It's cold beyond the sun, have you ever been there...

"How old were you when you lost you virginity?"

I stopped washing the dishes I had been washing and turned to look at the co-worker who had asked me the question. I raised and eyebrow and asked her why she wanted to know.

"I'm curious. Plus, I have another question too."

I shrugged and told her how old I was the first time I had intercourse. She looked at me puzzled for a moment, then nodded to herself. I asked her how old she had been when she lost hers. She looked uneasy for a moment and then told me how old she had been. She had been 17. I had been younger.

"Do you regret losing it so young? Do you ever wish you would have waited until you were maybe 18 or 19? Or older than that?"

"No," I replied. I looked at her a moment and then asked, "Do you regret losing yours at 17? Do you wish you would have waited?"

She paused a moment and I went back to washing the clear container that had held cut limes a few minutes prior.

"I do. I regret it. Why don't you regret it?"

"I think different people do it for different reasons. I think the reason you're doing it leads to if you regret it later on in life. I wasn't looking for attention, affection, acceptance, validation or love when I decided to have sex for the first time. I wasn't looking for anything deeper than the physical. I didn't have any emotional want or need. I just wanted to know how it felt."

Her cheeks flushed a little, embarrassed I think by how honest I had been. Hey, she asked. =)

She had to run off to take care of an order for a customer. She came back and I was off to something else. Filling up syrups in the bottles and cleaning the sticky syrupy mess off of some of them. She stood by me a few seconds and didn't say anything.

"Did you want to ask or say something else or no?" I asked.

"Well... uh yeah. I think what you said makes sense. Like, I regret it because the first time I did it, I thought it was because he would love me if I did. And I thought it would make me more of a grown up too. You know, like... like I needed to do that because it was what would make him care about me more and fall for me. And like... well adults have sex and it seems totally adult-ish to do so yeah. I did it to be loved and because I thought it made me more grown up. I didn't do it just for fun and I didn't do it with someone who actually cared about me. I wish I would have waited you know? I wish I could take that back but I can't so it sucks."

"Well, look at it a different way. What can you learn from the experience?"

She shrugged. " I dunno, never thought about it."

I contemplated it quickly and thought about what to say. "Well, you did it for reasons that you think are the wrong ones right? So you regret sleeping with him because of those reasons right?"

"Yeah! Like you know... I didn't really even want to but yeah. I did it anyway because of those reasons."

"So learn from that. Don't ever sleep with someone else again just because you think it will make you feel more like an adult. Or because you think it will make him love you. Or because you think you'll feel better about yourself."

"Oh I see. Hey, that's good advice. I only do it with Curly now because like you know... we both want to and we like each other and yeah... it feels good." She giggled at that last part and her cheeks flushed again.

I just nodded and she fluttered away for a little while. This co-worker of mine is a few years younger than I am. She's always coming to me asking me questions like that. Asking me for advice or asking me about things she's yet to experience. Asking me about new experiences she has and wanting to know if I've had them or anything similar like them. It's kind of weird but it doesn't bother me. I think it's kind of cool.

Happy Thursday y'all!!!!!