I'm not lost, just looking for footprints.

It's weird, the parts of your life that fade into the background, lost forever. I'm only 23 and yet there are years, whole sections of my life, that feel like they don't belong to me. My first job at college was working at a winery. They needed help, I had no previous experience whatsoever, they hired me on the spot. And I loved it. It was right on the lake, I had the privilege of learning about the process of making wine, and when it was the dead of winter, with no customers in sight, they'd let me sit at the counter and do my homework so as not to fall behind in school. I saw my boss a few years later, from afar, and she'd lost all her hair. I felt bad that I hadn't heard of any sickness, but also that I'd just completely lost touch after I left. She gave me a chance and I'm forever grateful for that.

My first job in high school, so, really, my first job ever, was in the kitchen at the SLU dining hall. I had to wear a hat or a hairnet (guess which one I chose) and I had burns on my wrists that entire summer from having to drop the pans of boiling water into the line. I met a guy named Simba, from Africa, who had a crush on me but who I supposed had a crush on a lot of local girls. I was sixteen, he was nineteen, and knew things about the world that I could never dream of understanding. He was charming and could always make me laugh; for the years after, when I worked in various offices on campus, I would see him and wave, and he'd flash his contagious smile and melt my heart all over again. Ben hated him, but then again, that was his right. We were so in love then, and the thought that anyone might steal me away was inconceivable. He drove me to and from work every day that summer because I didn't have my license, and I'd pulled a rolling stop on my driving test, failing miserably. I'd come out of work, sweaty and greasy and hating life, and he'd have the air conditioning in his jeep on full blast, with a sweatshirt on to keep the chills at bay. I hate that I forgot those things later, but they were so easily overshadowed that I don't think remembering would have mattered much anyway.

I watched my grandmother die. I was in the room when she stopped breathing; looked on as my grandfather bent down and kissed her, telling her he'd love her forever. My heart broke into pieces, and I remember standing next to Joe, crying hysterically, while he rubbed my back and tried not to sob himself. I think that was the first significant moment in our relationship, the first little chip in a wall that had been built up for years. It's hard to imagine now that we weren't always as close as we are, but I think that Grandma would love the fact that she had something to do with it.

I know the exact moment I stopped loving Ben. It wasn't what you'd expect; I loved him through girl after girl, affair after affair, through endless broken hearts. Pure torture. But I always picked myself up and moved on, letting the dust settle on a version of me that became less like someone I liked every day. No, I stopped loving him on a very ordinary day last summer. When I'd gotten my tattoo in June, we had talked about what I would get for years. He had wanted to draw it, in the beginning, and then later had changed his mind. Said he didn't want something on me that he'd drawn because it was akin to having his name tattooed there; entirely too much commitment for someone like Ben. So when I got it, and picked out a design that was exactly what I wanted, I felt free. It was for me and only me, and I loved it. When we met up about a month later, I picked him up from the bus station. After we hugged, we got in the car, and my tattoo was the first thing he wanted to see. So I hunched over in the driver's seat and pulled up my shirt. He was quiet for a long time, and mumbled something about how he liked it. When I asked him what was wrong, he said he wished he'd drawn it after all; he wanted something on me that would make me his forever. And that was it. I turned the car on, and we drove in silence, until he couldn't take it anymore and changed the subject. But for me it ended there. I understood then that he would always jerk me around, would never know just what he wanted until I'd already turned in another direction. It just wasn't enough for me anymore.

I don't know why I'm writing all of this. Maybe it's because I hate endings, and want to keep these times in my life that seem over, alive. Maybe it's because lately I feel so much older than 23. I feel used up, as though I have nothing left to give, and so I need to validate the fact that I was once a very interesting girl. I think it's to close chapters that were lovely and hard, so that I can make new ones, jump out of this rut that seems impossibly full of monotony.

Right now, it's time for more tea and less reflecting. Too much of a good thing, and all that.