Guythatnooneknows Has Opinions

I had to go to Walmart today. Dad and I needed milk and I needed cereal for the mornings before work. I gotta have my cereal before I head out the door in the morning. Whenever I go to Walmart, almost out of instinct I go to the electronics department, not because I want to buy something but because I just like to look. It is a very rare occasion in which I purchase something from the electronics department at Walmart. Today's trip was seemingly no different then any other day I went to Walmart. As I turned the corner, crossing the landbridge into the secluded penninsula of the electronics department, I saw two familiar figures. Two brothers of a girl I had previously dated, well, not so much dated as desired to date at one time.

This girl and I had developed somewhat of a relationship, and became good friends, until my advances were met by the stone fortress that was her heart. Not even an army of millions could have penetrated that fortress at the time I attempted. Undaunted as I was though, I attempted, and crumbled before her mighty walls like a pane of glass shatters from a stray golf ball hit by Fred Couples. After a time, we went our separate ways, and I have seen very little of her in about 3-5 years. In fact, the last I talked to her was, geez, 2 or so, maybe even more, years ago on the phone for about 20 minutes.

So anyways, I wouldn't consider our parting of ways a good one, nor a bad one, but there were definitly some resentments harbored. While I was turning the corner to the electronics department, I saw two of her three brothers, one I immediately recognized, one I didn't. At first glance, the latter of the two I thought I recognized as her youngest brother, so playfully, and totally out of my normal strings of character, I slapped him on the back and said hey. When he turned, I realized that a slap on the back was not the appropriate course of action, because the brother I thought it to be was not, in fact, said brother, but was the other of her brother's, the one in which I had a history I didn't really want to remember.

"Hi!" A savagely half-assed attempt at enthusiasm at seeing him was all I could muster, and so the akwardness of the conversation began. After shaking each of their hands, I swear we stood there looking back and forth at each other for the longest 3 seconds I've ever experienced. I always seem to find the awkwardness in any situations somehow, it's weird. "We have a house full of sick people," was the response to my greeting after the handshakes. Great, I remember thinking to myself, something in their response told me that I needed to end this situation soon before it repelled into the dark cave of regret for even approaching them.

Normally, in this type of situation I would have just left them alone and tried every means of avoiding not only eye contact, but physical closeness. Living in Hastings has definitly proved to be difficult for me in the respect that ever since I stopped going to my dad's church I've tried so hard to avoid people that I knew from there like the plague. I don't like answering questions about what I've been doing, I don't like asking the same questions to the people asking me, and in general I just don't like dealing with that stuff. So for me to not duck and cover from these two in Walmart was totally out of character, and I began to wonder if this was an isolated incident or if it was the beginning of a paradigm shift in my persona.

I hope it's not the latter, I hope it's an isolated incident stemmed from my need to show this particular girl that I have done something with myself while she's set idle. I know it's a stretch, but maybe the reason I initiated contact with the two of them was my deep down need to show this girl that I have changed. Not because I want something from her though, because I don't. I would never know what impact this meeting had today upon her, if any. But a piece of me wants there to be one, however minescule it may be. I feel like I put myself out there for her and I got nothing in return. If anything, I think I'd like to think she feels some sort of regret for not at least entertaining the idea of getting to know me more then she did.

Maybe I just can't let go of something stupid. It has been a long time since I had any dealings with this particular girl. Maybe I should just forget about it. The more I think about it, the more I just can't do that. She made me angry, I guess there are still fibers in me that are still angry about it, still small fibers that just can't deal with her stupid decisions. They might be still there, but their slowly detaching their mandibles from my brain, I can feel them leaving. Today I could feel it when I walked away from the conversation with her brothers. As weird and awkward as the conversation might have been I walked away with it with a sense of fulfillment.

Lately, I've felt like I've started to find myself in certain aspects. I think I'm finally turning some sort of corner on the highway of life. (And yes, I'm aware of how horrible that analogy is.) Schooling is starting to finally settle into place, I'm content in my job and my personal life seems to be turning brighter. I was asked on Friday if I thought I'd found myself, discovered myself. After thinking about it a while, I think I'm moving in the right direction. I don't know if anyone can truely really find themselves though. I mean that's really what life is about, learning as much about yourself as you can before you run out of time right?

I guess today was a learning experience regardless of how much I second guess myself for approaching the brothers as I have. Even though I have more questions then when I started off to Walmart today, I feel like at least one of those questions now has an answer. Who'd have thought Walmart would be the center of my little mini-universe today. What with Walmart being the line between heaven and hell.