Decisions. There's always a decision.

      There's always a decision to make.
do I, or don't I?

     although different things influence different people as far as decision making processes go, there is always a decision to make.
    
      when Alex cornered me in the hallway outside of my English class, I had a decision to make... let her kiss me, or not.  yes, I had a girlfriend. yes, we were happy. but the situation won. and since I wear my heart on each exhaled breath, I breathed out and let her kiss me. in my mind I always imagine she breathed in.

     I went to go see The Plain White T's in riverside one time, and I met elizha there. we walked around in the cold and tried to step around eventualities. when the show started, I told her that I had to go meet bree. So she looked at me, the way she does, and I feel guilty... cause I am.
    
     I go my way and she goes hers. when I find bree I can see she's drunk. she's been hanging around with her slut friends who are typical college whores. but I stay. annoyed.
but I stay.
    
     we watch the show and she tries to get us a ride home because there's supposed to be some party we're gonna go to. it just so happens that this particular night was the night of randy's party, but I wasn't going because my plan hadn't gone through. so randy (or Erwin) decided to go to a hotel and have the party there. I said no thanks.
 
     somehow bree and I ended up at her place, and from there end up having sex on the floor immediately inside her doorstep. I think at that point that we had already broken up. for the last time. later I would find out that after I parted ways with elizha, she went down to randy's party, met some guy, went home with him and they had sex.
    
     I am no angel. i'm just telling the story.

     now, I think I know how I felt when I found out. i'm willing to say she felt the same. but those are the decisions we made. no one made me stay with bree. no one made her go.

     My cousin has always been an amazing story teller, and maybe some would believe that he taught me a lot of what made me into who I am. In his Marine Corps career he spanned the country, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone... looking for the family he never had. in these travels he amassed a great number of stories, like so many grains of sand making up the castle of his life. And since he was far away, he would relay these stories to me through his letters. 
 
     Some were honest, some sad, some tinted with the slightest touch of make believe. almost like that movie Big Fish. but I always enjoyed reading them. always. 

     It has been my long standing regret that I hardly, if ever, replied to his letters. 

cause I was a t home... with my friends, or with girlfriends, or just not replying, the way people do.

     I got letters from SOI, from the Carolinas, from Guam, from all over the place, from home even, and finally from Iraq. And the thing is... I rarely took the time to reply to any of those letters. ever. but he always took the time to write.

     I would have walked through fire for that guy, I would have flown to wherever he was. just to see that goofy kid who used to play NBA Jam with me. but I could never write a letter. 

     So when I finally came home to see him... it was at his funeral... and by that time it didn't matter anymore. 

But that was my decision.   

-undated, from a few years ago.