Little Choices

I wrote this to show how our choices shape who we are. Looking back at the choices we made can make us happy or show us that we need to change something in our lives.

• Diaries

								
When we are young, we think we know everything. What job we will have, who we will marry, how many children we will have, and where we will live. Little did we know that life has its own plans. It's amazing how little choices can make such big changes.

I couldn't believe it when I saw Troy walk into my class in sixth grade. I hadn't seen him since second grade. We were best friends back then. Unfortunately, time changed both of us. He became popular and I was the most unpopular. 

It hurt the first time he teased me. I wanted to cry. The pain in my stomach felt like someone stabbing me. I hoped that finally I would have a friend. But I guess it was too much to ask of him. The worst part was the way that he teased me. To the humor and laughter of all the other kids, he would ask me to go out with him. 
I asked my dad how I should handle the situation. My dad said, "Tell him to go suck on a rotten lemon." My dad had a quirky sense of humor. 

I did just what my dad said, and do you know what Troy did? The next day, he came up to me and said, "I sucked a rotten lemon. Will you go out with me now?" With that remark, all the kids in the classroom laughed and Troy had a smirk on his face. 

I just pushed past him and sat in my chair. For three years I put up with this treatment. I have to wonder what he would have said if I said yes. I have to wonder how my life would have changed. 

I mean, think about it, why would Troy focus on me? We haven't seen each other for three years. What made him think that I was unpopular? No one ever talked to me. I kept to myself. He decided to focus on me. There had to be a reason for why he did this to me. 

The summer of eighth grade brought a big change for me. My dad remarried and we moved to her house. Time for a new school. Another choice to make. Do I continue to allow myself to get teased and go home every day crying? Or do I put on a tough act, so no one teases me? There was no other option that I could see because as far as I knew I was not popular enough to have friends. So, I chose to be the bully. 

The amazing thing is, it worked. I didn't get teased. I even gained a circle of friends. The strangest group of friends you would ever see. 

Alee was the female druggy of the group. She smoked, drank, did drugs, and she was a bit of a slut. She was beautiful but didn't see it. Jennifer was the biker chic. She put on a big, tough act that everyone saw through. Nancy was the dog that always came back no matter what you did to her. She was an attention grabber and sympathy hog. It was very annoying, but we still called her friend. (I found out years later the only reason the others in the group put up with Nancy was because of me. I had no idea I had that kind of influence with them.) 

Then there were the boys. Grant started in the group as Nancy's boyfriend. Only I didn't realize he was her boyfriend. One day while we were at our lockers, I asked her, pointing at Grant, "Is that a boy or a girl?" She looked at me and said, "He's my boyfriend." Facepalm to the forehead. Oh, crap. How was I supposed to know. Grant was so feminine looking. 
Casey was the beanstalk of the group. Tall and thin, he was a bit on the quiet side but also had a wild streak that not many people saw. Charlie was a lot like me. He was quiet sometimes, loud other times, and just stayed true to himself. 

Jeff joined us once in a while. He was just plain weird. He had a pet tarantula and loved to freak us out with the skin. I remember sitting in homeroom with Jennifer talking when Jeff dropped the skin on my desk. I screamed and hit the thing off my desk. I don't think I've seen Jennifer move so fast in my life. She was on the other side of the room by the time I looked up from hitting the skin. We of course cracked up laughing once we realized it was just the skin. And Jeff got slugged in the arm for the joke, which of course had him laughing even harder. 

There were others who came and went, but none stuck it out. This was the school group. Outside of school there was Danny, our pathological liar, and Scott, our male version of Alee. 

And then there was Ben. I met Ben while working at the grocery store, Marandino's Foods. I was a cashier, and he worked on the floor and as a bagger. Ben was a big guy with a beard and mustache. He had the most beautiful blue eyes. The kind of eyes you could drown in. His smile could make any dark day brighten. And his hugs, they just envelope all that is you. When he hugged me, I felt like nothing could go wrong. Everything in the world was right when I was in his arms. 

I have to laugh because he thought I was annoying when we first met. I would always call him to help me when I needed a bagger. It took his brother, who also worked there, telling him that I liked him for him to actually take a real look at me. That's when he started to like me. 

And that is when life changed for me again. Ben and I had a connection that was beyond anything I had ever experienced before. I have dated many guys. Some of them I even loved. But none were a connection that made me lose my breath. None of them left me feeling empty when that person was not around. This was Ben for me. 

When I was with those other guys, I didn't care if I was with them or not. I had fun when we went out, but when it was time to leave for the night, I was fine with leaving them. With Ben, it was different. When I was with him, I was whole. I was complete. When we left each other, it was like a part of me was being torn away. It was the worst feeling I ever felt. 

Still, we never stayed together. We dated on and off throughout my high school years. Ben had a problem with drugs, smoking, and drinking. I could deal with it for only so long. The thing that I hated the most was he would say that he quit, but I would catch him at it. He would lie to me about it. I can't deal with the lies, so we would break up. Then we would miss each other too much and get back together. 

Eventually I met David. He took the place of Ben enough so that I could move on. At least that is what I thought. David and I had some problems in our marriage. Maybe I needed Ben again because David became a jerk. When he searched me out, all the old feelings came out again. It was fabulous to be with him again. But we were both married. We were both planning on leaving our spouses. David didn't want anything to do with me anymore, and Ben's wife was abusive. David and I had a fight one time, and I was in tears. I called Ben to talk to him about it, but he wasn't home. His mom told me that he had gone back to his wife. Later, I found out that his wife tricked him into helping her move. She took all his money and phone, so he couldn't contact me. I immediately thought he wasn't going to leave her. I lost it after that. 

But being me, I didn't let it keep me down. I started to play a game called Second Life. In this game, you can literally have a second life. You can have a job that pays in game money that can be changed to real life money. You can have a relationship, a family, friends, and you can build anything that you can imagine. That was my favorite part, building. I became the person who could get anything. I had many people in my friends list who could do a number of different things from building, making clothes, to writing scripts which control the world. I became confident in the game. I became who I wanted to be in real life but didn't feel like it was possible. 

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