Storytime

I think about my family a lot. I think about my friends a lot. I think about the life I'm living and how within a matter of weeks, it is completely different than anything I have ever known. 

I met my match and moved away. Without blinking an eye. Whenever I was seeing someone new, my sister would ask me if he's "the one." I would snort some sort of response and usually say no. Mainly because I had no idea what she was talking about it. I don't think I believed it. Deep inside of me I felt I would love many people, but never feel 100% connected to any of them. I would always have one foot in, and one foot out. And that was fine with me. I didn't see myself settling down. I didn't want to get married. Kids weren't an option, I was going to get a dog when I was big. Then something happened. I met the one. 

Brad came into my office to ask me a question about work. I'm pretty sure I got red in the face. We talked. He left. Instantly a thought popped into my mind that should have scared me, but instead calmed me. 

He was the man I would marry.

He was nothing like anybody I had ever been with. He wasn't part of a scene. He wore adidas and crocs. He had a silver ring on his middle finger. He had a huge mustache. He had a girlfriend. 

I anticipated the moments he would fly by my office door. Sometimes I'd look, sometimes I'd pretend to be transfixed by my work. I soon realized I had an incredibly hard reality I had to face. The relationship I was in, was over. I think it had been over for quite some time, I just didn't want to admit it. I lived in an odd dream world. I had my life. He had his life. We had our life. The latter became less and less. I brought it up. We broke up. I wondered if I had done the right thing. The last thing in the world I wanted to do, was make someone I loved hurt. And there was no shortage of hurt.

Brad and I started spending more and more time together. There was a force that couldn't be denied, even if we wanted to. I had left one dream world and slid right into another. The circumstances were far from favourable and no matter how hard we tried to ignore them, they kept making themselves known. We hid from work. We hid from his girlfriend. We hid from our reality. Then reality came crashing down harder than either of us had expected. His girlfriend read his emails. She was frantic. She threatened suicide. He flew home for the weekend and when he returned, she was with him. I rounded a corner at work and was face to face with the pain I was a part of. I felt sick. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. 

We weren't able to talk for a week, but I saw the both of them everyday. I tried to convince myself that what I felt wasn't real and that he was just using me. Somehow this made it easier. I got a phone call on the weekend. It was him. He was able to get away and only had minutes. She held his phone, read his emails, never left his side. I didn't blame her. Her whole world came down on her in a matter of seconds as my dream world had come down on me. He wanted to know what I thought. Words couldn't describe how he felt for hurting me day after day. He wanted to know if I'd wait. No games. I'm too old for that. I told him it wasn't over between us and no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that it was, I knew in my heart we had years ahead of us. A sigh of relief. He'd contact me again when he could. 

Secret. Secret. It all had to be kept secret. 

They broke up, a couple times. She wouldn't let it happen. I didn't blame her. She was scared. She had moved across the country to be with the person that took care of her. Now that person was moving on and she'd have to take care of herself. No one can grow if they don't have reason to. If someone's content watching the world go by from under a glass roof, why would they ever want to join what seems so hard? After that, we were together every second. I had doubts and tried again to convince myself he wasn't real. I couldn't have met someone like him. Someone that wanted to be with me. All the time. Then he flew half way around the world with me to visit a friend and embark on two weeks of chaotic travel after just having finished a job that nearly made all his hair fall out. Literally. I think he loved me. 

We got back from holiday. He went home. I finished my job. We decided I should move down to be with him. I packed up my apartment, made driving arrangements, and left before the sun came up. My landlord didn't notice for a week. Even though I had left her the keys and a note.

After months of adjusting, I feel happy. Secure. Confident. We're looking to buy a house. We're thinking about renovations on that house. When someone asks if we're married, we say might as well be. I don't like drinking anymore. I go to bed early. I grocery shop and have supper ready for when Brad gets home. We have a cat. I'm going to get my dog when we have a house. We've talked about baby names. I'm an adult. Something that scared the hell out of me all my life, has suddenly crept up on me in the most natural of ways. And although I still have moments of panic and bouts of melancholy, I know this is the road my life is supposed to be traveling. For the first time, it makes sense.

Now. If I could just make some friends......