The girl at church
Heather (not her real name) was one of those girls every teenage boy wants to be with.
She was smart, sexy, friendly, outgoing, cheerful, slightly sarcastic, and probably really easy.
Although, I was so shy and timid around her, I wouldn’t know. I couldn’t even find the courage to ask her on a date; not even after she sat on my lap and took the Nintendo remote out of my hand.
She was the kind of girl I could only dream about. We ran in the same circles in school — and I know what a lot of the girls in that circle were like. (They were hoes, plain and simple.) But I just couldn’t imagine Heather being that way.
I wanted to believe Heather was a good girl, despite what I knew about her, and what other guys were saying…
Maybe that’s because I first met her at church.
I’d just reached the age where I was far more interested in girls than in God, and Heather and I were in the same Sunday school class.
I’m not embarrassed to say I only went to church because I knew she would be there, and I could sit close to her every week and just… hide those thoughts I wasn’t supposed to be having.
She could’ve made me feel like I was the luckiest guy in the whole world… or so I told myself, back then. I was so awkward around her though, and I always had her up on this pedestal that I know she didn’t belong on…
I know she wasn’t a good church girl, but man, did I wanna believe she was!
I don’t know why I thought that was so important to me.
I liked Heather, and I wanted to be her boyfriend. Why couldn’t that have been all that mattered?
But it wasn’t. As much as I liked her, and as much as I wanted her… I couldn’t see myself in a relationship with a “dirty girl.” And the things Heather told me she’d done… this girl needed to repent… a lot.
I wanted her so badly though. I wanted to believe I could be happy with a girl like her… and that a girl like her could be into a guy like me… I doubt we ever could have given the other person what either of us truly wanted, though.
But good luck trying to tell that to fifteen-year-old me.
She wasn’t who I wanted her to be
If I close my eyes, I can remember exactly what she looks like. Tall, slender… stunning figure… perfect straight hair… engaging smile… eyes you can just get lost in… she was one of the sexiest girls in my high school… and just enough of a tomboy to make her the perfect girl next door.
I liked her from the first moment I met her. She was a fun person to be around, and whether she knew it or not, she always lit up the room.
I have no idea where she is now, or what she’s up to. Last I heard I think she was on her third marriage? But we haven’t talked in twenty years so… I really don’t know. Wherever she is, whoever she’s with, I do sincerely hope she’s found happiness.
I don’t think she had found it, taking her clothes off for strange men, the last time I ever saw her — but then, I don’t think once a girl starts taking her clothes off for money, that she’s really looking for happiness, anymore. I think at that point, she’s probably just looking to survive.
If she just would’ve been chaste, maybe I could’ve really wanted her. But she wasn’t, and I didn’t, so the best I could ever do was admire her from a distance.
War, Waikiki, and the champagne room
I was coming home from Operation Iraqi Freedom when we stopped for a few days in Pearl Harbor. I needed to get off the ship, get tore up, and just forget everything.
I’d made pretty good friends on the way home with a Marine, Frank (his real name… and he was an awesome friend, and I wish I knew how to get in touch with him today because he’d be cool to hang out with again).
Frank wanted to meet girls. I just wanted to get wasted.
Neither one of us was any good with girls at that point in our lives. I had been, in high school, but after breaking up with Carrie, and then having Catherine break our engagement because she was sleeping with my best friend Albert… I had some issues that I wasn’t working on… and that made it really hard for me to connect with a woman.
So me and Frank, we hit a couple of bars and nightclubs. Frank tried talking to girls on the beach in Waikiki. We started approaching random and obvious tourists in the International Marketplace, but all to no avail.
I vaguely remembered my chief had taken me to a strip club in Waikiki, on my first deployment back in 2001, and I told Frank we should go there. At least then, we could see some naked ladies before heading back to the hotel for the night.
Not five minutes inside the club, and one of the strippers approaches me and asks how I’m doing, and I’m like, “Fine.” And she stays there, standing right in front of me, looking me in the eyes, and says, “You don’t remember me? It’s Heather! From Colorado?”
