From my awkward first kiss at 15 to my crazy plans at 26. Some moments in my life i kept only to myself, and every now and again they come out to haunt me.
Today in the middle of a moment, a memory came flooding my mind. Of a cocky 18 year old who tried way too hard to be something he wasn't, a desperate cry to try and live those teenage years that were in the process of being stolen from him.
When I was 18, my grandfather died. It's hard for everyone but my grandfather was the only stable rock in my life since I was born, he took care of me and my mother, to the best of his powers he aloud me to live a somewhat normal live.
He ignored my flaws but always made me feel like I had to grow up to be the best version of me. He provided me with a safety net that was now gone.
Left me alone with a sick mother who lives in a separate world, unable to comprehend what is going on around her. But he tried so much to live long enough for me to be on my feet, and my biggest regret in life was that I never got to show him just how far I could go.
But I digress, this is a story for another chapter, my point is, after his death I was still trying to grab hold of the idea I was still just a teenager, that I was aloud to ignore the problems and lead a normal life.
I remember on the summer after his death I got a girlfriend, she was 17, lived in the middle of nowhere, we had met the year before, during the summer break, I remember seeing her at the beach, and thinking just how cute she was, I could see her staring back, but at that time I had very little self esteem, so I though it was just my imagination.
Turns out fate had other plans, turns out she was a cousin of my next door neighbour. Can you imagine the odds, I mean here I was camping, almost 200 km away from home, which by chance was also the place where my next door neighbour's family had their beach house, and this one girl that stole my gaze one day at the beach just happened to be her cousin.
So that week we went to her house to spend the afternoon in the pool, and there she was, staring back at me again.
Even though nothing happened that year, the next year she visited my home town for a few days, and me, her and her cousin along with her boyfriend went out to the movies one afternoon. Spiderman 2, the crappy one with Toby McGuire, I have to say I can't remember what the movie all that well, all i know is I was so nervous about trying to kiss her my mouth went completely dry with anxiety and my chest felt like it wanted to explode.
But it happened and we started dating, which was a bit difficult since she lived very far away. 2 hours by train to be exact, and I was broke. I was so poor I used to eat marmalade sandwiches for dinner breakfast and lunch, several days in a row.
Again, I was trying to refuse the fact I had to grow up, my grandfather wasn't around any more to allow me to leave a normal life, but I wanted it so much to have a normal life I just kept going.
I even ended at the hospital because of it, but even that wasn't enough to make me realize it.
The day I realized I really had to grow up was at her house. I used to go to her house every two weeks and spend the weekend, her parents where strange enough they even arranged a guest room for me. so this happened two weeks before her birthday, her father called me aside when she wasn't around and tried to give me money.
He knew how poor I was, he also wanted me to give something nice to his daughter for her birthday.
I never felt so ashamed in my life, I refused and went to the bathroom, taking a long and deep look at myself...
That moment I realized, just how over my carefree days were. I think we saw each other two or three times after that. But that moment stuck with me till this day...
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