Thank Yous

I'm on a heater so here comes another thought that I just feel like sharing with you all.  So when I signed my contract I sent many thank yous to people who I felt impacted my life from a volleyball standpoint.  I believe in thanking people and can think of all kinds of times in our lives to do so. For example, right now I will say thank you to all of you for being some of my closest friends throughout college and now afterwards.  You will always be important parts of my life and I am so very thankful for that.  But today after joking with Jane about "medium serious" I was of course reminded of Jenna whom was the instigation of that now somewhat notorious phrase.  For some reason, in that moment it just hit me square in the face that there is most definitely one important moment in most people's lives where they wouldn't thank the building blocks upon which that moment was founded, getting married.  You get a job and you can thank your professors or references or maybe even ex employer if they gave you the tools to move up.  You succeed in sports and you thank coaches, trainers and teammates.  You succeed at anything and you can thank parents or God if you so choose.  But when you get married you would never thank your ex girlfriends (or boyfriends) or old hookups for getting you to that point.  With that in mind, here is my hypothetical thank you letter to some ex girlfriends and hookups were I getting married tomorrow.  Maybe it isn't exactly how I would word it if I were sending it to them, but close enough.

Dear Sammie (first girlfriend),

Thanks for kissing me.  I was definitely too much of a bitch to do it.  With you I learned about French kissing, a staple in life, and I can't thank you enough for dating me for that one month and showing me that there might actually be girls in the world with sexual interest in myself.  I hope your marriage (not made up; she is actually married) is going well and I don't know if it is good or bad that I was the boyfriend before you dated the guy you are married to but at least it is a fun fact.

ps: Those Ray J songs you showed me are awesome and I still listen to them.  I have definitely hooked up to those songs with many girls since.  Thanks again.

Dear Hannah,

Thanks for being the first girl older than me that I made out with.

ps: You should have let me take your bra off.  You could have been my first.  Sucks to suck.  Hope all is well.

Dear Yulia,

Thanks for being the first girl I really dated.  We made it 5 months senior year of high school and that was a big stepping stone for me.  Also, I am glad I learned about 2nd and 3rd base with you cause in the end it was less than medium serious for me and so I am glad that I got all those awkward moments out of the way with someone I didn't really care about.  It was neat that you liked me but I quickly learned that there are more qualifications than that.  In conclusion, thanks for giving me the worst blow jobs I have ever received.  Every one since has seemed much better as a result I am sure.  Hope you enjoyed my horrible fingering and horrible attempts at oral.  Guess it sucks for you that I didn't read more Cosmo articles in high school.

Dear Rachel,

Thank you for being the division between the time in my life where I was a joke of a person and the time where I feel relatively solid about myself.  Unfortunately you fall on the former side of the line but I learned many things about myself from our dating.  I do want to apologize for the Janna incident because I do still feel really bad about that....fuck I don't feel as bad about it is I should, but theoretically I am very opposed to what I did.  Hope the Taylor Swift concert tickets were some sort of consolation.  I hate Taylor Swift..also I hate Arrested Development but I watched it with you anyway. Finally, I will never get freshmen year back and wish like hell that I could but the time we spent together and not together was a valuable learning experience as I said.  Thanks for showing me that getting along well is also not a good enough requirement for dating someone.

ps: Having sex would have been cool.  Then again words like vanilla, boring, awkward, missionary, unsatisfying, and disappointing would be more accurate adjectives than cool for what that would have been like.  Anyway, glad we broke up before we did cause then our break up would have been worse.  Is that possible?

Dear Janna,

Thank you for being my first.  We should have sex again now that you are not my first.  Oh shit I am getting married tomorrow.  I'll call you when I am 42 and in a mid life crisis.

ps: You have the best lips ever.  How far is Luxembourg from Madrid?

Dear AC,

Thanks for being my only Mormon and giving me one of my best college stories.  Also, thanks for showing me that date rape of a male by a female is definitely possible and scarily totally ok with said male.

Dear Jenna,

Thanks for being a cool girlfriend and probably my favorite one to date.  Sorry I was just medium serious but I had fun while it lasted.  Thanks for teaching me that unexpected blood on your face from a girl you are first hooking up with is in the moment somewhat traumatizing but eventually hilarious to recall.

ps: Tracy Spetka, Colleen O'brien, and "Drink If..." are 3 of my least favorite things in the entire world.  Medium serious may be a product of "you are what you eat" or in this case "you are who you pregame with"

Dear Steph,

Thanks for not dating me.  Not even sure why we hung out as much as we did.  Oh wait ya I do, thanks for winning me my bet with Andrea that I would hook up with someone from the hot blocking group.  I win. (Dre where are my fucking Coronas)

Dear Kristi,

So from the beginning I said I didn't seem myself staying together after college.  You said it was cool.  Then late in the year that apparently changed.  The last couple weeks of school weren't ideal with us breaking up and shit being awkward at events etc.  However, in all honesty thanks for being cool enough to meet up on the final day and say we should actually try and stay friends.  More so, thanks for actually following through on that as we have stayed in touch at least up to this point (we actually Google Hungout one night a couple weeks  ago; true story).  Thanks for showing me that in the right situation a break up can be rational and reasonable and lead to some level of friendship.  Some others on this list had originally convinced me that was impossible.

ps: Your mom is a little crazy...but hey at least she isn't Craig Brown (Rachel's dad)

Dear Madeleine,

This is just a hypothetical letter so I won't be getting married tomorrow.  I will however be at Harvard in early April and I heard you haven't annoyed Chloe in awhile.  I think we know what that means.

Dear Self,

Stop being a pussy and go get some action in Luxembourg.  Seriously.  Your left hand is developing early onset arthritis.