Gotta wash that man right out of my...

Ok, so this thought came to mind this evening, "I don't trust men." Whoa! What the? Girl, what's going on?

I'm married for pete's sake! I love my husband, I love my dad, God is my Father, and I have male friends who I sincerely care about, so how can I have issues with men!

Actually it's pretty easy for me to answer that question. I felt the brunt of being "just a girl" at a very young age; on the playground. I wanted to play sports and I was picked last, not because I was slow or weak or whatever, just because I was something called "a girl." I mean really, at 5 and 6 years old, is there a huge difference? I was faster than most of the boys and I was happy to knock as many of them down as possible. And you know something else? When you are a girl in grade school and you get in trouble for fighting on the playground, the principle gives you lines full of how "nice little girls" should behave. (Excuse me I forgot it was wear pink and carry my Barbie doll around day.) OK, so that crap that every other tom-boy had to deal with is obvious. Later, I was burned a bit, by being a late bloomer. I loved not having to deal with the "blooming" drama that I watched my classmates and teammates going through, but I hated the fact that the guys didn't really notice me as a girl. During this time there was also fear. Fear of losing my spot on the track team, because our coach, he would always tell us how much it would slow us down when we started to "develop."

Ok, so when the development part happened, I caught up almost overnite what I had lacked for years. I hated it. It was bad enough that my clothes just weren't working out for me anymore, and I had to wear these hellish contraptions, but all the guys noticed and didn't even try to be suave about it. "Nice tits." (But if I throw him on the ground and kick his ass, I'll be suspended.) So basically the attention I was getting from guys was overtly sexual, unwelcome, and unrelenting.

Finally, I got to college, where all of the growing up drama was behind everyone. Yeah! Time to move on as a normal person. Although I still had a lot of vengeful anger to get rid of. I learned very quickly in my freshman year, that college boys are easy. It was easy to get phone calls, easy to get free meals, easy to get free entertainment, easy to get their attention, easy to pick 'em up, and easy to drop 'em. It became a little game..."who is the biggest challenge to date?" I dated a guy for a bit and then dated his roommate, dated a divorced guy in graduate school, then dated 2 of his fraternity brothers, went on 4 dates in one day (lunch, putt-putt and coffee, dinner and movie, and then bar hopping), went on a date with one guy, met one of his professors that night, and then went out with the prof the next weekend.

So I was mistreated by 'em, didn't trust 'em, then I used 'em and probably wasn't honest with 'em...ironic. No wonder I have trust issues. Now, I'm unpacking all the untrusting and dishonest baggage that I collected and trying to start anew, clean and Downy Mountain Air fresh. Thanks God for laundry days.