The Summer of 1998

After graduating high school I moved to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho for the summer of 1998. That time of my life was filled with confusion and uncertainty about what I was doing with my life and what I thought I wanted.

Coeur d'Alene is beautiful. I walked everywhere while living there. There was this nifty second-hand store / coffee shop called Boondoggles that I used to hang out at. They would hold open mic nights and from time to time a band would come in to play for the evening.

I remember walking through a park bordering the lake and sitting on a picnic table with my then boyfriend and smoking a Camel Wide. I was 18. I was no longer under the thumb of my mother. I was an adult. I was confused as fuck.

I was in a relationship that was based on strange ideals and believed I was in love with a man I had originally met when I was 15.

I oft times wonder how my life story would have changed had I ventured down the road of possibilities which living in Coeur d'Alene offered. I didn't know then what was going on around me. I was in a relationship with a man that was polyamorous, but I didn't know that word existed much less what it meant. I also had the opportunity to smoke weed and passed it by, not knowing what I was passing up on.

I spent my days buying cross-stitching supplies, walking all over town, and reading at Boondoggles. I spent my evenings smoking on the front step of Boondoggles listening to music I'd never heard before pouring out the door. I spent my nights chatting online to long lost friends and pretending to be sexy.

I postponed my college to experience this. I left home on not so great terms to venture out into a world I didn't know much about.

I was confused as to how life worked. I was uneducated as to how I was supposed to go about creating a life of my own.

...A life of my own...

I am now 32. I am just now beginning to understand what it means to create a life of my own.