the art of being alone.

As a young and fully developed thirteen year old, a young man asked me for my phone number. I had butterflies in my stomach. My brother Thomas called him Smeagol (the deranged and obsessive hobbit). He called my home. We talked about the weather. Music. Family. You know, the ever-essential discussions that engulfed the fragile minds of thirteen. I had someone to connect with, and we connected for hours and hours. We had "our song" (the pop-punk of The Starting Line). We had our romance. We had our first kiss in the sticky back seats of a movie theater while Cheaper by the Dozen played. That Steve Martin sure knew how to set the mood.
Then shortly a year after, during high school, there was another. He seemed so proud to put his arm around me.
He was so excited to call me his girl. We shared "our song", but this was a different song. And by song, I mean, him plunking around on a bass guitar recorded onto a cheap tape player. The deep and spurratic bass notes were entitled, "Grace." It was the most romantic thing a boy had ever done for me. 
Following him came a strand of lovers. Each gave me the same butterflies. The music. The poetry. The ammunition for my brothers to make fun of them. Different shapes and sizes. One after another, I imagined what life could be. I somehow managed to pretend I'd spend the rest of my life with each one. And each relationship ended when someone better came around.
Experienced and fulfilled in the long term, short term, and 'fling' departments, I broke many hearts...never feeling the pain I thoughtlessly inflicted.
I found myself as a 21 year old living in Greeley, Colorado. A town where a meat factory exists and every two days, the streets are filled with the thick stench of the slaughterhouse. The same month I moved in, I decide to be a vegetarian. And it was the first time in eight years that I realized I was alone. But I wasn't lonely.