The Plan

One of the best feelings in the world, at least to me, is the loving rush in the beginning of a relationship. Everything is new and you never know what you’re going to feel from one day to the next or one hour to the next. The butterflies are real and you feel them every time you anticipate a phone call or plan the next time you get to see each other. Every thing about the other person is perfect and sometimes even you feel like you could be perfect. And when the other person is not with you, you feel the realest and sincerest form of missing someone. Just the mere thought of that person or getting the opportunity to talk about that person makes you smile and fills your heart with joy and warm fuzzy things. And it’s weird because when you know it is getting close to having to say goodbye on the phone or in person, you feel a slight wave of sadness and you miss that person already, even though you are still on the phone or still in their presence.

I remember when Omar and I first started dating and that loving rush was in full swing. We lived about 30 minutes away from each other so I cherished every opportunity that we could be together. There were a few occasions of talking on the phone all night until the early hours of the morning and I didn’t care that I could possibly fall asleep at my desk at work. I never wanted to be the one to say goodbye first because I never wanted our conversations to end. I just wanted to absorb as much of him as I could all the time. The butterflies were real and I loved them. I loved him.

I can’t recall if I was visiting for the night or if I was suppose to spend the night at his place, but I do recall that I needed to leave by a certain time to pick up my daughter from her boyfriend’s house and take her home. It was just an ordinary evening and we were just hanging out, watching TV and enjoying our quality time. I remember getting that feeling of slight sadness and a form of longing for him because I knew I was going to have to leave him to drive all the way back home. Right before I was about to tell him what I needed to do, I looked at him. I just looked at him and smiled to myself. He was so gorgeous. Very handsome. And I knew I was already missing him even though I hadn’t left yet. I finally pushed the invisible lump out of my throat and told him that I needed to go. And I’ll never forget what happened next…. Sigh.

He looked bummed. I mean, he looked genuinely bummed. I was amazed because I knew right then and there that he felt the same way I did. I didn’t want our evening to end yet and neither did he. As sweet as our goodnight kisses were, I didn’t want to give him one yet. And neither did he. At some point, the wheels in his head starting turning and he shared a thought, or rather laid out a plan to me and to this day, I smile and feel so wonderful when I think about it. It was one of those rare times when I felt cherished, wanted, and loved. And I fell in love with him all over again. I think I fall in love again every time I sit back and remember this.

So the plan was this: he would drive me all the way back to my hometown, pick up my daughter, drop her home, and bring me back to spend the rest of the evening with him. It was simple. It was brilliant. It was utterly sweet. And he totally had me at, “So this is the plan….” I was so smitten with the thought that this gorgeous man wanted to keep me with him as much as I wanted to stay with him. Talk about a loving rush.

I know that we talked during the drive to get my daughter and I know we talked on way back to his place, but all I can really remember is the way he made me feel. I kept glancing over at him and smiling. I kept thinking, “Oh my gosh, I love you.” There is nothing better than knowing that the person you want to be with, wants to be with you too and feels it just as much as you do. It’s an amazing feeling. It lets you know that you are not alone in what you feel and think. You’re not crazy for being borderline obsessed with the other person and it’s ok to want to always be next to him (or her). Whatever it is that you are feeling, it is great to know that maybe, just maybe, they are feeling it too. Always hold on to that loving rush.

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The Last Time

I don’t know about all of you out there, but when I fall in love with someone, I fall hard. I give everything I have from the get-go and I almost lose myself immediately trying to shower my guy with as much love and affection that I can possibly squeeze out of my mind, body, and soul. It’s safe to say that I can get pretty intense at times. In my own mind and reality, I am doing a good thing. Heck, I’m doing a great thing. I mean, what person doesn’t want to be loved and cherished by another person, right? Almost everybody I know wants to be somebody’s special someone. And that goes for me too. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a sucker for romance movies and I adore everything from sweet nothings to sweet everything. So yeah, when I fall in love, I take that guy into my world and wrap both arms around him. Heck, I’ve probably even wrapped my legs around a guy like a little kid hanging on to their parent’s leg. Remember I said that I can get intense? Yup. Like that. But of course, there’s a downside to everything. So what’s the nemesis for this? Hmmmmm…

I’ve pretty much lived my life firmly believing that you have to give what you want to receive. It’s true to a certain extent and it’s far from perfect. My logic was that if I loved someone so much and treated him with love and showed him loved, then that is what I would get back from him. I believed that if I was good or great to someone, then he would want to be great or good right back to me. The problem with this is that this was all my logic. This made sense to me and I believed it for its face value. To me, this was a simple equation that everyone should follow. This “golden rule” would make everyone happy. And if everyone would just follow my simple logic, then the world would be a better place and we would all bake cookies and smell like fresh, clean laundry and run through the meadows picking wildflowers with the animals dancing around us… Yeah, again, this was my logic, so please bear with me. I am happy to report that I now know that that is not the case.

