It was the day of my niece's first Birthday. One years since this all began. I had another dream about Ashlee, only this time it was 50,000,000,000 times more embarrassing than the first one. It was too embarrassing to tell anyone and far to embarrassing to write in words, so I'll just say I was getting seriously freaked out and just leave it at that.
Anyway, as I said it was my niece's first Birthday and I was riding up to the party with my sister (to clarify, I was riding with my sister, Hope, not the my niece's mother, Bailey.) On the way up, I told Hope about the dream (The first dream, not the second one. I left all that out.) She, of course, thinks it to be absolutely hilarious. "You know what I think?" she says laughing.
"Do I really want to know?" I ask.
"I think that you subconsciously like her." She says trying really hard not to pee her pants.
"That's not the first time someone has said that, and this isn't the first time I will say 'HEYULL NO!'" But in all honesty, that wasn't entirely accurate. I was too afraid to admit it out loud, and even more afraid to admit it to myself.
You know those birthday parties that are just so uncomfortable to be at, but the kid is having fun so you stay anyway? This wasn't one of those parties. It was uncomfortable to be sure, but the kid was too young to really be having fun, but since she was my niece, we had to stay anyway. Being the antisocial people we are, my sister (Hope) and I found a quiet corner where there wasn't someone we didn't know (and believe me, that was a hard job) and began quietly mocking the other guests. Eventually I said, "I don't subconsciously like her."
"Okay, I was only kidding." She said.
"The truth is that I consciously like her." There it was, I finally admitted it. It was painful to say, but it was true.
"So? What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing." I said.
"Nothing? Doing nothing is why you're 19 and have never been on a date in your life. You keep falling for these girls, do nothing about it, and then complain about not having a girlfriend. You need to stop being afraid and just ask her out."
"It's not that I'm afraid," I replied, "it's just that after all this time, the one thing I've learned - or at least should have learned - is to identify a lost cause when I see it. Even if I did as her out, and provided she doesn't punch me in the face, it would never last. We're too. . . different. I don't even know if I truly like her, I just think I'm really confused about everything right now. For the first time in years, I'm not chasing after anyone. The only girl I can truly say I cared about is gone, and now my heart's all confused."
After saying that out loud, I guess I reached some sort of clarity about the situation because I never had any more problems with weird dreams about Ashlee. Though it didn't really apply to the situation, what my sister said did help because it wouldn't be long before I got over my fears and actually did ask a girl out. But that's another story.
