I promised to start telling you all a story today.
A story I’ve been holding back on telling for 8 months now.
But it’s time.
Time for me to get it out there, and time for me to put the pieces together in the only way I know how.
By writing it all down.
This was the first time I’ve ever held back on anything here, and there were reasons for that. Reasons that will hopefully become more clear as I go along. But it was necessary; for me to keep this piece to myself. It’s possible that at some point in the future, it will be necessary again. I can’t be sure. I reserve the right to change the rules. To pick and choose what pieces of my life are available to be put on display.
But with this, it’s time.
Although, I can pretty much guarantee you won’t get the whole story today.
Or even this week.
It’s going to take time. And pieces. And patience.
It might be choppy, and disorganized, and chaotic.
But hey – that’s life.
I will say first that we are still working on that little comment issue I mentioned on Friday. It kind of cracks me up that I finally gathered the courage to take the plunge and do what I had been contemplating doing here for months, only to discover it wasn’t as simple as I thought it would be.
Word to the wise, for those who use commenting systems or are considering using commenting systems – uninstalling those bastards is no easy feat. Once they have you, they pretty much intend on keeping you.
Kind of like a gang.
Or the mob.
So while I'm working on getting myself jumped out, comments will still be available here. But just be warned – they could disappear at any moment.
Hopefully I’ll post soon after they are, just so that you’ll know I’m still alive
I suppose we should get back to the story at hand though.
The boy.
I never told you all this, but after mentioning our coffee date here, I received an e-mail from a friend. One who up to that point had only been an internet friend. We actually had plans to meet the following week for the first time, and most of you know this friend has now become one of my closest. But at the time, we only knew each other through e-mails and our blogs.
We had been communicating for about 6 months by then, but had only ever talked about our shared connection with endometriosis and infertility. We had exchanged information on doctors and treatment plans, but had never really jumped into the realm of the personal.
Which is why her e-mail caught me off guard. She was writing to tell me that based on the few details I had given about the boy, she was pretty sure she knew him. Not too personally, but through mutual friends. She and her husband had spent time with he and his wife on more than one occasion. She had heard his story through the grapevine; all about how he had been jilted. She knew just enough to have a pretty strong inkling that she knew exactly who I was talking about.
And it turned out - she was right.
This did two things for me of course: 1.) It totally freaked me out and forced me to face the fact that my blog is not as anonymous as I like to pretend it is. Especially in a town as small as Anchorage. 2.) It gave me someone to drill for information about him. Someone to use as a sounding board for all my decisions moving forward with the boy. Because she knew him, but was still distant enough to remain objective.
When everything she said about him was positive, and she was able to confirm my initial thoughts that he seemed to be a pretty good guy; it only locked me in even more.
You should know this wasn't the only coincidental tie we had between us. Another of his best friends is married to a woman I have mentioned here regularly now - a woman I have become extremely close to over the last 8 months. One of only 2 women in this state I know who has struggled with endometriosis and IVF. The three of us girls have formed a friendship that is as tight as any I have. We've all joked before that we would choose each other as friends, even if it wasn't for this one thing we are able to bond so closely over that no one else ever seems to get.
The fact that they both (these women I shared a bond with that I didn't share with anyone else in my real world) came into my life with connections first through him is not lost on me.
And it wasn't then either.
Everything moved so fast after that first night. After the BBQ, and meeting his friends and family. After realizing so quickly that I was in trouble when it came to this boy. It all just jumped right into... real. The night after the BBQ he came into town to take me to a movie, and then spent the night. The following night after work, we both fulfilled plans with other friends, and then he came over again. And over those days when we weren't really doing the greatest job of staying away from each other, we talked. We did a lot of talking.
He sat on my couch looking me in the eyes and told me that he had never expected to meet someone he felt as strongly about as he did me. Certainly not so quickly - when his divorce was filed, but not yet final. We sat there and discussed our actions, and the possible ramifications of our choices. I told him I felt pretty strongly that now was a time for him to be rebounding. Dating a plethora of women without ever really forming any real feelings for any of them. I was pretty adamant that I thought we should just be friends. That I wasn’t the girl who could be his rebound chick – no matter how much we joked about it. I would need more, and in truth – we had already crossed the boundary into more. So it was then that I told him I was willing to step back, be his friend, even his wingman, because I really believed that would be what was best for him, and us, in the long run.
I told him I wanted us to have a chance, and I really thought the best way to make that happen would be for him to cycle through a few meaningless relationships first until he got back on his feet.
But he assured me that wasn’t what he wanted. As lost, and hurt, and broken as he was – he seemed so strong on this. So sure. So convinced that I was who he wanted to be spending his time with. So reassuring that dating other girls and jumping into meaningless relationships wasn’t what he wanted.
He wasn’t sure where this was going, or what it could become. But he was adamant – I was what he wanted. And he was willing to take the risk if I was.
Thus began the battle between my heart and mind. Because even then, I wanted so badly to believe what he was saying.
But I knew better. Of course I knew better.
Something else happened that night though. I had made a decision to tell him my story. About my previous year, the pregnancy attempts, the blog – all of it. I figured this guy had been through enough betrayal, he didn’t need to find out months down the line that I had been keeping something so big from him. Especially not when he was being such an open book with me.
So that night, when the subject of kids somehow came up (deep soothing breaths – we were talking about the children of friends, not our own – I know this all seems like it was moving fast, but it wasn’t moving that fast!), I jumped into the truth about me as organically as I could muster.
Trying to make jokes about the whole situation like I always seem to do.
Even though there is nothing at all funny about any of it.
He stopped me though. By that point, we had engaged in a handful of pretty serious conversations. We had stayed up all night talking on at least one occasion. We had spent hours on the couch drinking and getting to know each other before we had come to this topic of conversation.
But, he stopped me.
And told me that he already knew.
Apparently, when we met on New Year’s Eve, I had unloaded my entire story upon his wife.
I remembered talking to her (shortly after hitting on him, only to have him turn around and say "let me introduce you to my wife"), but I had no recollection of barring my soul.
Which is why she had never called me to set me up with their friend like she had originally stated she wanted to.
It turns out, she had walked away and said to him “I think she was really cool, but that whole story is a bit much. And it’s really weird that she would unload the entire thing on a stranger like that.”
It was weird. I was horrified. And embarrassed. And turning about 18 different shades of red as he told me this.
I knew I had been drunk that night, but I couldn’t believe I had been that drunk.
Still, she had taken my number that night. Perhaps because she had already brought up the idea of a setup and hadn’t wanted to appear rude. Perhaps because she just didn’t know what to say. Perhaps because it was the only thing left to do that seemed like it would allow her to escape me and my over-sharing.
But she had taken my number.
Only, her phone was dead. So she had put it in his phone instead.
And the rest you already know.
When I recovered from my shock and embarrassment, I looked at him as seriously as I could and said “Why? Why would you ever have called the crazy chick from New Years Eve who totally unloaded her sad story on your wife in a bar? I knew I was a mess that night, but I had no idea I was that ridiculous! Why did you ever call me?”
He kind of laughed, and then said “Why not?”
But then he got serious, and said that he just remembered being incredibly attracted to me on New Years. And feeling excited when he was around me. He said he had wanted to feel that again. And he thought maybe if he called me, he would.
Once he remembered having my number, he said calling me had been a no brainer. Something he just had to build the courage up to do, but not something he ever questioned actually doing.
So that was it.
He knew.
And he didn’t care.
It didn’t change anything.
He didn’t even think it was all that weird.
None of it.
He just knew he liked me. He liked being around me. And he wanted to get to know me more.
It didn’t take long before the stories came out. As I got to know his friends, and became privy to things he had said about me after that first phone call.
He had been staying with friends when he remembered me. Remembered my number in his old phone, and dug it out to see if it was still there. They had talked about his calling me drunk one night, but he had waited until the next afternoon, as they were driving somewhere out of town. He had repeated every text I sent in response that day – laughing over my replies. Getting excited in a way he hadn’t in weeks. And after we had met face to face, he went to dinner with those same friends and told them that I wasn’t the rebound chick. That I was the kind of girl he knew he would want a relationship with.
He just wasn’t sure if he was ready.
In fact, he was pretty sure he wasn’t.
But he had pursued it anyway. Taking the plunge, and moving forward.
Despite the hurt he was still in the middle of experiencing.
I still refuse to get into the details of his divorce here, because it truly is not my story to tell. But the nuts and bolts of it is that he thought he had a happy marriage. He thought he had said “I do” to the person he would spend the rest of his life with. He never cheated, or thought about straying. He never contemplated his life without her. He was committed - for keeps.
And then, she changed all the rules. Their parting was fast and furious, with very few warning signs to clue him in to the impending end. One day they were happy, and the next she wanted out. Obviously there are two sides to every story, and I am sure it was something she had been battling with for longer than it seemed. But knowing what I know now after getting accounts from many of the bystanders involved, I can say this for sure – he was blindsided. He never saw it coming.
And because of that alone, I knew better.
Which is when I decided to stop writing about it. About us. About whatever it may become. Because I knew one thing for sure: it was going to get messy. I believed in my heart that it would all work out in the end (after all, the entire story was too seeped in fate [community discussion: Do you believe in fate?] for it not to), but I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. And I knew that if I started writing about the roller coaster as it was happening, it would serve only to paint him in a horrific light. One I knew he didn’t deserve. Because this was a good man. One who had been hurt, and broken down, and fractured, but… a good man none-the-less.
I didn’t want to be writing about him and the state of our relationship when I knew that nothing about it would be easy. I wanted to protect him from the judgment that would surely come along the way, if only because I knew what I was getting into. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I knew it would take work.
But I believed that after everything was said and done, it would all be worth it.
I looked at my father; so broken and disenchanted, yet finding love again so soon after having his heart stomped on. Right at the same time I would otherwise have been questioning the sanity of any woman attempting to form a relationship with a man so soon after his heart had been broken; my dad was there. Showing me that it could happen. Acting as just one more sign in the universes plot to push me towards giving this boy a chance.
I knew it was possible. And I knew that if this boy felt for me even half of what I felt for him (even half of what he said he felt for me), we would make it work.
It would just take patience, and commitment, and sacrifice on my part.
I would have to be the calm, and cool, and collected one for once.
Which we all know isn’t my forte.
But I was prepared for it. I was ready.
And I wanted so badly to believe it would work.
(to be continued...)
ADSPACE
