JUST THINKING....

I got this girl pregnant once...yeah hell of a way to start a blog I know, but sh*t I'm just thinking out loud here. I was young, like a sophomore in college at home for spring break. The fact that I got a girl pregnant isn't what's important and or spectacular about this story. What is, is that she never told me. Not until about five years later when we happened to get together and hang out. No she didn't take me on Maury or anything, she didn't pop up at my door step with some child I had never seen before and tell me I was a father. Instead she told me that she didn't keep it. First reaction was how do I know if she's lying?...but I thought about that night....she wasn't. Besides, who makes up that kind of lie? Second reaction was why? She stated how I was in college and she didn't want to ruin my life. How she knew it was just a fling and even though we were serious in high school, she knew we had a lot of life to live and growing up to do. She was in school herself and had her own life and hopes and dreams that had to be considered. Third reaction, relief. But it's crazy, crazy how time can change the perspective of past situations. Back then I was so grateful that she made that decision. I felt like a dodged a huge bullet. But now, early 30's and no sign of ever committing to another person, I  almost feel upset. The mind wonders in these moments...what if she kept it? Damn, it'd be a person not an it. Would we have stayed together? What would my life have looked like? Different for sure, but at this point different might readily be welcomed. Could I have handled the situation and stepped up to be a man and provide? Be a man....a phrase that I think of often. She wasn't the only girl I had ever got pregnant, and being that I have no kids you can gather what the result of that was. I used to, hell I still do make fun of my older brother for having multiple baby mama's. He used to joke that I would be just like him if the girls had chose otherwise. Again, something I considered a blessing, that I was lucky. And again, a perspective that life and time forces you to think twice about. What if the reason they kept his kids was because they could actually imagine a family with him? That he was the type of man you could trust to be a good father and do the right thing? After all, he is a terrific Dad. But what does that say about me? Probably things I already know and if you read any of my blogs you probably gathered as well...that I am the complete opposite of that, unreliable, hardly trustworthy, and incapable of being an adult that can raise kids. Damn, is that what they see in me? Is that what they saw in me? The drunken spirit of a poor poet incapable of anything past momentary romance and fleeting intimacy. I don't know. But I do know that time does wonders on the mind, perceptions change, opinions alter, and realities are broken. I can't change what happened then, and what once was, but I was just thinking maybe....I mean....I was just thinking....

-David Anthony