Tainted Love.

Why is it so true that the ones who don't deserve it, pay the price for our past wrongdoers? Don't you ever long for the days you were young, innocent and unjaded? Remember the days of your first tummy-aching love, late night phone conversations, passed notes in class? Not many people are able to trap that purity and untainted love in a bottle for the remainder of their lifetime and run with it.

My father cheated on my mother in her tender young impressionable years of marriage with an infant child. She once told me that his actions damaged and ruined her soul forever. I often wish I could go back to the simpler times of our youth. My heart aches for the young lovers of today's generation that go through breakups. I don't accept the fact that people blow it off as "young love" or "puppy love". It's even more heartwrenching at a young age when you are not equipped with the skills to survive. The first time I was cheated on, I almost lost my mind. The second time, after many years together, matching tattoos and multiple personal sacrifices, I turned into a crazed madwoman. I threw a drink on his new girl and got kicked out of the bar on my birthday. I shed every extra pound I had on my already small frame, replayed the two of them together over and over in my mind, and finally moved away to start a new life. Nobody likes themselves when they turn into a pathetic, reckless abandoned soul. Out of sight, out of mind, right? At least distance ails some of the sting. Almost 15 years later, I never forgot that sinking and horrible feeling of being left behind. They ended up marrying, as did I, but a piece of me was taken that I fear can never be returned.

Several discussions last week in Punta Cana had others asking me how I have learned to trust again. I found this to be uncanny that me, skeptic of all skeptics was regarded as the optimist of the group. Just when you think you've got it all figured out, your past sneaks up on you.

My fear of all fears is that the bounce in my once carefree step will never fully return. I fucking hate the men that took that joy away from me. Some things, you can never fully get over and it's the people in your present and future that suffer.