| filchyboyjohnthemaiden |
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In January of 1997 after we had had all the talks that L's messed up head could handle. After I had realized there was no longer any point to spending energy or money to try and save our family. After L's family had already asked me to leave. After all of that we drove around town the night before L finally changed the locks on the apartment which would set me on the path to homelessness. There was an intention to the drive. We wanted to go and have a bit of frozen yogurt.
L always loved to take some time out to have a small cup of yogurt. In the beginning when you were a baby we would take you in a sling and walk to the yogurt place. You'd love it. Sticking your head out of the sling to see where we were was just the height of excitement for you as we would walk through the neighborhoods every evening.
Our alternate plan, based on what was going on between your mother and I, was to do the same thing in the car if we needed to talk (discuss heatedly) some issue. We'd do this because you would fall asleep immediately after the car engine turned over and that soothing vibration came to life.
So back to January, you had fallen asleep in your car seat carrier and we had finished our yogurt purchase. We drove around for a while to try and just have some measure of peace and quiet between us. At one point, and this is the reason I'm telling you about all of this, we were driving down Olympic into West LA from Beverly Hills and up above us was a huge bright white lit billboard with three scantily clad underwear models enigmatically looking down at us. As I glanced up at them your mother saw me and said something to the effect that what I deserved and needed was some young beautiful girl like that.
At the time that she said this it really hurt my feelings. I mean I had already picked the most beautiful, smartest, and most intriguing girl. I didn't want another. No matter how beautiful or bodacious she may be up on that billboard. For years now I have been bothered by that remark L made. I was staring into the ashes of our relationship and she tried to make me feel better by telling me I deserved someone better than her. The next day she changed the locks on the apartment and it was months before I set foot in the apartment or saw you again.
As I was growing up I was always fascinated by the way that young girls in high school would choose to date older guys who were outside of their normal peer group in school. I told myself I didn't approve. Perhaps I said this because I thought these girls should have expressed interest in me. Perhaps there was another reason. I don't know. But I do know that I was insanely jealous at certain points, over that's an overstatement (more like feeling left out), that these girls would find value in these older guys who obviously didn't have as much to offer as I. When your mom said this to me as we zoomed by under the billboard of 20 something models I remembered all of these feelings.
A few weeks ago I met a girl. She's very young, vivacious, and has tons of class and style. She obviously was attracted to me. From the very first word I said to her her face lit up and she has since flirted with me every time we see each other. I have been thrilled by this. It has been such a long time since I have felt the gaze of someone that romantic & idealistic. I just lapped it up and thought about her everyday after this began happening.
Resolving to finally do something about the situation I decided it would be a good thing to ask her out. We're having a company dinner this week and I thought it would be a nice way to spend some time together doing something low stress like this together. The more I thought about it though I realized I didn't entirely trust myself because this girl seems so young. I mean I figured she was surely over 21 but before I actually opened my mouth, up till now I had not made any overt moves towards getting to know her other than chatting with her while others were around, I should double check my intuition since I have been out of the dating pool for so long.
I asked my friend E if he knew P's age. He told me she is 17. As
he opened his mouth I suddenly found myself surrounded by the night
smells as we zoomed under that billboard on Olympic. I heard L's
words in my head as I stared in disbelief at what E had said. Of
course I'm sure I knew it was too good to be true having this young
lady express interest in me. But it was such a blow because once
again my internal compass was off. 12:09:27 PM  comment [] |
Last update: 11/20/2002; 10:07:58 PM.