30 Days Of Thanks:April (First Girlfriend)

Dear April,

            You were the first person to take a chance and date me. We had just graduated high school and I had neither a job nor a driver’s license. I wasn’t accepted into the sole University that I had applied. I was preparing to go to a community college while staying at home with my parents. Who know why things didn’t work out with us as a long distance couple as you went to the University of Nebraska?

            One thing that I learned from was that you shouldn’t give up even if people say no the first time. Another thing that I learned was that it is hard to get ahead in life when you are lazy and unmotivated. In all honesty, when I think about our time dating, it is hard to differentiate between when we were just hanging out, except that I could say I had a girlfriend.

            I think about us having game nights. This was just the first of many game nights in my adult life. I remember how we would alternate between playing b.s. and hearts. Then Pictionary. Then Balderdash, if we had enough people. We were that group of kids that were “good kids”. We didn’t really do anything too bad, maybe a bit of mischief. We had earned our parents’ trust so we could sneak out in the middle of the night and T.P. a house that one of our friends lived in. Or two. Or three. Or an entire night of pre-planned T.P.ing accompanied with ransom letters so that we could frame somebody else. I remember sitting down and coming up with a list of people to get and then a secondary list of people that they would suspect. I remember going to Wal-Mart and loading up an entire cart full of toilet paper. The cashier smiled and winked at us as if we were pretending that we were using it for anything else.

            The other day, we passed by a Hooters and it reminded me of the time that you and Beth “kidnapped” Josh and me and made us sit in the back seat and cover our eyes. The big reveal was a Hooters restaurant. Then Josh and I took you guys to a porn shop that we were too scared to go inside.

            I remember thinking at the time that I was scared of all of my friends moving on and going to other colleges without me. I was afraid that I was going to lose all of my friends. As it turn out, that’s the way life works. You can’t keep contact with everybody. This has been my attempt to get some of that back. The internet is an amazing thing. I’ve enjoyed reading the updates on your daughter and I hope that life is treating you well.

Adam