Dave

Dave was a nice guy. He really was. He was 19 and I was 17, and I don't remember how we met. I think through mutual friends. He was a punk rocker and had dyed black hair (he was a natural toe-head) and piercings back before that was cool. He wore Doc Martens and chains on his wallet. You know, he was leaning more towards the Goth end of punk, cause he liked make-up, too, but he was still punk. He introduced me to NoFx and other good punk music. See, at the time, I was still a big hippie. I was a Deadhead to the core, wearing my ripped jeans and Dead shirts. I smelled like Patchouli and sandalwood and wore a hemp necklace. It was the 90s.

But Dave was sweet. He liked me, a lot, and I thought it was pretty cool that he liked me. He also had drugs. He had a never-ending supply of pot, and we tried ecstasy together for the first time. Then we did it as much as we could. I was already doing a lot of LSD, and he didn't discourage me. So we just had sex and did drugs, and he could drive, which at the time I could not, so we hung out all over the place and went to the underage clubs in the city.

Because we never thought about protection, I got pregnant. I was stunned. I guess I just didn't think it could happen. I only found out because I couldn't stop throwing up, and I NEVER throw up. I went to the school clinic and she knew before I even took the test. My dad came and got me for the first time that school year, and I was in all sorts of trouble. It was November.

I didn't know what to do. I'm Catholic, and he was Atheist, but both of our parents just assumed we would get married and raise the baby. He proposed and I said yes. About a month in I shook out of my stunned silence and thought: really? A baby? I don't even have a high school diploma and both of us live with our parents! And the really messed up thing, that I have never admitted, is I didn't want to marry him (for a lot of reasons) because he was poor and he could never give me the life I thought I deserved. Only child syndrome, maybe, or just little rich girl, whatever it was, I realized a few things. I realized he wasn't the man for me, and that it was too early to have a baby.

Again, I didn't drive, so I asked him to take me to have an abortion. He didn't want to (he wanted the baby and to get married) but somehow I convinced him it was a bad idea. I remember every moment about that day, but for some reason I don't remember what happened after. I just know that by January I was back in school and he and I had broken up.

We're Facebook friends, now. He's got a good life and a beautiful wife, and I'm happy for him. Like I said, Dave is a good guy.

Digging in the boxes

I just spent the last hour and a half going through old photos and posting them on Facebook. Random stuff from high school and old family photos. My grandmother was a dame! There are some great ones of her, and I think (hope) I look a little like her. I never met her (well, I did, but she died 2 months after I was born). She's a legend in my family, and I always feel like I missed out on a really important relationship.

There are some fun ones, too, of a professor of mine in high school who died senior year. He was a great, great man, and really funny. I couldn't even bring myself to go to his funeral. I got high instead. I wish I would have gone to at least say something to his wife, but I never did. Ah, youth and drug abuse.

Speaking of which, all the pics of me I'm so stoned. My senior photo I'm obviously blitzed, and everything I wrote on my page was horribly inappropriate or just weird. I remember thinking: what the hell do I even have to say? Our senior pages were just shout outs to your friends, so I riled my roommate a bit (my favorite pastime) and said hi to my fiance at the time. Oh yeah, I was engaged senior year. Only for a little bit, and only cause I was pregnant at the time. Jesus. It's a miracle I made it out alive.