A walk down Life Crisis Lane

This is what I looked like today. Except I have hair.

Today I took on the task of going through my "junk drawers" in my room at my parents' house. I expected to find quite a few forgotten items from high school and college breaks, but I did not expect it to result in a life crisis of sorts. Let me take you through some of the items:

1) Cigarette boxes with huge warnings on them in Spanish from when I studied in Spain the summer after my junior year of high school.

2) A puzzle map of France from our French friends.

3) The sleeve from a book called "The Good Girl's Guide to Bad Girl Sex," which I was inspired to order while I was sexting the guy I was involved with during winter break of my senior year of college. Please note that a Barnes and Noble search for this book yields such suggested reading materials as "Tickle His Pickle" and "BLOW HIM away."

4) A thank you card from my ex boyfriend's mom. She sent it to me along with a bracelet I still wear all the time after I had taken her son to the hospital when he got his balls in a twist. Literally. He had a testicular torsion and had to have emergency surgery. She wanted to thank me for taking care of him, and wrote me a lovely note about how thankful she was, how she wouldn't have been able to bear the thought of it had I not been at his side.

This find made me the saddest of anything in my drawers. It's been a long time, and I don't think of him very often, but something about her saying "I'll never forget your compassion on that day. He is very fortunate to have you in his life" just made me want to cry, because I'm not in his life anymore. And I wonder if she's forgotten my "compassion," or if he has. It just makes me feel horrible. So that's aspect one of the life crisis.

5) An old AIM conversation with a boy I almost-sort-of dated in high school. I had tried to dump him after he took me to a movie and made out with me the whole time on our first date, but he convinced me we'd slow things down. Then a few days later, he dumped me. This was the conversation that ensued a few days later. It included such gems as "Yes you very hot and attractive. But something just not there." What a genius. Then he said "I guess I just have trust issues." Not too long after that, I found out he was fucking my best friend at the time. 

6) Then I found a note from my freshman year of high school from my friend that said "Don't think about the fact that he might not like you anymore. Think about what he said... the boy you like thinks you're cute! Cheer up!!" and then she turned the exclamation points into a smiley sticking out its tongue.

Combine this with number five, and you get life crisis aspect number two: my love life is practically still the same as it was in high school! I still deal with the same situations... maybe I'm on the other side of them sometimes, but sweet Jesus, my romantic life at 23 has similarities to my romantic life at 15. Ugh.

7) Finally, I found my poetry portfolio from my creative writing class in college. Before college, I had been very active in a program that involved taking writing classes taught by professional writers. I was co-editor-in-chief of my high school's literary magazine, involved in the creative writing club, etc. It was a big part of my life. When I got to college, I took a creative writing class, and one unit was poetry. I saw my grade sheet from the portfolio. It said "Sara, there isn't much poetic advice I can give you that you don't already have. You are a very talented writer with a true artistic vision. Poetry portfolio grade: A+!" 

That was the last time I ever wrote a poem. So of course, being unhappy in my current career, all I can think now is that maybe I threw away a much better opportunity. Life crisis aspect number three.

So what began as a fun trip down memory lane turned into a trip to Emo-Land! I think I'm out of full-blown life crisis mode now. But after today's discoveries, I can't say I'm too excited about clearing out the rest of that room!