Missed Opportunities

Hindsight is 20/20~so cliché and yet so true.

I look back, many times, and realize the signs were there...I just didn't realize they were signs.

I now look back and say, "If only I had left when that happened...if only I took that opportunity and closed the door on that part of my life."

I remember the first opportunity..to close the door...it presented itself like a knife in my back.

He seemed rather distant, uncaring, and rude. I remember trying to tickle him or something and he pushed me down onto the stairs. It was a rude push, an "I don't care if you get hurt" push and I remember feeling hurt, not physically, but emotionally although looking back it could of been a little of both.

Not long after, he disappeared. Up and left...I remember thinking he went somewhere but the somewhere turned out to be his home town, 1200 miles away. There was no goodbye, or honesty, nothing. As I recall, he wouldn't even answer his phone.

What does a 20 year old do but cry and beg for him to come back. I remember his lame excuse that we, "never did anything fun" and I was lame enough to promise him I would change if he came back. Mistake #1--never change yourself to please another.

I remember him dating while he was down there...and telling me about it. Mistake #2--don't settle to be someone's second.

But I was desperate...I was what no one ever wants to be---unwanted. And I was desperate to be wanted again.

He eventually came back...I can't recall how long he was gone or what finally made  him come back but this has to be the biggest regret looking back.

"Good riddance" today's me would have said. "I don't want someone who is so disrespectful, uncaring, and mommy controlled." But today's me wasn't there, it was the idiotic, naïve, incredible hurt me that didn't want to be "unwanted" and "unloved."

And so it goes.