And it’s like time stood still for a minute and let me catch up with what was unfolding right in front of me:
Heather, the girl of my dreams, the one I wanted all through high school but never had the courage to go for, was standing in front of me in a sexy schoolgirl costume, in a strip club in Waikiki…
Where she’d been dancing for I don’t know how long, but long enough that she was apparently perfectly comfortable standing in front of one of her best friends from high school, barely wearing anything at all, knowing that all the men in the club were staring at her body and thinking about all the horrible, dirty things they wanted to do to her…
And I realized I was one of those dirty men… and I would do anything to finally see her naked.
I was coming home from war, and I just wanted to forget everything. I wanted something that would make everything somehow make sense, and failing that, I wanted something that would at least take my mind off the atrocities I’d been part of.
Seeing Heather take her clothes off looked like a great way to take my mind off everything!
I didn’t care about right or wrong, or about how it would affect me later, or about how being a stripper must be affecting Heather. I just wanted to see her naked.
The girl of my dreams… for only $400
I’d dreamed of seeing her body since I was fifteen, and now I had my chance!
I couldn’t wait for her to get up on stage, so I could shower her with dollar bills and watch as she slowly undressed and showed me all the ways God had blessed her… but then, she told me for $400 we could go into the champagne room, and she would undress just for me… and we would have an entire hour together, for me to watch her.
I couldn’t find the ATM fast enough.
I’m not gonna tell you all the things that went through my mind in that champagne room. But I will tell you I thought I was in paradise.
I know I shouldn’t have seen her naked. Especially not under those circumstances. And yet, I was twenty-six, and on my way home from war. And Frank and I had been drinking all night.
And I’d had a crush on her for over ten years.
I told her I was on my way home, and about to process out of the Navy, and she told me she was planning on going home to see her mom around the time I was getting out. She gave me her phone number, and I called her a couple times from the ship.
And man… I tried to tell her how much I wanted her… but I just couldn’t do it.
I thought for sure we were gonna hook up though, once I got out of the Navy… and I started dreaming about finally falling in love with her… and about the two of us building a life together…
I didn’t think about the fact that she was a stripper, and what that would have to say about her mental-emotional state, or how it would affect any kind of relationship, if we did end up together.
I just thought about how much I wanted her… and how long I’d been crushing on her… and I pinned all my hopes on somehow convincing her to be mine.
All the times I almost told her
She never called me though.
And I was so hurt, I never called her again, either.
I told myself she had lied to me, that she didn’t want me at all, didn’t care one way or the other, and that she’d legitimately taken advantage of my feelings for her, just to score a quick $400.
Did you know she was the one girl from my teens I probably liked more than I liked Carrie? I mean obviously I love Carrie more, now, since she’s the one I did end up dating through high school, and she was and always will be my first true love.
But man if I could’ve been with Heather!
She moved out of Colorado though, around the time me and Carrie started dating, and I didn’t see or hear from her until a couple years later, when she randomly came to spend the summer at her dad’s house, literally across the park from me.
I went to see her, hoping to get with her, even though I was dating Catherine at the time. But as much as I wanted Heather — and as tired as I was of fighting all the time with Catherine — I was still with Catherine, and I couldn’t live with myself if I cheated. I sure thought about it, though. I’m not gonna lie about that.
Later, when me and Catherine were falling apart, I flew out to Washington state to see Heather on her 21st birthday. Again, I wanted to get with her, and again, I did nothing to try and make that happen.
When me and Catherine were finally over, I moved to Seattle for a couple of months, and Heather and I talked about moving in together — as friends, as far as she knew — and I dreamed every night about falling in love with her…
But it never happened.
I couldn’t make things work for me, in Seattle… and if I’m totally honest I’m not sure Heather really wanted to move in together, or if she just had some kind of fantasy of her own, about how fun it would be to live with her friend, and get out of her mom’s house… I don’t honestly know.
I do remember calling her, after I’d been at my aunt’s for maybe two months… and in all that time Heather and I had seen each other maybe three times… and I figured it was never gonna happen so I told her I was going back to Colorado, and I was gonna join the Navy… and that was the last time I ever talked to her until I met her in the club in Waikiki.
What I wish I’d told her
I honestly thought that night in the strip club was fate, bringing us back together.
I was so disappointed when she didn’t call me from her mom’s house. I buried all these memories… all these feelings… and it’s been so long now, I really thought it was all behind me.
