The Back Nine...so not about golf

Plunging into my self-allowed nine minutes...
I saw the movie "Once" yesterday. A good choice for Independence Day. A wonderful movie--truly a movie that is full of wonder and longing and yearning and remembering a lot of what-ifs and forks in the road.

It made me remember a July 4th from many years ago. I was eighteen and heading off to college in the fall. I had the kindest boyfriend who was brilliant and sweet and who really liked me. We had attended such an innocent high school and grew up on the cusp of the chaos that would envelop us in college and after a summer theater program, I was ready to dip my toe into the pool of chaos and adventure and this nice boy was the last person I wanted to spend time with...and yet, he was lovely.

So, on an outing to the beach--we lived in a midwestern river town and had to drive a few hours to find dunes at the edge of a lake--I broke it off with him in a manner that still makes me cringe. I was flip and thought if I was funny and light, it would make everything okay. I told him that since it was the 4th of July, I felt the need to declare my independence. So stupid, so mean, so blind, so unfeeling. We were with a few other couples and we had a two hour drive home and I had just tossed him aside. It's not that I was such a prize. It's never about that. It's that he liked me and I came out of the blue and socked him one in the eye--with a kind of light jest, thinking that would make it allright.

It has been so many years, and I am still embarassed at how I behaved. If I were ever to see him again--highly unlikely--he probably would not even remember the day or me--or maybe he would and could make it all light and unimportant and make me feel as badly as I think I made him feel.

My time is up...maybe this is about golf--we were in a sand dune...and I was trying to get out.