if you’ve been around here long, you know that i’m insanely nostalgic and spend way too much time thinking about people from the past.  like a scary crazy person.  i’ve always been like that.  going all the way back to kindergarten when i would wonder what happened to the kids from that horrid Christian pre-school or from the nursery of my parents’ presbyterian bowling league.  it’s just who i am.  i’m a freak. 

last night, i had a dream about one of my sweetest memories with an ex.  we were very young (i know… i’ve been with hubby since i was eighteen so all of my relationships were very young but we’re talking middle school here) and our relationship was tumultuous at best, but i sure liked that boy.  his was the very first rose i kept.  valentines day of 1995 (before i came to despise v-day).  if i were to go open my box of flowers right now, i could still pick out that rose (actually, i could tell you who they all came from).  of course, i ruined things and we drifted apart.  i saw him once or twice at the start of high school and felt terrible about how much i still liked him. 

a few years later, i got a call from him out of the blue.  i was elated and we started seeing each other again.  it lasted just a few weeks and then he disappeared.  dropped off the map.  i had lost him again and i wondered if it was his way of getting revenge for our younger, stupider days.  a year later, i heard through a friend that he had called another friend of ours from japan.  i was heartbroken.  we had hurt each other plenty throughout our awkward history but i was truly heartbroken.  luckily, i had just started dating hubby and was going through a low point thanks to the robbery so i didn’t have time to dwell on it. 

it’s all in the past.  we’re both grown and married.  he has a beautiful little girl.  my only relationship with him today is via a social networking site that neither of us much logs into.  and i always knew we would never end up together because i couldn’t be a military wife.  i have utmost respect for our military but i just know who i am and i am not strong enough to be a military wife.  i worry way too much over rediculous stuff as it is. 

wow, this has turned into a long, nattering trip down memory lane, eh? 

i have no regrets.  i am extremely happy with my hubby and our life.  this isn’t about regrets.  it’s about remembering a simpler time.  a time before getting jaded and cynical.  a time when sitting together and holding hands in a planetarium on a seventh grade field trip was the absolute height of romance.  and a whole life of possibilities was rolled out ahead as we leaned our heads together to look up at the pseudo-stars.  and the butterflies in the stomach.  those were the days…