... 'dead is better' and funnel cakes...

When I was 19, I had the biggest (cruelest) crush on a fraternity boy. Being a goth girl, he didn’t want to have anything to do with me publicly although we were so pheromone- connected that we made out like crazy all the time… then he got a girlfriend and told my best friend that while he really liked me he couldn’t bring me to his fraternity parties (not that I would have wanted to go) because I wouldn’t fit in. I guess Docs have a way of not matching a spring formal. It’s a bit more complicated than that but I held those feelings of rejection, confusion, and sadness for twenty years. Last year he sent me a Facebook friend request and I almost threw up. After deciding to accept the request, the correspondence went something like “I’ve been pining over you for twenty years and am in love with you”. After a reunion, a long discussion, and a reminder to him that I have the fella I was always meant to be with I have continued to receive those “I still love you texts”, random pictures of his family, and song lyrics. I think initially I was like “Hell yeah bitch! Of course you regret it”. I mean, don’t we all have this weird ‘what if’ about the one that got away. But now they feel like little interruptions in my life... sad attempts at a missed connection.

Today I saw a random Facebook post about America’s creepiest amusement park that has been abandoned for decades will be opening for one week in October. What in the world does this have to do with the guy from the past? Well, we worked at the local amusement park for starters. The post today with scenes of nature taking back what man made reminded me that life changes, the past is the past, and for goodness sake sometimes the universe doesn’t let something happen even when you think you really, really, really wanted it. Some things, like funnel cakes, just aren't good for you. You can handle that when you're a kid but when you're an adult, not so much.

Have I mentioned how hot he was? I had just broken up with my 3-year-first-boyfriend-of-my -dreams-and-super-goth when the frat boy showed up to work. Maybe it was because my ex-goth came to visit the theme park one day with a new girl he was walking around with on a leash. Sigh. I wanted to be that girl. It was too soon and too raw. And frat boy swept me up and made me go on break so I wouldn’t have to deal with it… so even though he wasn’t so open-minded about my clothes, style, or music he did have a heart. Somewhat. No, no, he did. Anyhow, now is now and I’m sick of receiving these ridiculous texts because I haven’t been pining for twenty years. I was sad as a 19 yr old. I wondered what happened. He popped up in my thoughts from time to time but I didn’t need for him to return… and certainly not like this. 

As Stephen King would say, “Sometimes dead is better”.  Looking at the old abandoned Ferris wheel reminded me of this... and it reminded me that even when I go to that amusement park, I never buy funnel cakes anymore. My tastes have changed. 

And as a pretty important aside: I so need to plan a road trip to Lake Shawnee Amusement Park!