But I guess there are still lessons in all of this for me to learn. I don’t think I’m ever gonna forget Heather, anyway — even if we hadn’t run into each other in Waikiki, she was still a great friend. Still someone I don’t ever want to forget.
But I think it’s time for me to finally be real about all my feelings… especially the forbidden ones…
I enjoyed watching Heather take her clothes off. I know it was so wrong, on so many levels… and I know as a Christian, I should be telling everyone I made a horrible mistake.
We never should’ve been in that champagne room, and I should’ve just left, and prayed for her, and if I was anything like Joseph, I would’ve fled the scene and left all that wickedness in my rearview mirror.
But the truth is I was a confused, lonely, messed up kid, that grew into a confused, lonely, messed up Sailor on liberty.
And I would’ve taken any opportunity to see her naked, anyway.
But if I could change one thing about my entire history with Heather…
I would’ve told her the truth.
I would’ve told her how I feel about her… and I would’ve just taken my chances, and let her say yay, or nay.
I would’ve told her how I couldn’t understand why she kept giving it away… and how I thought she was so much better than the stories people were telling about her.
Maybe that wouldn’t have changed anything… maybe we still never would’ve hooked up… and maybe today I’d still be sitting here, alone, reminiscing over what might’ve been.
I wish I could’ve loved her, though, and maybe that love would’ve been enough to change the direction of her life.
But in the end, it’s her life. Everything she ever did, was her choice. And while I may never understand those choices… I’m finally learning to respect that it was her right to choose the life she wanted.
Maybe I can’t go back, and do things differently. But maybe, if I can finally tell the truth about who I was back then… maybe I can start telling the truth about who I am now.
Maybe what I’m supposed to learn from all this is not that I wish I could’ve had Heather, but that I really need to learn how to love the right kind of girl… in the right kind of way…
So that maybe, the woman I fall in love with next… will be someone who can fall in love with me, in return.
The pain of wanting what you never really had
This one’s for the ache that lingers — not from what ended, but from what never fully began.
It’s for the almosts. The what-ifs. The versions of love that lived mostly in your imagination… but still left real wounds behind.
Use this when you’re ready to let go — not just of a person, but of the story you wrapped around them.
1. Name the dream.
What did you believe this person could offer you?
What need or longing did they seem to answer — even if only in your mind?
2. Tell the truth about what was real.
When you remove the fantasy, what was actually there?
What did they show you, say to you, or give to you… and what did they never really offer?
3. Grieve the gap.
There’s a space between what you hoped for and what you got.
Let yourself feel that — without shame.
That’s where the real pain lives.
4. Honor the part of you that kept hoping.
You weren’t weak for wanting more.
You were trying to believe in something good.
What does that say about your capacity to love?
Self-Reflection: What were you really holding onto?
1. What made this person feel different from the rest?
Was it timing, chemistry, circumstance — or something harder to explain?
2. What version of yourself did you imagine in their presence?
Did you feel more wanted? More powerful? More alive?
What part of you felt awakened — even if it wasn’t safe or real?
3. When you think of them now, what emotion rises first?
Is it longing? Regret? Shame? Resentment? Something else?
Follow that thread. Where does it want to take you?
4. What didn’t you let yourself say — then or now?
What truths have stayed locked inside your chest, unspoken?
5. If you could give closure to your younger self, what would you say?
Not to fix it. Just to acknowledge what you carried — and how hard it was to let it go.
Final reflection:
Today, I’m ready to release the version of love I imagined — so I can make room for the love that’s real.
Final thought
Maybe this was never really about Heather.
Maybe it was about a younger version of me — the one who wanted to be wanted, but didn’t believe he was worth choosing.
The truth is, I didn’t lose her because I messed it up. I lost her because I never had the courage to say what I really felt.
And maybe that’s the regret I’ve been carrying ever since — not that she walked away, but that I stayed silent.
But silence doesn’t have to be the end of the story.
Because now… I am learning to speak. I am learning to tell the truth — about who I was, what I wanted, and why it mattered so much.
And maybe that’s how healing begins.
Not with getting back what you lost — but with finally giving voice to the part of you that never got to say goodbye.