Things I'm Glad I Did vs. Things I Wish I Hadn't Part 2

2014 Thing I’m Glad I’ve Done: Giving —-- (ex boyfriend) a chance. This might sound vain but there weren’t many girls in the library program. I showed a little skin, flirted alot, and got attention. Towards March of my junior year I started talking to a guy I really hadn’t noticed before. That is, he hadn’t paid much attention to me before but now he was. When he asked for my number, I gave it to him. We had our first coffee date at Starbucks and talked about our families, our passions, our schools (he went to public, I was at private). We hit it off from our first date and were together for almost two years. Now he’s married. I wish him the best.

2014 Thing I Wish I Hadn’t Done: Let myself get stressed out by school and college apps. One flaw in my private school is the enormous pressure it put on all of us to get into the “best” college. We started the college hunt sophomore year. There were college fairs, college tours, college speeches, college classes, college tests. It was overwhelming. I actually didn’t let myself get  too bogged down in the college hunt because I had been through worse and I knew in the grand scheme of things it didn’t matter as much as they were making it out to be. I never wanted to go to Harvard or any of the Ivies. I just wanted someplace where people were friendly. And I got that. 

2015 Thing I’m Glad I’ve Done: Giving my virginity away to the right person. My first kiss was stolen by the guy who sexually assaulted me so I wanted to make sure I saved my virginity for the right guy. It didn’t necessarily have to be the guy I ended up with or married but I wanted him to be special, I wanted him to love me and I wanted to love him. I held out until I was eighteen and had been with him a year before we finally made love. It wasn’t perfect. It hurt. But I was glad I waited and don’t have regrets.

2015 Thing I Wish I Hadn’t Done: Be a victim in the Drowsy  Chaperone. I’ve written extensively about how the cast of Drowsy Chaperone were a bunch of sycophants and bullies. That famous question: “Are you going through gender reassignment surgery” I wish I had responded to that question instead of just taking it. I could at least have said “Why? Are you?” I was just so surprised that a freshmen would speak to me like that I couldn’t think of anything at the time. It’s a cruel question to ask someone who had just been diagnosed with PCOS. It could have been worse I guess. I could have actually been going through gender reassignment surgery.

2016 Thing I’m Glad I’ve Done: Joining Gaming Club. I had two groups in college plus an assortment of friends who didn’t fit into either group. I had Moon Squad, which was my dorm friends. They were made up of artists and poets and performers. We also had a volleyball team together and we actually did much better than people expected us to. I started going to Gaming Club a few weeks into my freshmen year. They reminded me of my library friends in that they were mostly geeky guys. However, they threw the best parties and they always treated me well. I was one of the freshmen selected to be in their inner circle even though I didn’t eat my meals with them or live with them. But my Friday nights were theirs.

2016 Thing I Wish I Hadn’t Done: I wish I hadn’t brushed one of my friends off. One of my friends was interested in me but I brushed him off. I wish I had spent more time getting to know him because I feel like we could have actually been good together. However, I’m not too broken up about it because today I’m with Justin and I could never picture being with anyone else.