Revisiting The Past...

My first REAL boyfriend was a guy that my mom forbid me from seeing. His name was Waylon. As far as my mom was concerned, he was heavy into drugs and a bad influence on her baby girl. He was best friends with my sister's ex-husband/baby daddy, and we all agreed that he was evil, so this meant that all of his friends were obviously evil as well...

Well, Waylon was tall, dark, and country boy handsome. He was sweet. He was gentlemanly. And my mom was also not so wrong about him... Except that the heavy into drugs thing was more running them around the state and selling them. He was a bad boy. I loved bad boys. The problem was, that I was not so good at going up against my mom in an argument, so I decided that hiding seeing him was the best option, but before I tell you about that, I think it's only fair that I tell you how we met...

My sister and her first husband split up, and being the teenagers that they were, there was a lot of drama... No teenager ever wants to admit that it was wrong to plan a pregnancy with another teenager so that they can get married and move out on their own, so my sister struggled and lived with other people before finally moving back home. When she did admit her mistake, her ex and Waylon helped her to move. I had gone to help her pack, stayed up for about 48 hours straight and felt like pure dog shit by the time it was time to move. I was also 16, so I ducked out early with my truckload of boxes and came home in hopes of catching a nap on my mom's couch. After not being able to sleep, I walked out in my messy t-shirt and shorts and saw HIM. He was the cutest guy I had ever laid eyes on at that point. I ran back in the house, washed my face, brushed my hair up into a pony tail, threw on some make up, and put on a cute little tank top. I did, however, keep my surly attitude in check. This is one thing that I learned way early in life that men love... A woman who is mean to them. It worked... After Waylon and Bob (yes, my sister was once married to a BOB) left, Waylon begged Bob for my number. He offered favors, and finally he offered him $300. Surprise, surprise, I got a call from a payphone just a few hours later...

Time moved on and Waylon moved in with and started working for my brother. This made it easier for me to see him, keep tabs on him, and to hope that he was on the up and up. I drove to see him nearly every day (LOTS easier when gas was $1.29!!!) and this secret relationship quickly blossomed. I hid it from my mom for nearly two months. I hid until I did the unthinkable. I wrecked my truck on the way to see him. My mom knew that he was working with my brother, so it was no surprise when Waylon showed up to help tow my truck out of a ditch. I'm sure what was surprising to her though was the fact that I had his class ring on a necklace around my neck and that he had my favorite ring on a necklace around his neck. Amongst all the confusion though, there was nothing said. As a matter of fact, nothing was said until I forced him to come to church with us the following Sunday. I realized very quickly that in order to continue this relationship when I had no running vehicle, I was going to have to transform my bad boy into someone that my mom liked.

Soon after Waylon began attending church and other family functions, my mom began to believe that he really wasn't such a bad guy. She even began to "allow" us to date. This was great. He was able to pick me up and take me out to movies and pretty much anywhere that we wanted to go. Of course, not long after we had to stop sneaking around, my 16 year old self decided that it was time to find something else to have to hide and sneak around about… So, our quick kisses turned into make-out sessions, and soon after those make-out sessions led to me wondering what it would be like to go even farther… My unfortunate 16 year old self got carried away. After dating for about 4 months, I decided that it was time to try sleeping with him. Fortunately for me that the whole event was so disastrous that I never slept with him again. Unfortunately though, he still stuck around for another month or two before I wised up and broke things off…

The really unfortunate part came at the age of 23 when I got divorced and saw Waylon again and talked to him. I began to wonder what my life would have been like had I not broken up with him. He was, after all, my first love. For months this question ate at me. I finally got in touch with his best friend and dropped the hint that it wouldn’t be so bad if he gave him my number. He later brought my name up in conversation with Waylon to test the waters. The next day, Waylon paid him $150 and gave him a case of beer for my phone number. Three days after that, Waylon called me. We talked for weeks before we decided to meet up. We were convinced that we were still as happy and as in love as we were when we were teenagers. It unfortunately did not take much for us to decide to do the deed again, and this time, it was MUCH better than when we were teenagers. Little did I know that Waylon was lying to me and that he was married. I mean, we were going out in public. Who would risk that? When I found out, I broke things off… Only to be sucked in again later when he actually did get divorced. Never did this turn into an actual relationship… We decided to be “friends”. The problem was that every time we went somewhere to hang out, we would decide to go back to my place and have some fun.

Soon this got old. I started standing him up when we were supposed to meet up. I started avoiding his calls. I refused to respond to his texts. After a few weeks, I would finally talk to him, but he knew that I wanted nothing to do with meeting up or with sleeping with him anymore. Mysteriously, I received a call a few weeks later from a new phone number thanking me for helping him to realize the error of his ways and telling me that he had a new girlfriend now. A few weeks after that, I got a text saying “Please call.” It turns out that this girlfriend got this phone on her plan and then found out that he was cheating on her with multiple women, and just wanted to know if he had cheated with me as well. I was so happy to know that I had dodged the Waylon bullet not once but twice in my life. As I am writing this, I honestly could not be more thankful. A couple of months ago, for extra measure, I changed my phone number so that I would never have to worry about hearing from him, his ex-wife, his ex-girlfriend, or many, many other people ever again…

This all being said, one thing that I’ve realized that while sometimes it is nice to be home again, it’s not always so nice revisiting the past. Sometimes instead of walking down Ol’ Memory Lane, we should look forward in our lives and find bigger and better things.