Thoughts from a bar...

There's this bar in central tx. I try to keep it a secret, but I do feel compelled to share it with some. It's in a gas station between nacogdoches and austin. I have thought it was a strange place for years, and I always like to stop when I am making the drive at night. I have often fantasizes about how many people must have been just as surprised as I was to find this place by accident.

I just returned from an extended weekend in the atx and on the way back I stopped. I have almost never stopped during the day, and for this surprise visit, I was treated with a new surprise. Instead of the usual smoky cowboy crowd, the place was filled with a church crowd spending quality time before they went to their services. They looked so wholesome that I couldn't smell the familiar scent of stale smoke and spoiled beer.

Almost as strange as the bar itself, is the circumstance under which I found it. It was the summer before my freshman year in college, and I had just had my heart broken for the first time. I had visited austin for the first time, with the guy who stole the girl along for the ride.

I couldn't stop thinking about her. I cut the trip short by one night and hauled ass to east texas to win her back... successfully, I might add only to feel the pull towards other women between the first and second semester of college.

My point, yes there is a point, is that our perspective changes over time, and that I'm very glad that it does. I am now good friends with the girl in question, and I no longer feel the need to drive at ridiculous speeds just to make it to her parents house before she goes to bed. As I have matured (yes, even the little steps count!), I have tried to focus more on the moment. That crazy OMG! I can't live without her has lessened. Now, more than ever before, I am able to enjoy the company of one woman, and not think about what else is out there. I no longer worry if there is someone hotter or more fun.

Just recently, I have been lucky enough to go out with the coolest woman I have ever met. There is no what if, or if only... I would still be attracted to her if she had dreadlocks (I'm actually kinda excited at the possibility), and even when I think that there is one thing I might like to change, I am reminded that I am attracted to her just the way she is, and if she was different, I don't know what I would feel.