04.27.06
“I was looking for love in all the wrong places. Looking for love in too many faces…” Waylon Jennings - and finding it where I least expected it!
I thought about where I should start my stories and decided to start at the beginning - the beginning of my real life, after years of wondering who I was and why I was even here at all. My high school years were a complete nightmare, filled with abuse, ridicule and isolation. Someday I may tell some of that story, but not today. After high school, I found alcohol, drugs and sex. By the time I was 20, I was well on my way to becoming an alcoholic and drug addict, using them to try to forget just about everything. My music was taking a backseat to my “self-discovery”, though I had reconnected with an old friend from junior high school who was also a musician. New Year’s Day in 1974, she called me to tell me about meeting a grungy young hippie in the laundromat. He had asked her if she thought his clothes would get clean if he just ran them through the washer without any soap. When she loaned him some soap, he offered to get her high. That shows where our priorities were back then. He had money for pot but not for laundry detergent. They got to talking about music, realized they both played guitar and made plans to get together later to jam. Did I want to go? Sure I did. We jammed for hours with him and his roommate and had a great time. The next evening, he called me to see if I wanted to hang out again. Thinking, by the sound of his sexy voice, that he was the yummy roommate with the straight long dark hair and dreamy eyes, I of course said yes. Boy was I surprised when I answered the door. Much to my surprise, we had a wonderful time and stayed up all night talking. We were both exhausted, so I called in sick to work and asked him if he would like to see the mural painted on my bedroom wall. I quickly fell in love with the first man that ever acted like he wanted to really be with me. He enjoyed my company, laughed at my jokes, and put no real demands on me. I didn’t think such a person existed. They certainly hadn’t so far in my life. Actually, looking back, I realize that there were two other men that I considered friends who treated me very well. One of whom may have been in love with me, but never did anything about it. At that time I was very naive and, having never dated nor had any interactions with boys in high school, except for their abuse, I didn’t and still don’t know how to flirt. I just don’t pick up on the signals. My sexual experiences so far had been getting picked up in bars, having quick, unfeeling, usually not very good sex, then going home alone. Before long this new man in my life, now my ex who I will call X, moved in.
More to follow…