Entry One Hundred Ninety-Eight.
Sunday, 2016.03.20, 10:05 AM CST.
I have survived twenty-five years since March 20th, 1991.
Current Mood:  Alive.
Current Scent:  The Dreamer by Versace.

Twenty-five years ago today, I was nineteen years old and a much different person.  I was insecure, emotionally frail, and significantly lacking in confidence.  It was the spring of my first year of college, and I was an awkward little geek attending the University of Tulsa.  KTOW Progressive FM Radio had just gone off the air a couple of months before, and my college courses were not going well.

March 20th, 1991 was a Wednesday.  I was sitting on a quaint front porch, in a rural Oklahoma town, next to a young lady whom I'd had every intention of someday marrying.  This was someone I trusted deeply and for whom I cared greatly.

She explained to me that while she and her family were living out of state, she had lost her virginity to some other guy, and she was dumping me for someone even different than that guy.  As I sat there, openly weeping as my future fell apart in my hands, I felt myself break inside.  I had been seriously struggling with college, and having her away was hurtful, but I knew that she was moving back someday and that had given me the strength to keep going.

I shouldn't give her too much credit, but in all honesty, I was a different person after that day.  I was less trusting of everyone, and wiser... and darker.  A lot darker.

The good news is...  I survived.  My life didn't stop, and I just kept going.

Eventually, I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and moved on to have a pretty successful life.  Today, I have made it twenty-five years past that day.  For not going back to my dorm room, locking the door, and simply putting an end to it all then and there, I'm pretty damned proud of myself.

As for her... we haven't talked since that year, and I still think she can go straight to hell.

More later.

Badger