{"id":2669,"date":"2013-11-24T06:15:33","date_gmt":"2013-11-24T14:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=2669"},"modified":"2013-11-23T21:57:11","modified_gmt":"2013-11-24T05:57:11","slug":"looking-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=2669","title":{"rendered":"What’s behind me is not important"},"content":{"rendered":"

But I must confess
\nI’ve got no regrets
\nI never gave it up or away
\nAnd everytime I was done
\nI knew I’d look back and laugh
\nOne day
\n–Storm Large\/Twisted Jimmy<\/p>\n

Yeah, right
\n–Everclear\/Now That It’s Over<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There have already been a few posts regarding how I feel about the past. I alternate between laughter and rueful smiles for the most part. There’s occasional crying and stamping my feet, but I’ve already covered crying<\/a> pretty extensively in previous posts.<\/p>\n

Regrets<\/a> have also been covered. I do have a few. Not really stuff I’ve done or not done. Stuff I’ve said, or, mostly, not said.<\/p>\n

Unlike the song, I gave it away. I gave it away kind of a lot. I don’t regret it, although there was ultimately a lot of negativity around it. Mostly in my own head, but isn’t that the worst kind? Most of the time it was fun, in a bad for me kind of way. I’m an inherently monogamous person, though, so it was one of those things that I went through that was a bit out of character. Of course, to be monogamous you have to have a partner. So I suppose anything I did in between relationships just doesn’t count. <\/p>\n

I don’t laugh about it.
\nMuch.
\nWell, there are a few times I have to laugh about.<\/p>\n

The time I dumped a gin and tonic on a guy’s head because he thought I should get up and answer his<\/em> door in the middle of the night. Uh, no. He told me not to come around anymore, but his friends and family liked me. They made sure I continued to be invited to all of the parties and nights out. I stayed around and enjoyed his fury every time we all went dancing. <\/p>\n

Another time I kicked a guy out of my car in the middle of nowhere because he made fun of my hair. I found one of his shoes in the car the next day. Oops. I hope someone stopped to give him a ride. It’s not like I had a way to track him down and give him back his shoe. I don’t even know where I got him in the first place, or why we were driving to Shotgun in the middle of the night. Other than because we were 19. <\/p>\n

Or the guy to whom I said “you are not getting anywhere near me with that.” Really.
\nUnlike Madeline Khan, I did not immediately burst into “oh, sweet mystery of life.”
\nI eventually relented though.<\/p>\n

I wonder if they look back and laugh about it now too. Assuming that the guy I dumped in the middle of the road didn’t get abducted by hillbillies or something, maybe he thinks it’s funny now if he remembers. <\/p>\n

I wonder, if I was ever single again, if my opportunities for sluttiness would be drastically reduced to to increased age and decreased hotness? <\/p>\n

And now I am laughing because spell-check wanted to correct sluttiness, but when I clicked on it, it said “no replacement found.”
\nNo, there really is no replacement for sluttiness. It’s true. <\/p>\n

Thank you, spell-check, for clearing that up for us all. <\/p>\n

Aside:
\nOrdinarily on a Sunday I would have something to say about the football game on Saturday. Let’s agree not to discuss it, shall we?<\/p>\n

It can be just one more thing that’s behind me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But I must confess I’ve got no regrets I never gave it up or away And everytime I was done I knew I’d look back and laugh One day –Storm Large\/Twisted Jimmy Yeah, right –Everclear\/Now That It’s Over There have already been a few posts regarding how I feel about the past. I alternate between … Continue reading What’s behind me is not important<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-H3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4718,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=4718","url_meta":{"origin":2669,"position":0},"title":"Talking to myself in the middle of the night","author":"Michelle","date":"March 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Wake up in the middle of the night crying. Not sure why. Maybe a bad dream. What actually woke me up is tears dripping. Sort of a disconcerting way to wake up. Physical symptoms of distress, but no clue as to what the distress is about. Try to comfort myself.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1598,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=1598","url_meta":{"origin":2669,"position":1},"title":"mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa #5","author":"Michelle","date":"October 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Everyone probably has someone they wish they could apologize to about...something. I like to think that I've been a pretty kind person overall, but I know I've had my moments of awfulness. I might be smarter than a lot of people, and funnier than a lot of people, but I'm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4141,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=4141","url_meta":{"origin":2669,"position":2},"title":"You’ve got to give up some things","author":"Michelle","date":"February 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"There I was, just like every morning, standing in front of the bathroom mirror putting on my black eyeliner. Pretty eyes are my armor, my superstitious belief is that black eye liner will protect me from harm. I've been harmed, sometimes badly, on multiple occasions, so I'm not sure my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1553,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=1553","url_meta":{"origin":2669,"position":3},"title":"mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa #1","author":"Michelle","date":"September 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Everyone probably has someone they wish they could apologize to about...something. I like to think that I've been a pretty kind person overall, but I know I've had my moments of awfulness. I might be smarter than a lot of people, and funnier than a lot of people, but I'm\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11309,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=11309","url_meta":{"origin":2669,"position":4},"title":"An imaginary conversation about bubbles","author":"Michelle","date":"March 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"It is really hard to take a picture of a hand holding a bubble wand sticking out of a car window on the freeway. I suppose it...wait, a what now? A hand. Holding a bubble wand. Going down the freeway. Yeah. Blowing bubbles. Uh. Bubbles? Out of the passenger window\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Imaginary Conversation"","block_context":{"text":"Imaginary Conversation","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=18"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2483,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=2483","url_meta":{"origin":2669,"position":5},"title":"Giving me a pink slip","author":"Michelle","date":"November 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Consider this, the hint of the century Consider this, the slip That brought me to my knees, failed What if all these fantasies come Flailing around Now I've said too much --REM\/Losing My Religion Where you going...? Where's everybody going...? Rose\/The Rose When a relationship with someone ends, it doesn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}