24. If you want to stop seeing someone, TELL THEM.

Recently, I've been in touch with a couple of guys from the past - one from 10th grade, and another from 1990. Both said the same thing about me: "One day you were there, and the next you were just...gone". In each case, I moved away and never looked back. It wasn't personal, of course. I just...moved on.

Years later, having reconnected with people on Facebook, I get to hear what friends and acquaintances thought about me. It's really interesting how we view ourselves and how others view us. Of course, everything depends on a good foundation and healthy self-esteem, and to be honest, I was so busy running away from myself that I wasn't much able to focus on anything but the trip. What people thought of me or how I affected them, it just didn't occur to me to wonder. I assumed I was expendable and forgettable, so therefore I needed to make people nonessential.

Of course I made good friends along the way, deep lifelong relationships, and ultimately managed to carve out a life for myself. But there were, as these two guys pointed out, casualties in my wake. People who genuinely thought they were having a relationship with me and who I just up and left, with no explanation. How could I do that? How does anyone do that? I know for myself it was, getting back to what I said earlier about self-esteem, all about not feeling I made an impact. I didn't matter.

Well, it's years later and I don't do that anymore. Perhaps it was having my son, someone who needed me, who grounded me. Perhaps it was caring about myself and those around me and not wanting to hurt them. Or maybe it was just the natural progression of life - you get older, people matter, life means more than something better around the corner.

This blog is nothing if it's not about learning, moving on, growing up and trying to be accountable. But growing up doesn't really have anything to do with age, as I'm learning. I have a friend who's 24 who seems more mature than some guys twice his age.

One in particular, and the one who brings me to the title of this post.

Remember the guy I blogged about a few weeks ago who convinced me to go out with him even when I tried to say no? The one I got on here and talked about his being the adult in the situation? You know, the 48-year-old skateboarder? Well, it turns out going against my instincts was not such a good thing. It turns out that "excited" feeling one gets in their stomach is actually a warning sign, a danger signal. But we know that, don't we?

We always do know better, but sometimes it takes behaving like our younger selves to find out that our experiences weren't for nothing.

And sometimes it takes someone else behaving like our younger selves as one last kick in the gut: Dude, U R 2 Old.

Rules are made to be broken...?

I just realized it's been nearly three weeks since I last posted. A lot has happened in these weeks, the main (huge) event being the death of my birth mother on November 20. I'm also realizing that the last post was about the death of my friend Ken. Wow. What a few weeks. What a year. What a decade. I am looking forward to 2010, despite the fact that I've never really used years as markers; rather it's been events that have imprinted themselves into my memory and surfaced to remind me of what happened when. There was the move to Miami, New York, L.A., the birth of my son, the move to Austin, the move back. Then of course many things in between - sometimes it was the guys I went out with who stamped a date into my head; I could remember the music I was listening to or the color of my hair. Recently, I met up with someone I'd been involved with and he was shocked to see my long hair - he'd only ever known me as a tomboy with a buzz cut, hopping from club to club in New York. But, we all must grow up...

...which leads me to this post. This confession, if you will. One I'm embarrassed to have to admit, and not because of what I did but because of the rigid rules I so publicly rant about. So here it is: I went out with a 48-year-old who used to be a pro skater and who - gasp - still skateboards. I went out with him despite my rules, despite my belief that yes, he's probably too old to be on that skateboard, because of all the things I mentioned way early on and do still believe (broken bones, family to be accountable to, etc.). I went out knowing who he was, what he did, and that I was being a complete hypocrite. I went out with him even knowing I'd have to come here, 'fess up, and take the heat.

On the phone with him one night, I said "I'm not a teenager!" and his response was, "That's right. You're not. Now grow up and come meet me...". As I took his words in, this person I'd offhandedly assumed was a man-child, discounted over a piece of wood and some wheels, it occurred to me he was, in fact, the adult in this situation.

Because really, it takes an adult to see past the outside to get to the cool stuff inside. In the end, rules are ever evolving - made to be broken.

At least that's what I'm telling myself.