Choices that Change You--Part One

No pictures on this post, but at least it will be a post. :)

When last I told you a little bit about my story, I had just ended my freshman year at Utah State University.  The scholarship that I lost had been one I earned by competing in the Regional Sterling Scholar Competition in English, in my senior year in high school.  I had received runner-up, and Utah State offered me a scholarship for full tuition for one year.  I still think it is ironic that the high school counselor tried to tell me I did not have enough English credits to graduate, since I lived, breathed and ate English, especially Journalism, but they didn't count that as English credit.

I am starting to get off track.  Anyway, college was over.  My spring job was ending, and it was time to move back home.  I had been working at a greenhouse, where I scammed with one of my co-workers, a guy almost 9 years older than me, and ended up being his girlfriend for a couple months.  I wasn't a very good girlfriend, but I liked being with him.  He helped me move all my stuff back home.  He even ended up staying a couple days.  I took him sight-seeing, Natural Bridges, out to "the cave".  We told each other we loved each other.  Then, he headed home.  But he didn't get very far, because his car broke down between Monticello and Moab.  So we enjoyed more time together, and then he left.

I was bored and miserable in Blanding.  So much had been going on all the time in Logan, and in Blanding there was nothing.  And I missed my boyfriend, or at least I missed being close to him.  We didn't really know how to talk to each other on the phone.  I had a terrible time finding a job.  I had assumed my old boss at Parley Redd's grocery store would hire me back, but he wouldn't.  I ended up taking a job at a convenience store.  I ended up hanging around with a couple of the guys that worked there, besides the manager's son and--well, yeah, it's too complicated.  Basically, I was surrounded by guys all the time, bored and restless.  It was not a good combination.

When I read in my diary about that time, it is kind of confusing, because one minute I will be talking about missing my boyfriend like crazy, and then I am talking about falling for this guy who is related to some of the people I work with, and then it turns out he is still married, but separated, and then my boyfriend comes to visit, and then there is this other guy.  What the heck?  I mean, within a few weeks, I was this entirely other person, and it seems like I was just being the girl that suited the situation.

I remember my boyfriend came to visit, and I was already going in this completely different direction.  He wanted everything to be like it had when he left, but there was no foundation besides us really liking to be with each other, kissing and that kind of stuff.  The truth was I had been addicted to him, but when he was gone, I just replaced him with someone else.  Only it wasn't just one someone else.  And it wasn't just kissing.

Now, I can look back at that and I just shake my head.  What the heck was that little girl thinking?  Because I was just a little girl then.  I wish I could have held on to that girl I was a little longer. . .