Innocence lost

We watched the Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino today. It was quintessential Clint - brilliant, absolutely effing brilliant. Clint is one helluva badass and I just love him. D has a tattoo of him on his back, he is his hero.

I don't want to give too much of the movie away so all I will say is that there is a Gran Torino car in the movie (not a huge surprise-right?) which led to significant flashbacks of the very first boyfriend I ever had who drove a Gran Torino. Ironically, memories of this boyfriend led me to memories of a time when I was a completely different person. Unsure of what the future will hold and scared to death that I would get accidentally pregnant and pretty much in that order - even though I was on the pill.

I had just graduated High school, most of my friends went to 4 -year reputable colleges and I was doing time at the local community college. At that time I enrolled, I was certain that I would drop out in a matter of days, not meet any friends, just be completely miserable, wonder the streets of our city aimlessly until I figured what I would want to be when I grew up. I joined the S.E.A. club - the sea and environmental awareness club on campus and meet two of the worlds coolest people that I still happen to be friends with in addition to the first man that would break my heart. This club proved to be a great social outlet - friends, a boyfriend and gatherings such as beach clean-ups that also counted towards extra credit in my science class. Win-win - all the way.

I struggled my first semester and often skipped classes to spend time with the heart breaker. He was from the East coast, the New York area and had this thick accent - I loved it, I loved him. We would go speeding off in his blue Gran Torino, when I was supposed to have my nose in the books and head to his house - where we gave into our raging hormones. He was a few years older and *experienced* and I was naive, very naive and thought it would be just my luck that I would get PG while taking the pill. Little did I know I would grow up to be an infertile. As I type this I have to chuckle about my mindset of that time and laugh at the irony of the situation.

There were some really turbulent and horribly sucky times which I won't recount here, not the time or place but watching that movie brought back so many good memories of driving in this fast car and the innocence we shared. Wind blowing in our hair, Van Halen blaring from the speakers and not a care in the world.

Ahh, youth.