"Oh Dot, put out once in a while, your face won't be so tight."

Repost from 2009 edited to reflect the passage of time. I have always loved summer best. But that one, it was The Summer. Starting in July, I can’t always guarantee when I’m looking at you, you are what I’m seeing. Sometimes memories cloud my vision, taking up space normally meant for the Here and Now with the Then. I was twenty seven. Seven ages have always been life altering. (I have written about this more in depth, and provided a link but somehow it managed to be one of the 2 myspace blogs that didn’t get transferred over. Bummer.) I was newly single, after 10 years, living by myself for the first time in my life, working my ass off, dancing as much as possible, with a plan. My plan was to have a few flings, then settle down with a nice girl. I had deemed boys to be worth only minimal amounts of my time and effort. J was to be the last stop on the train wreck of my heterosexuality, although, unbeknownst to me, it was a nonstop bullet train into domestication and life time commitment. It started innocently enough; (by innocent I mean just the opposite) a party at Sparky’s, always the best of times, mid July, an abundance of wonderful people in my life in one spot, with copious amounts of alcohol. I don’t know what we were celebrating, I’ve asked, but no one seems to remember. As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one with a plan. Mel, the girl who gets shit done, had coerced an agreement from J that he would make an appearance as well. And so it begins. I’m well trashed, as is most everyone else, and I am trying my damnedest to get this boy’s attention. I’m not dancing around nude or anything, but I don’t know if it would have made any difference if I had to be honest. He was clueless. Eventually I find myself alone with Mel, and confide I’m pretty sure he is completely uninterested, and quite possibly gay. She responds with; “no way, that’s him flirting”. I roll my eyes in disbelief, and decide to take control of the situation. I convince him to take shots of Jaeger with me. (Always a good time.) The next time J and I are even remotely alone, I attack him. No other way to put it. He didn’t seem too upset about it, and the rest of the evening was spent making out whenever no one else is around. Because I have super stealth skills, and should really be a spy, no one is the wiser. (Or, as Mel put it the next morning, “probably you should not EVER go under cover; everyone knew exactly what you two were doing”. Hmm, whatev.) Don’t worry, we’ll keep this PG; suffice to say the deal was not sealed that night. But it was the beginning. Over the next few weeks the self proclaimed phone loather spent hours talking with me when I got off of work. Seeing as he was in our current town, and I was in Sacramento, it was a bit hard to see each other. But we figured it out. All our free time was spent here or there. To the point where the only day I didn’t see him at all, was Tuesday. Throughout all of this, I waited for the other shoe to drop. To see the side of his personality that would tell me it was time to move on, convinced this was the most temporary of situations. Then one day Mel and I were talking on the phone and she asked me if I was going to see my boyfriend that night. My indignant reply was “he’s not my boyfriend!” I could hear her rolling her eyes. “Okaaaay, are you going to see the boy you exclusively have sex with and spend every possible moment with?” “Oh. Shit.” It was a summer filled with growth, and never before known joy. I learned that I am able to drive curvy ass roads in the dark. And faster than 45 mph! I rode a motorcycle, all the way to Reno, at midnight, and have never been that cold before or since. I decided to believe maybe I deserved to be happy. Something that is still a struggle, but one that I work on. I was as completely myself as I ever had been in my life. I will always remember that summer as the one that started my complete life change, it was the fork in the road and in one instant, in a dark hallway at his brother’s house, I took control of my fate. 5 years ago today, I kissed my husband for the first time.