Accountability

Fast Cars

So the summer after senior year began its shenanigans of “hoes in an Audi” and things you never want to hear your daughter calling herself. Now that I have daughters it’s disgusting to think of what I did and with who and how many times. But then the fateful day arrived and it was time to say goodbye to all those childish memories and be off into the real world of college. Little did I know it was just an extension of high school with horny late pubescent boys carrying red solo cups and girls scantily dressed trying to impress with the amount of liquor they could consume without vomiting. I had vowed to myself when I left for College that by Thanksgiving I would not come home with three things: A southern drawl, joining a sorority and having a boyfriend….boy was I wrong on all three! I didn’t know it at the time and I actually didn’t know it for a long time after it happened, but the guy I dated in College had said upon seeing me for the first time “See that girl? She’s going to be mine” to which a friend rebutted “How much you going to pay her” I remember being pursued, wooed even. He was a bit older and had a car and even though he was short, he was short, he was exciting. He was a true southern boy with a drawl and knew his way around and our first date, one to which I never should have gone on, was at Nick’s Airport Inn. We had a romantic dinner watching the planes take off and someone even got engaged while we were there. I sat there watching her say yes thinking that is exactly how I want this to play out one year from that day. I was making him my husband before we even got our salads. We had a torrid love affair in a place far from my home and where I found my independence. I again became infatuated with him, making him my whole life along with sorority life and drinking. I loved college, not for the education or academic experience to which I now regret, but for the thrill of it, the semi adulthood that was staring me in the face, alluring and sensual, bringing me in and spitting me out. We had sex, a lot of sex and it was good sex so I thought. Until the day one of his fraternity brothers slipped up and inadvertently told me he was cheating on me. It’s always the moment you say to yourself, “I’ve never been more myself than I am with this person” that life smacks you right in the throat. I was beside myself. I called my mother, cause that’s what all girls do when they are sick, in trouble or upset. Through my inaudible cries explained to her that my life as I knew it was over and within hours of that call…..she was there. She was standing in my doorway, packing my bags and taking me home for the weekend where she would coddle and care for her wounded little bird that was once again heartbroken. Upon my return to school I went to see him. I sat in his room that my parents and I had decorated, on his bed that I had furnished that he slept with her in and I said my goodbyes, I stood stoic and undaunted as he begged for forgiveness and cried tears of being caught rather than of regret. I gave him a smirk and with all my might socked him right in the eye. It is the one and only single time I ever hit another human being and it felt good. It felt really, really good. So I did it again. And then I left. Violence of course is never the answer and I wish I had enough courage and respect for myself to handle things differently, but then again….isn’t that always the case? We look back on situations and wished it had played out differently, better, but it doesn’t. Life plays out and we are merely a pawn, but what if that wasn’t the case. What if we take responsibility for our own actions. Doing exactly what it is we feel we should do right in that moment? No regrets, no looking back. Being satisfied that our actions were exactly as we wanted them to be? What if everyone owned their words, their actions, their decisions? Accountability. Learn it. Get in bed with it. It can make all the difference.

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