I don't know what's triggering me to write this, probably because I keep watching members of the female persuasion hand their lives over to silly sticky fingered boys who are supposed to be the greatest thing to ever happen to eager and naive girls.

I remember the Christmas of my junior year very well, most likely because it wasn't that long ago. I was aware that my grandfather could possibly be dying but I had my first boyfriend and that took over every segment of my life because I let the stupid disease of teenage relationships erase all my good judgment. I was in pseudolove,the kind that warms you when there's snow on the ground but fleets as soon as you gain a dress size. I was so dumb. I thought this kid was the greatest thing to ever walk the planet but he was merely an unambitious, lying, unresponsible child and I was stupid enough to believe it all. What can you expect? He was almost sixteen and I should have known better. Anyway, this is not about him. This is about my poor cancer stricken grandfather who had been there for me when my mother was in the hospital with her own cancer and he drove half an hour to bring me a pizza when I was hungry. This is for the giver of my first tricycle, and although I learned in psychology that vivid memories are very rare before the age of three, I can remember this one flawlessly. Cold, biting air and me riding around the dining room table of my grandparents' house till it was time to go home. So many Christmases later I found myself at the same house, only this time I was a snobby know it all teenager who thought she had found the love of her life. I remember being so anxious to leave because then I could go over to my boyfriend's house and waste my time in his room making out and coming home with his scent on my jacket. So anxious. So selfish. My grandfather was beginning to die but the doctors merely attributed the pain to arthritis and not to the bone cancer which eventually swallowed him whole. But how could I put anyone else before myself? I didn't know what it was like to lose someone, I only knew my own happiness. Then we got to leave at last. I said my goodbyes and skidaddled over to his house, ate some cake my mother had told me to bring, and played nice in front of the family until he gave me my present, a CD which ironically helped me get through the passing of my grandfather. What did I know then? I didn't know he would die a few months later and I would never get to share another Christmas with him again. I sold myself short for a kid who would later dump me in the hallway on the way to algebra for the man who had watched me be born, who had sneaked ten dollar bills in my palm when my mother wasn't looking, who had given me piggy back rides and bought me ice cream at the park, who had cared about me more than any hormonal teenage beast. I can never get that time back and I'm not sure if I fully forgive myself for what I did, but what's done is done and I guess there's no point in dwelling on it.

When I see my friends, especially ones at college, sacrificing themselves for guys it really pisses me off. People need to get a grip on themselves. Things are never what they seem and the initial overwhelming feeling always fades. Always. It's not possible to find true love in a freshman dorm. Sorry.