Love is a Mix Tape

My dad tells this story about my mom sometimes.

She was young, first married and first-time pregnant. My dad decided to be a dream and make his wife dinner; when things like that happen, it's usually a pretty fancy ordeal. So, my dad chose to make leg of lamb, among other things. And when the time came, my hormone-filled mom mourned the poor three-legged lamb in the meadow.

Suffice it to say she didn't eat it. Or at least, as far as I remember.

And because I can't sleep tonight, I keep thinking about this.

*****

My mom also used to tell us that certain things were "journal entries" in our lives. If something awesome happened or something once-in-a-lifetime happened, it was a journal entry. Or, at least a potential one. And as I'm re-reading my journals, I realize that I didn't take her up on that offer. Most of my super-important milestones have gone unrecorded. Sometimes that irks me, that I'll never quite remember what I was thinking on my wedding day or that fateful breakup the summer after my senior year.

The things that I did record, however, are still pretty cool. I know exactly what I was thinking during my first boy/girl dance in the 8th grade, I have each word recorded from my first request for a kiss. My first recurring nightmare is laid out in detail. And though I thought that I remembered all of these things, I realize that I don't have all the little details chalked in. The journal entries help fill in the flash.

So, Mom, I'll try to be better with the small things and even better with the big things.

There are many boys in my little journals, in hints; it's already pretty well-known. It's also something I've been thinking about. Mostly because Megan bought me the book Love Is a Mix Tape and I, of course, devoured it not even 24 hours after getting it. It's not a chick book, really, and it's not long. But, the whole point of it is that this guy remembers his wife who (spoiler alert!) has already died of a pulmonary embolism after 5 years of marriage through all the mix tapes they made for the 10 years they were together.

It has made me wonder if I could pour out a whole novel about my intense and lengthy affair with boys through words.

I mean, I wrote probably 5 pages of notes a day in middle school, right? And I kept all of my notes received in shoe boxes. Like, boxes under my bed. And of course, there's the introduction of AIM into my life. And email. And message boards. And blogs.

I could bang out 50,000 words easily about that. And probably make it halfway interesting. But, I want it to be a confessional. The point is that I want every past boy to be laid out, at his best, of course. I want it to be some final hurrah for those guys who need to be put to rest. And for those who are still alive for me, I need it to be this dedication of solidarity.

And I'm talking like this is going to happen.

******

And I'm going to try to sleep. It's just Christmas Eve Eve and I am already waiting for Santa.