Story About A Boy

That thing between us, that attraction I felt for you,

it was largely because you reminded me of some of the boys I grew up with. There were a lot of commonalities there.

But… Those boys weren’t good for me then, and they’re not good for me now. They belong to a past in which people wanted me to be a certain thing. They perceived me a certain way and wanted to mold me into a perfected version of it.

I was never that. It was a veneer I was always trying to break through. Still, since I was also a bit of a people pleaser, I kept swinging back between the poles: abide by the expectations others had for me or dare go with the unknown, unborn future I secretly harbored for myself. Tearing myself away from a country, a lifestyle, a model, an implied role, family and friends, easy money — none of that was easy, and it took me a lifetime to find my groove, but it was worth it.

My horoscope said I would be the despair of family and friends for the longest time until I finally got my ducks in a row. That has been true. They probably looked at me and thought: “What a waste. She could’ve had such a great life.“ They don’t realize I have a great life; it’s just not the life they envisioned for me. I don’t live by their standards. I deal with a different deck of cards, and it’s hardly surprising that some of the people I encounter don’t understand the rules I play by.

You were such a person. Even so, the comfort zone you represented was magnetically attractive to me, and so, even though I knew it wasn’t good for me, even though I knew it represented everything I had been pulling away from my whole life, I was deeply attracted to you because you were familiar, you were known territory, you were comfortable amid the discomfort you unwittingly produced.

Still very fond of you… But I must be going.