My sophomore year of high school- I ran cross country for a boy I liked. The boy had energy that made me melt. But some other guy beat him into asking me to hoco. I said yes to the other but was crushed to hear later that my crush was planning on asking me. What is a girl to do? I treated myself like it was my fault, and my uncalculated yes ruined our chance and his feelings for me. NICE. That year was marked by what happened, but MOSTLY my feelings. AND I feel like my feelings about the whole thing made it worse. Thank God for my friends that dragged me out of the house after that. Oh, M gee – where would I have been without them?

This is where it gets interesting: In my junior year of college, I had the most enlightening conversation with him right before I transferred to SCAD. He was suddenly hired at the same restaurant I had been working at (maybe to fill my place), and there was some obvious tension, so after a shift one night, we took a walk around our little town of Wheaton and talked. He told me he had liked me all four years… {slow turn} ….. really? Something like, there had always been…me, etc, even though that thing happened, he dated others, we dated our junior year, and then we broke up. And I was like {sigh} … Same.

Here is the thing: I walked away and vowed to always remember this lesson. I literally beat myself over that whole sitch our sophomore year, and I treated myself like actual crap. I wish I had known that. Mainly because it could have altered how I saw myself. If I had known I was thought of and wanted, ha, that he found me pretty (I die inside saying this out loud), I would have also felt worthy of self-respect and kindness. My biggest regret in all this was that I did not treat myself the way someone would have treated themselves if they had known all that.

I TOLD myself that I would walk away from that CHANGED… Imagine the life I COULD HAVE had! Imagine. But then I was like… I literally could have used the “as if” tool. I could have walked around my house instead of feeling dejected as “if he” liked me. Imagine the books I would have read; imagine the self-care, the masks I could have done, the focus on school, and the hobbies I could have learned. {This was back in the ’90s, so no cell phones} But you know what I mean. This is a lesson in feelings for a girl who loves feelings. Sometimes, {and I hate to admit it, but it’s true} they can lead you astray, and there is power in what we think, AND a little imagination goes a very long way.