#41. Own Your Mistakes

Let me state I am not perfect. Nobody is perfect. As much as I am a perfectionist and equally stubborn, I am more than willing to own up to my fuck ups, once justified that they are indeed fuck ups – or learning experiences for those of you who are optimists.


Note. This is completely different than admitting I am wrong to T – regarding anything.

I have one gigantic life-altering, heart breaking, world shattering epic fuck up. His name was Chris. As much as I’d like to place blame for the entire ordeal on him, I can’t. I blame one thing, and one thing only – my heart. For those of you thinking listening to your heart is the way to go – you are all very, very wrong, and I’ll tell you why.

It’s my first year away from my very small home town and am attending university for psychology in a much larger city. I’m coming off a string of relationships that lasted a month and a half each (yes, I got bored precisely at the same point in every relationship). Anyway, a new place, new friends, and new guys to meet. I stay single the entire first semester (go me!), and end up kind of dating a guy I will refer to as ‘Dan the Italian Stallion.’ And by ‘kind-of’, I mean it was my attempt at a one night stand that went horribly wrong. Ok. I’ll tell you the story – as this is also a mistake.

It is now December and I’ve just finished writing my final exam before Christmas holidays. My father will be picking me up FIRST thing in the morning. It takes me approximately 9 minutes to get from the exam room to my residence room and put a beer in my hand. I have all intentions of getting ready for the bar, hopping in a cab and heading downtown to meet friends. This doesn’t happen. I have a few too many beers, stop in across the hall at a gathering of people where the “how you do’ in” line actually works on me. First mistake. Let’s just say after hours of talking, etc, etc, I wake up in the morning to discover my dad should be there already to get me. Second mistake – DTIS (Dan the Italian stallion) is still in my bed. I jump up run to the bathroom to discover mistake #3 – a hickey. I glance out the window to see my dad’s car pulling into the parking lot. Seriously, I wake DTIS up – throw his clothes at him and kick him out – he passes my dad in the hall!!! I quickly repack turtlenecks and head home for the holidays happy that the entire experience is behind me. WRONG.

A month later after school resumes my phone rings. It’s DTIS, he wants to cook me dinner. When I gave him the boot I had missed giving him his jacket so he had returned after I had left and someone gave him my #. We dated briefly, and when we split the girls decided a night out with the university’s drinking team was a good idea. NOT a good idea.

We get to the bar, and I am asked “Out of everyone in here who do you want to meet tonight?”, and I pick Chris out. Another bar and an entire pitcher drank by me; I walk up and tell him that he’s the only one I wanted to meet. Hook.Line.Sinker. We become inseparable. One problem – he’s in his last year and is moving back to his hometown – a rather large city, at the end of the semester. He’s everything I’ve imagined – educated, cute, humorous, thoughtful, and athletic – he had it all. My heart told me not to let him go. What can your heart know at age 20? Seriously.

So what do I decide to do? Follow him. I tell myself I don’t really want to be a psychologist; I’d prefer to be in business management as its fewer years in school and more years working. I convince myself that he is the one for me. The one I should marry. So I up and move after maybe 7 months of dating. I give up my friends, psychology, and my apartment – everything I was sure of. We attempt to live together while he works, and I go to school. He misses 'university life', I miss my life, we argue. You know how this ends –a year later I’m a puddle on the floor wondering what the hell happened? I remain a puddle while moving back to where I started attempting to recover. Attempting that took months of crying, and years of emotional walls that wouldn’t let anyone else in.

Did I learn from this mistake? Sure. Don’t listen to your heart; it fucks with your life.