The last time I tried to see Omar was such a heartbreaking experience for me. It’s still fresh in my mind like it happened yesterday. I remember feeling alone, unwanted, and abandoned. I felt like I meant nothing to him and in that moment in time, it didn’t matter if I even existed or not. He didn’t care about me and he didn’t even like me, let alone love me. Just the thought of it brings tears to my eyes and this heavy, hurtful feeling in my chest. Wait…. Did you hear that? That’s the sound of my heart breaking all over again. Sigh.

Omar was going through an extremely tough time. His anger and frustrations were spilling over into our relationship. I tried my best to just let him go through all the motions and I pushed my patience to the outer limits. I did everything I could to try to make him smile or be happy or laugh a little. I drove myself insane trying to think of things to do and things to say to make things better and easier for him. But instead of getting better, it felt like things were just getting worse. The more I tried to be there, the more I felt pushed away. The more I tried to love him, the more I felt like he hated me or resented me. The more I tried to go out of my way to make things easier for him, the more I felt taken for granted and unappreciated. It really sucked.

It got so bad that I finally reached a point where I didn’t care to reach out to him anymore. I didn’t text him like I usually did throughout the day. Instead, I just started responding to his text messages. Every time I heard the sound of a text message notification, I would get a real quick thrill of hope and anticipation because I knew that if he texted me, it meant that he thought of me. But the feeling only lasted a few seconds and I would just reply normally and then close my phone like it never happened. I also didn’t allow myself to want to see him. I got accustomed to the “I will see him when he wants to see me, even if it isn’t very often” mode. I knew that I always wanted to see him or be with him. I was content doing anything or nothing at all, as long as I was next to him. But it was feeling like he didn’t feel the same. It got bad. I mean, I was totally shut out and shut down from our relationship.

So on this particular evening, I was waiting “patiently” at home for him to “want to see me.” I think he had taken the day off due to fatigue and pain and he got hit with some bad news from his car insurance. As if this poor man didn’t have enough to deal with, this was an added topping to his sundae of disaster. So he decided to rest some more, which for me, meant more waiting. Ok, fine. I would wait. Well, my patience wore thin after about two hours. One of my good friends invited me to go hang out so I thought it would be a good idea to wait and hang out with friends rather than wait in my room and just drown in irritation and impatience. So I got ready and then texted Omar what my plans were. He responded and it wasn’t a very nice text. I decided that we weren’t going to “solve” anything via text so I called him. No answer. Voicemail. Ugh. I called again. No answer. Voicemail. I took a detour from where I was headed and started to drive toward his place. I kept calling. Always no answer. Always voicemail.

About 7 minutes from his last text, I rang the doorbell and my cousin let me in. I took off my boots and walked down the hallway to his bedroom door. I could hear the TV on inside. I knocked. No answer. I knocked again. And again, no answer. I was about to knock louder when I heard another sound along with the TV. I knocked again and listened. Are you kidding me?? Was that the sound of… Snoring? I stepped back in disbelief and tried to process what had just happened in the last ten minutes. I knocked again. The snoring got louder. I couldn’t believe what he was doing. The louder or longer I knocked, the louder and more obviously fake his snoring got. Was this really happening? Was he really doing this to me? Me!?

I got angry and decided that very moment that I was going to knock all night long. I texted him and let him know I was outside his door, even though I knew he already knew. I also let him know my intentions of waiting there all night until he opened the door. I knew he was eventually going to “wake up” and need to go to the bathroom at some point in the night. And when he did, he would have to trip over me first. Ha! I slumped to the floor and sat down leaning against the wall with his bedroom door on my right side. I knocked. I literally formed a rhythm of my knocks and pauses. I had so many thoughts going through my head and felt a roller coaster of feelings.

After what felt like forever, the snoring got lighter. And then I heard it. I heard him move in bed. And then I felt it. When you lean against a wall, sometimes you can feel what is happening on the other side of it. And that’s what happened. I felt him open his closet. I heard him put down a glass on his dresser. It sounded so much like a wine glass but it could have been just a regular glass of water. I don’t know and I was fuming. I kept listening. I heard him get back into bed. I still couldn’t believe this was happening. Why would someone do this to someone who did nothing but want to love them? I sat outside his bedroom door for a little over an hour. Just sat on the floor and waited. My heart broke. I saw myself ripping my heart out and throwing it on the floor in front of his door. I couldn’t take it anymore.

I picked myself up. I left my heart and pride on the floor. I walked back down the hall to the living room and saw my cousin sitting on the floor. I got down on the floor with her and put my head on her thigh. I curled up and cried. I cannot even begin to tell you how much I hate crying, yet there I was, like some helpless, pathetic thing, crying; on the brink of sobbing. He didn’t love me. He didn’t want me. He didn’t care about me.

Ok Omar. You win. I left.

Learning to love Omar. To be continued…

The Moment

Throughout my life, I had heard of people talking about the moment when they knew a person was going to change their lives. And as usual, it was almost always associated with people falling in love. It’s like in the movies where one person sees another person across the room and then all of sudden, time and space stands still and all that is in the air is the invisible intense path from one set of eyes to the other. They are the only ones in focus and everything and everyone around them seems to blur and move in slow motion. It’s a pretty cool effect, if you ask me.

