Ashlyn--Temporary Insanity or “too much of a good thing”

Sorry for being away for so long, the last month has been a blur. I’m pleading temporary insanity as I let lots of things slip in the last month—not just this blog.

When I was a little kid—before my parents were killed in an automobile accident—my mother made homemade apple pie. It was my favorite, especially if it was still warm with ice cream. I still remember how the house smelled when she was baking. It still makes me smile to this day. I loved my mom’s apple pie so much that one day I got greedy for it. I wasn’t satisfied with just the slice I was going to get after dinner; I wanted more. In fact I wanted all the pie—I decided that when my mother put the pie out to cool, I was going to take it. I wasn’t an overly bad behaving child; sure I got my share of groundings—but for some reason I obsessed on my Mom’s apple pie, and I didn’t care what the consequences were going to be when I stole it. I had to have that pie and I didn’t want to share it.

So when my Mom left the kitchen, leaving her carefully prepared dessert on the kitchen counter to cool—I stole it and ran to some woods behind our house. Fork in one hand, pie in the other. I knew I was going to get caught. I was the only other person in the house at the time—but I didn’t care. All I wanted was to dig into that apple pie goodness.

I ate the whole thing. I was like a one man pie eating contest; greedily eating as fast as I could.
30 minutes later I was paying for my crimes. I had eaten far too much too quickly and my stomach was making me suffer for it. Worse, my mother—a normally patient and loving woman—had zero sympathy for me. She called me a “little thief” and said to me as I puked my guts out “too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.”

I was grounded for a while, but worse, my mom didn’t make apple pie for a long time after that.

Fast forward through my life and you will find that every so often I will obsess on something to the exclusion of everything. I can’t help myself. It was Lucy Crabtree in the seventh grade. She was a cheerleader and beautiful. I flunked algebra because she was in the same class and I had a difficult time concentrating. A few years later it was a car. For months I killed myself with an after school job trying to save up for a 66 mustang that needed a lot of repair. In college it was another girl—all my grades took a sudden fall. One of my professors took me aside and asked me if I was having personal problems. I think he suspected I might have gotten into drugs. I told him no, but deep down I knew I had a problem.

Which leads me to a month ago. A month ago Matt told me he loved me. I didn’t realize it at that moment, but he let the crazy, obsessive part of me out of the bottle. For the last month I couldn’t get enough of Matt. At first it was great—being in love makes even the most boring things fun. And the sex… the sex was mind blowing. But it’s too hard to maintain that kind of intensity in a relationship for very long. Sooner or later real life makes an appearance.

I’ve got lots to share—a month’s worth of catching up—too much to do all at once. Besides I got to get ready for work. Tonight is a World Series game, plus all the girls at headlights are wearing Halloween costumes—it’s going to be a busy night. I just wanted to drop a little note on the blog and let everyone know that I seem to be back from cloud nine.

More Later!

Ashlyn

PS—Art, please call me. I’m so sorry for the things I said to you on the phone. I’ve been out of my head for the past few weeks. I really miss talking to my friend.