Rainy Memories

Rain. Bleh. I wonder why it trudges up so many memories...

As I was driving to work this morning my brain went into it's usual tornadic mode and I started having flashback memories of when I was 18. I had just moved to London, KY with my parents- the last place I lived with them before moving out on my own.

I hated it. Maybe that's why the rain and dreariness of this morning revived that memory. I had no money, no job could be found unless I went to work at the cookie factory (which is to London what UK and Toyota are to Lexington), and my parents had just moved me 80 miles away from the boy I was head over heels in love with. We stayed with my dad's mom for a while and then moved into a trailer on Slate Ridge Road in a community outside of London called Lily - and I knew there was no way in hell I was staying there.

But for some odd reason, what crossed my mind this morning was the first month or so that we were staying with my grandmother. That boy of my dreams had given me a t-shirt of his that he had sprayed his cologne on and I slept with it every night and cried for him. It was 97-98 so cell phones weren't as accessible as they are now, so I didn't get to talk to him much because long distance and collect calls were just too expensive. I ended up so sick that I could barely move out of bed and thought I was going to die. I was "love sick". Literally.

Not many months after that I ended up moving out on my own and that boy of my dreams became my live-in boyfriend. Years later we eventually married and of course, are now divorced.

But what that memory sparked this morning is just a reminder of what I want again. I want to love someone that much again. Emotionally healthy or not- I want to feel that much for another human again, that much passion. I want to find another person that I feel like I can't live without. I've loved since then but have yet to feel anything that strongly.

Is it possible to feel something at 30 that we felt at 18? And for someone else? Was it really love or just 18 year old naivety? Has the bitter, cynical side of me ruined any chance I have to find that sort of passion again?  I haven't found it since and I really do doubt I'll find it again- but hope never hurt anything, I guess. Maybe if I could find someTHING I'm passionate about the someONE will soon follow...