post it note: 7.19.08

So I'm here at the hotel, its around ten pm, and you'll never guess who is sitting right in front of me: Ashley Sterrett's parents, here visiting a guest in the hotel.

Yeah, the same Ashley I left for Amanda last spring. And I'm sitting here ashamed of myself. Not as much ashamed for leaving Ashley as much as how I did it.

Quick refresher -- I left her after seeing Amanda for a little bit before I left her. She had no idea it was going on, and I broke up with her over the phone, and cold turkey too. No text messages, no phone calls... I even left a $100 Penguins jersey at her place, knowing it was there.

When Amanda broke up with her ex, she kept talking to him once in a while for a month because her conscience couldn't let herself do what I did to Ashley.

So fast forward...I'm sitting here totally embarrassed of myself, and for the first few minutes I'm sitting here extending a two minute phone call into a ten minute call. Her dad keeps looking up at me and I try my best to look away, praying they'll leave before I get off the phone.

Within a few minutes, a guest comes down and asks for some coffee to be made, which requires me to walk right past the little group that has extended their legs at the couch and chairs near the front desk. Suddenly...

Father: Hey champ, how you been?
Me: Uh, doing fine, funny seeing you here, I guess.
Father: How've you been?
Me: As good as you can do on a busy Saturday.

He then extended his hand and shook mine. I had so many questions: How's Cody? How's Ashley? I heard she was dating someone she is really happy with...

But before I could ask, he gave me a big smile. Was it a knowing smile? Who knows...but I felt something I'd never felt before right there...unneeded shame. Here I am, almost thirty, and I'm worried about a confrontation that most likely wasn't going to happen! Now other than that initial little greeting, they've continued their conversation and have said nothing to me since then.

I thought back to all those girls I broke up with in that same chicken way; Kyle, Vicki, Kim... and I thought it was the end of the world at the time, that my life was going to be forever haunted by their memories and, sure enough, I still talk to Kyle and Vicki online from time to time. We're still friends, albeit electronic, but we're still friends.

Its very strange, all of this.

I'm going to go back to standing here and trying hard not to be ashamed of myself. After all, its the most I can really do, now.