th grades. It was a rocky friendship in the beginning; he came on a bit strong, to say the least. After a bit, he grew on me. In a frighteningly intense and near-immediate way. 

I'll skip all of the details but, basically, his parents hated me because we were different nationalities and religions. When they realized how much we loved each other and that it wasn't just some silly hormonal thing, they made immediate plans to send him back to their home country to live with his grandparents.

It happened two summers later; between 8th and 9th grade. I was too distraught, but our group of friends coordinated a combo birthday/going away party for him. We held it at a friend's house who had a parent who worked nights so we were, completely, unsupervised. We didn't want problems, so we left out the alcohol.

I knew what was coming. I was still a virgin; I hadn't been ready at all. But he asked me again if I was willing to yet, and I said no. I lived in a fantasy world where I believed that people who slept together needed to stay together. While we had plans of doing just that, long distance, we knew - unspoken - that it wasn't likely to work. Mail took forever and was sometimes monitored by his government, and long distance calling to another country was something only rich people could do.

(In the years that passed, we managed to only get 9 letters each to make it, and one dropped call when I got brave enough to convince my parents to let me call.)

I should have. I wanted to, but I thought it was less-than-perfect timing, so I didn't. He didn't get upset, he didn't keep pushing; we just sat on the couch and held each other for the rest of the party while I cried.

He did eventually come back, when I was in 11th grade. He ended up moving much further away from me than he did before, and I couldn't see him often. We were trying to get to know the New people we'd become and making progress, but we both fell into deep depression from the lack of physical contact and face-to-face bonding. 

He died from a heroin overdose on Valentine's Day, when we were unable to see each other.

I will never forgive myself. Ever. I won't tell you how many years it's been, but I still hate myself for a once-in-a-lifetime chance not taken.

I was about 19 and I went to a punk show where a friend of mine's band was playing, opening for Fear. I went alone, because my boyfriend at the time didn't want to go; it wasn't his kind of music anyway. It was a really good show and this was when Lee Ving was still relatively young and had a body to die for. To say I enjoyed the show was an understatement.

After, I hung around to talk to my friend a little and he found me first. "Hey, you need to come back with me. Lee wants to meet you!" I'm not exaggerating when I say that my head got a little tingly.

I looked at my watch. It was almost 2am. They were going to close the bar but the state's laws seem to be ignored for anything that goes on backstage. But my boyfriend was expecting me back. I admit, he had way more control over me than I should have let him have, so I knew he was going to be pissed if I stayed out much longer.

"Stillie, come on. He said he thinks you're fine as shit. He wants to spend some time alone with you." I knew exactly what that meant. And, oh, how I wanted to. What to do...

"Tell him I would, because he's one of the sexiest men I've ever seen, but I'm pretty sure even HE couldn't tell anyone where all he's been, and I'm not trying to take a visit to the free clinic." My friend looked irritated. "I already told him you were down, girl." "Well, I guess you'll just have to tell him I'd be down if I weren't afraid for my health. I gotta go home. Tell him I am sorry though, and that he'll be in my dreams tonight for sure, but no. Good luck on the rest of your tour..."

And I left. And my boyfriend was still pissed that I came home so late.

To this day, I kinda regret it. I know it would have been a risky thing, even with a condom, but everybody knows they're not failproof and I just couldn't. To this day, every time I watch "Clue" or hear the music, I wonder how it would have been.

I went to the beach with my dog one weekday. It was pretty much deserted except for 2 hooptie 20-year old cars with older teens - fully dressed - lying on the hoods. One was an older black Lincoln, with white spray paint graffiti all over it. The guy on that car watched me pretty closely as I drove past, so I went down quite a way down the beach. I knew my dog would protect me, but still.

I had been swimming and was sitting at the edge of the water with the tide occasionally washing up to my waist, my best friend at my side. He came driving down the beach towards us. He stopped between me and my truck, backed up to the dunes yards behind. He got out, shut the door, and leaned against it. My dog wasn't even a little concerned, and I took note of that.

We started talking. I don't even remember what about. I enjoyed the conversation and, even from 15 feet away, I could tell he had blue eyes that rivaled the ocean in beauty.

He asked if I wanted to share his Jack in the Box curly fries. I declined, but told him my dog could have a few. He walked over with fries in hand and I could see just how unbelievably gorgeous he was. I was mistaken in his age; it was obvious when he got to me that he was much closer to my age of 22 than I'd initially thought.

Bronzed, with natural sun highlights in his coppery hair, chiseled jawline, and slightly pouty lips, I felt like he was someone I really wanted to know better. But I was still wary. I mean, he had an...unusual car, and was fully dressed in the summer at the beach.

We continued to talk and I found out his dad kicked him out when he couldn't get along with his stepmother and he couldn't afford to continue paying for college and rent with his crappy job. He said he decided it would be better for him in the long run if he lived on the beach instead and paid for IT school. He'd become friends with the old man who ran the burger joint down the road, and although he wasn't allowed to live with him, he was allowed to stay at the restaurant all day and do homework, use the Internet, and whatever else he needed. I could tell he was extremely intelligent and had, apparently, found a way to adapt to his circumstances for the sake of his future.

At this point, the fries were gone, but my dog was lying right next to him. He asked if I'd take his number at the burger joint and call him sometime.

I lied and told him I was actually from a city 3 hours away but had come down to visit my parents during the college break. He looked at me with suspicion until I explained that we were on a quarter system, not semester, and so we had staggered minor breaks compared to other colleges. That part was true, which was I was able to go to the empty beach in the middle of the week. 

He never gave me a sketchy feeling. I never got the impression that he was a bad person or did things I wouldn't approve of - except that whole living on the beach thing. But I didn't take it.

I've regretted not taking it for several years. There's no reason we couldn't have talked on the phone a lot, and I could have had someone to see when I went down there. But I didn't. I often wonder whatever became of him. I wonder if he ever thinks of me too. Probably not. But I won't ever forget him.

I think that's enough for now. I feel better now that I talked about it a bit. Except for the Joe thing, I've don't know if I ever talked about this with anyone. I wish I could forget each one, to be honest. I guess I learned something from my relationship with Joe, but it was a tough lesson to learn and my heart hurts, even now.

I keep saying I'll continue with a theme, such as what I said last time, but you can see that doesn't happen. And I don't post nearly as often as I should. Not that y'all care, because no one's here, but for my own catharsis, just like every single other weirdo with a relatively anonymous blog or online diary. Oh well. Such is my life.

Because of my inactions, I am