Thirtysomething

Choices

Gather around the campfire, kids, I'm going to tell you a story. A story about an asshole.

The only true jerk I've ever dated was during my freshman year of college. He was also a freshman, living in the dorms with us but he was 2 years older than the rest of us. That's something that should have tipped me off right then and there. But I had a thing for guys I thought I could "fix" and he needed some fixing. He was also the only "tall" guy I ever dated. At about 6'2" and over 200 lbs, I was totally enveloped in his hugs. He was smart, he was funny. I liked him.

Like lots of college students, he partied. During the course of our freshmen year, he turned 21 years old, which made him very popular, as he was able to purchase alcohol. One night that spring, he woke my roommate and I up in the middle of the night. It was during the week and we had something fairly important, like mid-terms, the next morning. He stumbled into the room, totally drunk, causing a ruckus, slurring his words. I had seen him this way before, of course, but since it was the middle of the week and that whole mid-term-the-next-morning thing, I was less than pleased with his state. And I was embarrassed, because not only was he disturbing me, but also my roommate. Not cool. My efforts to help him up and out of the room irritated him for some reason. So much so that my efforts were rewarded by the back of his elbow connecting with my jaw. On purpose.

I broke up with him, of course. But because he begged and pleaded and also because I was a fool, I took him back a couple of weeks later. Nothing like that ever happened again. Well, the hitting part anyway.

I'm not sure that my friends liked him. I don't know that I would have listened to what they had to say. But then I don't remember so much about that year, or the year that would follow it. Repressed memories or selective memory, take your pick. I don't remember much about this jerk at all, other than this incident and couple of defining conversations. I have no idea what we saw in each other or what we talked about or what we did. Did we go out on dates? Maybe, I don't know. What I said earlier about him being so much bigger than me when he hugged me--the only reason I know that is because I've seen pictures of us hugging. I don't remember much firsthand.

My parents didn't like him. They had an uncanny way of knowing a bad seed when they saw it. I thought they were crazy. That summer the jerk boyfriend called me to tell me he was arrested for DUI. Shortly after that, I broke up with him for good. Something just clicked. Perhaps I had known all along that he was wrong for me, but I hadn't been ready to do anything about it. And then all of sudden, it just clicked and he was kicked to the curb. We dated for 9 months and I broke up with him 9 months after I should have. I was so naive, it never occurred to me that someone my age could be an alcoholic, which he was.

He and I still talked into our sophomore year. It was then that he told me he had cheated on me--I don't remember with who, or why he told me or any of the details. But I remember that he told me on the phone and I said, "I lost my family because of you" and hung up. I never spoke to him again. It was a small campus, so we ran into each other, but he could never look me in the eye after that.

That last sentence I ever told him wasn't entirely true. Regret would have driven me mad a long time ago if I allowed myself to believe that was true. My parents and I would have fallen apart over something else, if it hadn't been over him. We were like an explosive device waiting to detonate. Okay, fine, I was an explosive device waiting to detonate. I made a series of bad choices. I hurt a lot of people who loved me. But if you look strictly at cause and effect; he was the cause, the thing that set the entire chain of events in motion regarding my family. And the effect, well, I still live with the effect. In the aftermath, I picked up the pieces of my broken family and their broken hearts and just looked at them. I didn't know how to put it all back together. So they healed themselves and insulated themselves from me. I don't blame them. That was 11 years ago.

When I see kids today making bad choices, I want to shake sense into them. But I know that they are probably just like I was at that age and anything I say wouldn't make any difference. I heard a woman on TV once say that she tried not to tell her teenage kids what not to do. Instead she told them, "make good choices." It's good advice, except I think when you're lost, it's hard to tell the good choices from the bad ones. Eventually, each one of us knows, instinctively, what the right thing to do is. Sometimes it takes a lot of bad choices before you start making the good ones.

Make good choices.

posted by DJ Heavy D @ 6:45 AM