Lillie

Wow...I read over my old posts this evening and I'd hoped things would change. Unfortunately, I'm 29 now and in the past three years, I've grown up a bit, but my current love life looks incredibly similar to my love life at age 26. As I lie here in my bed, with my cat (who is staring at me and purring loudly), I wonder if this will be my life when I'm 35...or 45. It's a tad scary, but I think it's safe this way for now. I spent most of my twenties mulling over men, when all the while, I really needed to fall in love with Christ all over again.

It is kind of amazing to reflect on my life up to this point. There have been men; some good, some bad, but all my own developments. I think most people look back to their childhoods to identify issues that they have in their adult lives. It's valid, I'm sure. I can look back at my life and blame my dad for not being around when I needed him there. I could blame my mom for never marrying. I could blame both of my parents for not demonstrating to me what a healthy, loving relationship between a man and a woman looks like. On the contrary, though, I don't blame my parents at all. I'm grateful for having had food on the table, for seeing a woman take care of herself and her own responsibilities first. I'm grateful that my mom didn't parade men through our house and I didn't have to worry about being violated by a devil-spawn with heinous intentions and warped ideals about little girls. I could tell my mom everything. I told her when I lost my virginity, when I got pregnant, about my first kiss. She wasn't the advisory-type mom, though. She would never tell me what to do in situations, but she always had good guidance and personal experiences to share. 

I've always been baffled my dad's decision to leave my mother. She was the definition of beauty: a tall, sepia-toned, poised Amazon with the heart of a goddess and the soul of an angel. She was a true social butterfly. She had the sort of human magnetism that I've always dreamed of having. People were drawn to her like bears and honey. When we were younger, our family was probably the lowest on the socioeconomic totem of all of our friends. We moved 15 times from the time I was 3 years old until I graduated from undergrad. Through all of the moving and turned off utilities, our childhood friends still preferred to be at our home more than their own. I didn't understand this for years, until I realized that my mother provided a type of stability that didn't come from her wallet. We knew that we were loved unconditionally. I don't know what the other kids' families were like, but I can only assume that they were missing something vital in order to want to stay at our house, where the gas and hot water was occasionally off. At her memorial service, over 300 people came, most of whom I'd never met in my life. They were young and old acquaintances, friends of friends, and family. It brought tears to my eyes to see all the people who came just to honor my humble mother.

November to February: The Winter of Fast Cars and Phone Calls

A friend of mine posted a Facebook status today that really hit home for me. He said, "Sometimes the person you fall for isn't ready to catch you." This really struck a chord with me because after one failed relationship this year, I found myself dabbling in matters of the heart again. It started out lighthearted enough: I actually met him on a dating website and on the first date, he taught me to play chess. We'll call him Sean for anonymity.

It was refreshing because I'd locked myself away from dating in order to get over my prior relationship. The conversation was great and he was handsome. Tall and brown and spoke very eloquently, save a few curse words! I had a few reservations: he wore really baggy clothes and told me he had recently been laid off from his job as a software developer. "Cool", I thought. "No job = safety. I won't fall for him." Having only recently been hired after an unemployment trial myself, I understood his plight and felt his pain.

Sean admitted that he was recently out of a relationship, but seemed very open to spending hoards of time with me. I'd take days off from work to spend with him. I, as always, became blinded by the physical connection. I ignored red flags from him for about a month. Red flags that included late phone calls from God knows who, his penchant for smoothly cursing me out and using profanity in all parts of our conversations, his stories about his former fiance that were always softly flavored with longing and sorrow. I thought if I just showed him that I was there for him during his unemployment and the self-doubt that comes with it, he'd see that I was worth his affections, and not just sex.

Well, that didn't happen! It all ended with him trying to show off in him fast sports car, being pulled over for doing over 100 mph and taken to jail. Ironically, my best friend (let's call him Russell), came to my rescue that night. Being stranded on the side of the road with this fool's manual transmission vehicle, and only being an automatic driver myself, I frantically searched through my phone for people who I knew that could drive a stick shift. Russell didn't hesitate to come get my dumb ass from the side of the road.  I bailed Sean out of jail, and Russell and I made sure his car got back to his house.  I looked at Russell differently that night. I knew I loved him, but things had always been so safe and vanilla between us, and he always had a chick on his arm every time I saw him.

 A few days later, I was hanging out with the ever so grateful Sean, when his phone rang late at night and I asked him if he was still seeing other people. I told him it was fine if he was, I just wanted to be aware so that we could both be on a level playing field, knowing full well that I was already too far gone to play fair. His response to this inquiry was, "To be completely honest, you're in no position to be asking about what goes on in my phone..." I got out of his bed, put on my clothes and left this house at 3 am.

When I got back to my apartment, I cried, of course, to my cat, Lucy, and took a few selfies of my tear stained face so that I could remind myself in the future of what I'd allowed myself to become. I still have those photos.

Several dead-air filled weeks later, Sean sent me a text asking if I would  help him pay his court fees, which amounted to about a thousand dollars. I think he got the hint when I didn't respond.

Cuffing season was not warm that year...