Take my cousin, for example. She once described to me how she met her husband and it involved “a moment.” I think it was just after Thanksgiving because around that time, Christmas parties were in effect. She had decided that she was done feeling bad about past relationships and done trying to blame herself for the relationship failures. So she sat herself down and wrote everything good about herself on little post-it notes and posted them on the mirror in front of her. When she was done, she had almost covered the whole mirror with notes. She felt good. She felt positive. She then decided to get some grooming done and went to visit her hairdresser to get cleaned up. A girl’s gotta look good, ya know.

After much talking and hair cutting, it was decided that a drink was in order. So they went next door to an Italian place to have some wine. Christmas parties were being held at the place so there was a pretty good crowd. The conversation headed in the direction of what kind of man my cousin was looking for to spend the rest of her life with. And at that moment, the doors opened and in walked him And that’s exactly what she replied to the question presented to her. “Him.” She pointed with her gaze. She said her knees got weak and she felt her heart skip a beat and thought she was going to lose her balance. I love hearing her describe all that. There is nothing like reliving moments like that when they really happened. And well, folks, the rest is history. They managed to get a few words in to each other and immediately started dating. To this day, they are married and have 2 sweet, adorable boys, and one on the way.

Then there’s me. Ha ha. Stuff like that didn’t happen to me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for romance and all things sweet, but I’m just so jaded about things like that happening. I mean, it only happens in the movies, right? That’s what I thought. Until…

I had developed a love/hate relationship with my car. I loved it because of how it spoiled me. I hated it because of how it stranded me. The repair bills were piling up. I needed to get rid of it. On many occasions, I discussed with my cousin mentioned above and her hubby (also mentioned above, ha ha) how I needed to trade in my car. I was terrified of the idea for some reason. I kept making excuses for months. Finally, I gave in. By chance, my cousin’s hubby had a best friend who was a car salesman. The communication started between them and eventually I was given the name and number of the guy who was going to help me trade in my car that I loved for something economical and affordable. Drum roll, please. Ahem! And this is when contact was made with Omar. I have to smile as I type his name. Sigh.

So let’s bypass all the text messages and one or two phone calls that were exchanged about the car deal and fast forward to the day I went to trade in my car. That’s all it was to me. It was already determined that the evening would be horrible because I would be trading in my car for something I didn’t want. I knew I needed to though. I just didn’t know how to let go. So I dragged one of my best friends with me for support and encouragement. We pulled up to the dealership and I sat in my car for the last time with her. I looked around and started to make sure I had everything out of the car before I gave her up. As we were walking to the doors, a guy on a golf cart pulled up and asked if we were there to see anyone. I smiled a fake smile and said, “Yes, I’m here to see Omar.” Again, I have to smile as I type his name.

The guy tells us to have a seat and that he will let Omar know that we are here. I sit down and watch him walk over to one of the offices across the room. Then all of a sudden, I saw him. Omar. He walked out of the office with a smile, such a gorgeous smile. The second I looked into his eyes, I quickly inhaled a sharp breath and held it, my heart skipped a beat, and I was taken aback with awe. The room was a blur and all I could focus on was this gorgeous man walking toward me. Everything around me seemed unreal and moving in slow motion. Wait? Was that a moment? Did I just experience a moment? Hell yeah, I did!

When he was halfway the distance to me, I finally let my breath out and could feel my heart beating in my chest again instead of in my throat. He said one thing: “Hi!” And it was as if those words were some cue for my knees to buckle from under me. I was cool though and kept my composure. I said “Hi” back and things started to move normally around us. He gave me a half hug around my shoulders and said something to the effect of “it feels like we’re family already.” The vision of a wedding cake flashed through my mind that instant and it surprised the crap out of me that all I could do was laugh nervously and say, “Yeah.” I felt like such a dork. He went on to explain what the rest of the evening was going to be like and he walked off to get things started. I sat down, still in awe, and whispered to my friend, “Holy shit, I’m in trouble.” She laughed. She knew. I told her, “Oh my god, Omar is freakin’ cute!” I suddenly felt like some Anime high school girl in a cheerleading suit with pig tails and I wanted to jump into the air and yell some Japanese cheer that I can’t even begin to pronounce. It was a crazy, wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime feeling. And I’ll never forget it. Never.

Omar….

I smile…

I sigh…..

That was the moment I started to learn to love him.

Integrity

They say that when a person is lying on their deathbed, he or she starts going through thoughts and visions of the life they lived. They start to see what really mattered, what should not have mattered, and what should have mattered enough to make a better choice. Then come the thoughts of wondering if he or she even made a difference in anything. We start to wonder about the integrity of our entire life.
I think we do the same thing when it comes to the end of a relationship. When it is over and we have no control about it being over, all of a sudden we realize what really mattered, what should not have mattered, and what should have mattered enough to make a better choice. Did we make a difference in the relationship? What was our part in the integrity of the relationship? All of a sudden, the small things that were good become big memories in our mind. Beautiful eyes. A gorgeous smile. An infectious laughter. A loving touch. A tender kiss. A safe embrace. A genuine “I love you.” Suddenly all that is all that matters and becomes all you want back. All the petty bad stuff suddenly seem bearable. But it’s over. Gone.