Saturday, October 3, 2015

Looking Forward While Also Looking Back

     I revisited a couple posts from this year and they got me to thinking...about love...about choices...about choices in love.  :D  This short one Nostalgic About Love had me reminiscing about those fellas whom I gave my heart to and why things didn't work out.  In every instance, it was geographical distance that had us going our separate ways.  Every man that I loved was a good man.  I don't have any negative emotions towards any of them.
     My first love, Scott...summer of '91 was the beginning for us.  I loved him with everything that my 15 year old self could.  I remember spending time at his house and he at mine.  We went to the Big Fresno Fair and held hands while we walked around.  He was always chewing Trident gum so, needless to say, his kisses tasted like mint or cinnamon most of the time.  With him, I heard death metal for the first time.  I'm not a fan but I think of him every time I hear that, uh, music.  His mom didn't really like me.  Or...she didn't like my mom and displaced that dislike onto me.  She was kind of a snob.  They were well-off and my family wasn't.  That didn't stop me from loving the hell out of Scott.
     Then there was Eddie.  Eddie was a man.  Although, looking back now, I'd be kicking my own ass and threatening some serious stuff to him.  He was 23.  I was 16.  We dated for more than a year.  I gotta admit, he was kind of a rebound.  The boy who had taken my virginity had dropped me like a hot potato to go back to his baby-mama (my best friend, to this day, calls her "chicken legs" lol) after he was done with me.  A month or so later, there was Eddie.  Looking all grown up...to this, very much a teenager, girl.  Despite our age difference, he treated me really well.  I think, though, I was just too enamored to see the real him.  He was a drug user, probably a drug dealer, and is now dead as a result of his lifestyle.  So much potential, wasted.  We broke up when he went to jail.  Go figure.  That was summer 1992 to summer 1993.
     The next time I shared my heart was in 1994.  In the fall of that year, I started seeing a fella that I had been crushing on for a couple years.  Actually, me and two really good friends had crushed on him for years, all through high school.  He graduated in 1992 and had dated another girl for many years but, for reasons that I don't remember, they broke up.  We started dating a few months after I graduated.  His family was awesome.  They still are.  I keep in touch with all of them still.  Even him.  Hell, I'm even friends with his wife on facebook.  We were together for more than two years.  We opted to go our separate ways after I got orders to McChord in Washington state.  The distance would have prevented us from seeing each other often and long distance just isn't easy, especially when you're barely 20 and 22 years old.
     Although I dated a few folks over the next few years, nobody really had my heart again until 1999.  George was a med tech at the Army hospital near McChord.  I remember when I met him--during a sick call visit--his pick up lines were: "So, 'Naprstek'.  Is that your married name?" and "Wow!  You have the bluest eyes."  We were together about six months and then he separated from the Army and moved back home; ironically, to California.  lol.  That one was a little harder to deal with only because he move home (and out of the house that we shared) at the same time that my best friend move halfway across the country to her new husband's hometown in Iowa.  February 2000 was not a good month for me.
     It was another four years before I weeded through more bad apples and found someone worth opening myself up to.  I met Damien while he was dating a friend of mine but it wasn't until 2004 that we began dating, long after he had broken up with her.  We talked future.  We talked marriage.  We talked his upcoming separation from the Air Force.  We talked often after he moved back home in September 2004, six months after we'd got together.  Until just after New Years.  I had flown to Iowa to spend time with my bestest bud for New Year's and he drove down from his hometown in Nebraska and we spent the week together while also hanging out with my BFF and her family.  Come April, I couldn't hardly reach him on the phone.  By August we were broken up.  Partly due to the fact that he'd been "cheating" on me but, really, because of that hurdle called distance.  It's hard to maintain a relationship when you've seen each other once in eight months.  He's now married and has a rugrat or two.
     I think that break-up really took a toll on me though because there has been nobody since Damien that I've had a relationship with and who I gave my heart to.  I don't know if it's that I've thrown myself into a busy schedule.  Or that work is just so (insert adjective here) that it's sucked the life out of me.  There have been a couple attempts.  Dated one guy for three or four months back in 2011 but he turned out to be selfish, self-serving, and just plain not that nice.  Had a crush for a number of months last year.  Nothing came of that--the fella just wasn't picking up what I was putting down.  Now, there's another fella whom I've made plans with, twice, that had to get rescheduled.  Frustrating, yes, but I'm kind of okay with it.  Mainly because he doesn't make me feel anxious.  I don't feel like he's purposely not contacting me.  (You know how some people just play that stupid game?  Yeah, I don't get that impression from him.)  From all the years that I've known him--our paths have crossed often in the past three or four years--he's always been a straightforward and upfront guy.  I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.  The time between when we last talked and when we next talk is full of delicious anticipation.

No comments: