damaged people dot com

When I was debating with Moxie last night, I came to a realization mid-post that I decided to pay the balance for tonight.

Having completed my homework, I tried to construct "my list" tonight. I knew there a lot of 'em that I wouldn't be able to remember, but its worse than that. There were quite a few that I was in decent-sized relationships with that I couldn't remember even the first names of. Little flashes of memories... not much else. I'm sure I was very well-meaning in some of those moments. There were many that I know I was not at all respectful of and a lot of those girls came and went without me ever even getting their names. It fucking boggles the mind.

In the 4.25 years I've been in Emporia, and the two years in Spokane, I have all the names covered. My behaviour, ahem, improved once I had resigned my life to pursuits past where I was sleeping any given night. Most of this all happened over 10 years ago - at least two thirds of the total. My number (which is ridiculous beyond laughter and at best, a rough approximation), is known by my girlfriend. Though she was a little startled, she mostly accepted it, and recognized it was behaviour in my past.

Those were days of endless drugs and "making the scene." Much like now, I was rocketing through life on a wave of Jane's Addiction and psychotic industrial music. The difference is that I was snorting up half of Columbia, tossing back Absolut like so much Kool-Aid, and fucking women because I could. The shallower end of me smiles at the memories (how could I not), but the deep end... well I go over it quite a bit and its less than proud of what happened.

In the interest of retrieving more names, I made the mistake of pulling out old yearbooks. That's when everything really went to hell.

I'm sort of coming to terms at the moment with what an unbarable fuck-up I was back then: a dumb satyr with a hard-on and an agenda. Then as now, I acted sometimes harshly with a feeling of infinate impunity. I was taking on the world, but accomplishing nothing but annoying those around me. I had an viewpoint, but a lot less intelligence to back it up. I wanted to be a journalist (and I wasn't bad at it), but couldn't deal with the negatiity the job engenders. I wanted to change the world but didn't really have anything original or factual to say. Just an opinion. And we all know how unique an opinion is...

Anyway, there was a time of my life I've been doing my best to outrun for the better part of 10 years now. The bottom line is that if most of the people I deal with on a daily basis knew me when I was their age, they'd probably want nothing to do with me. Lord knows I don't like that guy very much. But I always tell people that moving past mistakes begins with taking ownership of them. So I guess tonight is the night when I do it. Time to sign the confessions.

Up late for the fourth consecutive night, I'm haunted by the ghosts I'm always running from. It's a big party and they all showed up wanting to be entertained. I suppose the terrible shit I've been through (and bitched about endlessly)... I guess I had it all coming. But I'm making the apology once and once only. And if it doesn't sound too "group-therapy," the only one I really have to apologize to is me. I need to do it.

But if I'm to indulge all that twelve-step business, then let me go on record tonight. To all those girls that I collected, wadded up and tossed - if you were expecting more and I caused you pain, please accept my remorse. To those around me that cared for me during years I so obviously didn't care for myself, I'm sorry I made it so damn difficult for you. I wish I had paid the tab when there was still time. I wish I had thanked you. So thank you for trying. Thank you for your efforts. To those I stepped on, simply because you were in my path... I'm sorry. I wish I'd walked around you.

All the same... I have no real regrets. And if this sounds like a direct contridiction to what I just wrote, then I guess I should tell you that I'm in the process of making an apology to myself. Because as I much as I hate the version of me from all those many years ago, I love him too. And sometimes I'm too hard on him.

He was doing the best he could with what he had. And it wasn't much. You don't get an instruction book in this life. No actual managable one anyway. I didn't have any direction to follow, except for that broken compass that always pointed north, no matter which direction I faced.

He hurt, and he got hurt (no, he REALLY got hurt on a number of occasions). I guess the balance is set at zero for him. His debt paid, I think I can let him go free.

Anyway, goodnight. Its time I showed those ghosts to the door.

I think you've put into words, some things many people think.

I've not had the kind of past you describe, but Lord knows it sounds like what I wanted when I was that age. And even now, I look at something like that and think "lucky bastard", but that is a cruel implication. The fact being I'm the more lucky one.

I didn't really have my first girlfriend until -after- high school. And I don't mean a meaningful relationship, I mean that I did not date, did not go out with, did not do anything with, until after high school. Not that I didn't want to, it's just that school was my first priority. But God knows I sure had the hots for some girls back then.

Which brings me to two different ghosts from -my- past. The first, being all those lovely women in high school that I -didn't- boink, and the second, the one really fantastic woman (after high school) that taught me so much more about being -me- AND being social with other (the point that I had no social life previously, such as in high school).

This isn't a lifetime confessional, which sounds much like what Miftah wrote. No, this is more of just releasing those inner regrets that aren't really regrets.

Story number one:
I'm just sitting in my cube one day reading email when an odd one just pops in. (back when we were still popping email using Pegasus). It was extremely rare to get spam, so I opened up the email. There in simple words was something like "Are you the AsaJay that went to this high school these years?" and it was signed by someone I didn't recognize. So I replied that yes, that would be me.

Turns out it was one of the hottest girls in my high school class, or at least tops on -my- hot list. Man what a crush I had on her, mmm-mmmm. If I were only 25 years younger. I always thought she really had some kind of disdain for me, I could never quite get close enough, she always seemed to back away. What a fool, was I a fool, or wasn't I?

Turns out this lovely creature had a similar or greater crush on me. The reason she was always so distant, is because she got bigger butterflies in her belly than I did, whenever I was around. Nothing like taking a girls breath away. But alas, past is past, and the present is so much more cruel.

By now, she was married to someone, and I was married to someone. A spark from a long dead fire, kindled in a few confessing and heartbreaking emails. Nothing to do about, but remember the past and just say "DOH!!"

Story two:
Same deal different girl.

Where are they coming from? And why are they coming out of the closet now? Okay, so the first girl (story one) found me in an internet search looking for something completely different. But since my website comes up in the top ten when searching for ASA stuff, she found me. (ASA can stand for a whole lot of things, she was trying to find some writing society)

The second girl found me under similar circumstances. Somehow she found my email address overseas, when I was deployed to the Middle East last year. Now how in the heck did that happen? I only gave out my email to a few friends and one specific email forum. Well. whatever.

Turns out, same story, she had such a crush on me, but she used an abuse tactic to keep herself distant (verbal kind of stuff, making it seem like she really wasn't interested). And believe me, I kept my distance, even though I thought she was pretty hot. And now I find all this out. Hmm, regrets?

No, still no regrets. But I haven't come to . . .

Story three:
The teacher. No, not a real learning institution employee, but rather, a woman who so much re-defined my meaning, that I believe I am a better person today for knowing her long ago.

She was beautiful. I knew her for a couple of years. We were never a "couple"'; never slept together or anything like that. Not that I didn't want to, oh Lord knows she had a manner about her; she was gorgeous, and to this day I still can't shake her. She is the ghost that lingers.

She taught me a lot about people, a lot about relationships, a lot about being social. I had been in a seriously introverted shell for so long, and she could see that. She could see my insecurities, my flaws, and my potential. We'd go out to dinners, to shows, and I'd go over to her house and we'd talk, play games, and generally have a good time.

But there was that one night. That one night when she was on the phone with a friend (her best girlfriend I think). She was talking away, looking at me every now and then as I sat at the kitchen table. And as I admired her, she said into the phone "I don't know, let me check" after which she leaned to me as if to say something, and gave me three gentle kisses, full on my lips. As I sat there in stunned silence, she deftly picked up her phone conversation; as for me, I haven't a clue what she said after that.

I just know that my heart was on fire. My body was tingling, the blood was rushing out of my brain and into my head. As she continued her conversation on the phone, she began playing with the shoe-laces on my shoes. She'd untie them, tie them up again, knot them, undo the knot, etc. Mind you, my feet were on the floor (where they belongs), and she was simply squat down, with a large oversize button up (guys) shirt lazily hanging off her shoulders.

To this day, I think that was the night, we were supposed to become best friends. I say that, and most of you will probably say "no, that was the night you were supposed to GET LUCKY!!)

And you'd be right, but I didn't. You see, I was of the mind, than sex at that point, would be a death sentence. A ruining of the relationship we had at the time. I was convinced in my mind, that if I stayed, I would spoil whatever it was that we had between us. So I had to leave. And that was the hardest thing I ever did. I had such a hard-on at that point, I had to leave, it became embarrassing. I knew she'd be able to see it through my pants, and as I stood outside her house, with my back to the wall, and her talking to me while standing in the front door. . . she had to have known it too.

Regret? Maybe. I'm leaving the most gorgeous woman I've ever known; I'm leaving with a large rock in my pants that will take hours to go away. I'm leaving because I don't want to ruin the relationship. But isn't that what I did. . . by leaving?

Hindsight is always 20-20, and I think this may be another case. By leaving that night, did I leave her with a feeling of inadequacy? Did she feel like I really didn't want to have her? Did she feel ugly because I left? I'll never know.

Oh I kept seeing her after that, but my brain was so screwed up. I could never think straight, I wanted her to tell me something. Something that never came, but I never thought of how she must have felt that night, as I hastily left. I'd never thought that maybe I'm not going to hear what I was looking for, because she no longer wanted to give it; because she felt I wasn't looking for it.

The sound you hear is cracking cranium bones as I smash my head against my desk. I feel like a fool. I lost the one most precious thing I ever had, because I didn't stay. I might not have needed to actually have sex with her, but I should have at least stayed, and let her know that she had turned me on something fierce. I could have stayed, and let her enjoy her power over me, and still keep our relationship sound. I know that now, but at the maturity level I was then, it was such a different story.

And now I'm married, to another. I sometimes think I've settled for second best, and that's not fair to my wife. I love her very much, because she loves me and she cares for me. I prayed to God for an angel, and I married the one he sent me. I've told her that.

If this woman from my past were to show up at my door and tell me she was mine for the rest of my life, if I only divorced my wife, I couldn't and wouldn't do it. I've taken a new vow now, and I missed that opportunity. I also don't think that will happen.

Can I be regretful? I don't think so. She brought so much into my life, that my regret of not staying that night, is tempered by the knowledge that she was a real teacher for me. She gave me so much, and I gave so little in return. I've learned, and I've reflected. For years I tried to forget, but her ghost would hound me.

Though she moved half a country away, I would always see her likeness in other people. I'd be at the mall, and I'd see her several times. I could go to a movie and I'd see her, either at the film, or in it. I became depressed. I tried other girlfriends, but no one measured up to the pedestal I'd put this one woman on. And so, I had to confront this ghost.

And so I did, several years ago. And in more ways, this small confessional helps me to confront it again.

I've lived a pretty clean life; kept out of trouble for the most part. God has watched over me and I've done okay. I can't have regrets in the life he has given me. Only memories of things past, that I can no longer change.

I wrote this long ago:

The Pain of Separation

For all these years, I have but a single reflection,
to go back and perform a different thought,
to affect a change that by course or desire,
would take me down one path of two.
If only the chance to try again,
I feel I could find peace in my soul.
Without it I live with a fire in my heart,
still raging from the uncertainty,
of the choices I once made.
To try again and make things new,
one path of two to free my soul.
To have loved and confided a woman in kind,
of to have quenched the pain of separation.

Asa Jay

Copyright 1995-2003 Asa Jay Laughton