Young Love

Quick note: Sophie is my sister. Like, my actual biological little sister. I think someone may have been confused...?

Anyway, I just spent the last several hours reading through/sorting my old journals from 1997-2004. And WOW. I didn't mean to get so absorbed but I couldn't help it. I was so different then. I felt things so intensely! A first kiss was such a wonderful, monumental thing! I got butterflies (the good kind!) thinking about a guy, waiting for him to call. Actually CALL, not text! I wish it was still that way. Although I haven't had a first kiss in so long I don't even like to think about it. And the guys! OMG, in 2003, I literally had like 5 guys I was dating at one time. And I wasn't even sleeping with any of them! I have no fucking clue how I managed that. But Jesus... apparently those 5 guys were meant to last me the rest of my life, cuz I can't even manage to get a date nowadays. This year has been really rough. I've been having severe anxiety, and I haven't been able to pinpoint exactly why, but I finally went to see a psychiatrist. The panic attacks were debilitating and becoming so frequent, I was afraid to leave the house sometimes. ((Sigh)) Now I feel like a Beverly Hills Real House Wife with my Xanax and my Prozac...ugh. But honestly, it's been a week since I've been medicated and only one panic attack. So I guess the drugs are working.
God, I can't stop thinking about those journals... My junior year of high school I fell in love with this guy. He was the guy next door, basically. He had always liked me, but he was kind of your typical bad boy, so I resisted him. He smoked and he drank, but he was also a Southern gentleman in a way. Very polite and respectful to adults, and charming, and deep down a good boy. He just had a lot of problems back then. He joined the Navy right out of high school, and it wasn't till he'd gone that I realized how much I cared about him. We became really close for a while. I would write him letters, and he would call me and we'd talk for hours, late into the night. But he was an alcoholic, and always getting into some kind of trouble because of that. We actually never dated, but we shared a few really good kisses. And I had an intense year of back and forth with him, long distance. Back then, the war on Iraq had just begun, and things in the military were dire, and dangerous, and I was always worrying about him. But then he would come home for Christmas, or just for a random, spur of the moment weekend visit, and I would be so happy to see him! And we'd play, and talk, and share stories. And we'd always dance. He taught me how to Texas Two Step at the local dance hall. He loved to dance. And I'd always give him an innocent kiss on the cheek, and he'd blush, and then ask permission to kiss me. And usually I would let him. But then he would leave again, and I'd cry and cry. I shed a lot of tears over that guy. I really was in love with him. And he loved me too, in his own way. He wanted me, but he just...didn't know how to love me really. He knew he couldn't give me what I needed or what I deserved, and in the end, I guess it just wasn't meant to be. But I remember so much about our time together so vividly that reading about it really puts me right back there, ya know? I can feel it all again. I don't have that experience with anyone else I've ever dated really. At least not in a positive way. Thinking about it makes me happy, and it makes me sad. Happy that I got to experience something like that, in that way. So romantic and intense, yet also so innocent. But sad, because I'm alone now, and I don't know if I'll ever have anything that even comes close to that again. That feeling of pure abandon... Young Love.