Holly,

I guess that I can identify with some of your feelings. Like Janine, I do not like the military, but some of my reasons are different than the reasons she gives. As much as I would like to believe that there will be a time when our military will no longer be necessary, my skeptical side does not believe that this will ever come to pass. Besides, my dislike of the military stems from my involvement with several military men.

To make you feel better, since Steve and I split up, I have been spending a large amount of time with the following friends: Rob, Larry, Crystal and Matt. Now the interesting thing is that for the first time in a long while, some of my friends are the same age as I am. Rob is 8 months younger than me, and Larry is 1 year older than I am.

Anyway, to make a long story short, Crystal is 19 and has that look of innocence that drives men wild. (She's also a pretty devout Catholic.) After losing 2 men in 3 months, Crystal, without realizing it, was causing serious damage to my ego.

One night we all got together and Crystal decided that she wanted to play truth. Remember those days?!? Well we decided to humor her.

Anyways, the end result was that Yumi began to feel like a slut... (after all I did live with a man for awhile and I'm Buddhist and my views on sin differ from hers). Well I began to hate being around her, even though she was not really judging me and the guys couldn't figure out why I was feeling the way I was. After all, their lives are much more colorful than mine ever was or ever will be.

The funny thing is that when I am with my friends without Crystal, I feel like a prude. Still, I'm frustrated, because although I don't regret anything I've done in the past, I don't understand why I can still feel like such a slut. I guess the answer can be found depending on perspective.