"I give up"
I rested my head on the back of my hands as I gripped the steering wheel. I was sitting in the middle of a parking lot crying as if someone had just told me that I was voted off the island. My sobs were overwhelming, coming out so fast that I could not contain them. My chest rose and fell in giant thrusting motions as every emotion I had felt in the past few months had been allowed to come out.
I had just left a date. A date where I had met a guy and he wooed me in a way that would make your mom blush. He told me what I wanted to hear, listened to me and even sent me sweet text messages the day of saying "only two more hours and I get to see you."
There is always that moment where you meet someone and get ready to go on a date with them and think "this could be it. This could be THE ONE." You automatically move into fantasy world and imagine Christmases together and what your kids would be like all sitting in a row on the floor opening gifts. You dream of a life where you can actually go to the grocery store at 10 pm at night because you don't have any milk left and just have these wild hopes that when your ex husband is being a royal asshole that you will have someone to hug you and say "it's ok, I am here for you."
But with every failed date you go on, that dream is further and further away. Your dreams of being two instead of always one are shattered because you are like a game piece on this board game called life, and this date just set you three steps back.
"I give up."
I sobbed into the phone to my mom, praying that she would just give me some sort of tough love talk where I would puff up my chest a bit and hold my shoulders high again. Instead I felt so defeated. Defeated at the very vivid memory of what he looked like when he saw me for the first time. How he came outside the bar because he knew I was walking up and all that make up and hair primping and staring at your closet hoping you picked the right thing was just a waste....because when he sees you for the first time he looks at you and says "oh". I compared it to when you tell a kid you have a surprise for them then you extend your hand and they look at the piece of candy in your palm and they say "oh".....
Defeat.
Disappointment.
yeah, I know, I should not care. I should just be able to reach over my right shoulder and brush it off like a petal that falls on your sleeve, but I cannot. Instead, I am sitting here with this pile of hurt in my heart thinking..."what is wrong with me?"
He was nice enough. He laughed at (some) of my jokes, but when he accidentally brushed against my leg and then recoiled as if he had touched a hot flame, I knew something was wrong. He glanced at his watch about a hundred times and when I said "do you need to go?" and he said "yes" I just let him go. He did pay the bill, but he also left me standing there with half a beer and a lump in my throat.
It's hard to bounce back from moments like these. It is hard to walk out of a date like that and think "ah whatever, I will go back to the drawing board." Because after about three of these horrible date situations you wonder if may you will EVER find someone.
Please know this, I am NOT asking for anyone to post anything about this and offer me all this great advice about how he is a jerk and how he didn't deserve me. The funny thing is I have done this myself. I have been on a date with a very sweaty and nervous man only to walk out about a beer later and say "there is no spark" thinking this is a very admirable way to let yourself out of what you thought was going to be a great relationship.
There is no good way to tell someone you do not like him. No good way to tell someone that the fact they chose stonewashed jeans, white tennis shoes and a short sleeve dress shirt, that this was NOT the way to your heart. I have no idea what I did to that guy when I told him that. I don't think this guy has any idea what he did to ME when he told me that. He probably drove home and thought "NEXT". Maybe I was just another page in his dating book. Maybe I was just NOT THE RIGHT ONE.
But who is the right one?
Was I married to him then gave it up in hopes of finding something better? Was that the only shot I had and then I blew it? Am I just a few short years away from wearing jean shorts with an elastic waist and sitting in a recliner covered in plastic while I watch Jeopardy?
I had a dream last night. A dream where I was in a large room and there were HUNDREDS of guys lined up and they each walked by me. Some of them saying things like "hey baby" some reaching out to me, some walking right past me "ooh, he is cute, who is that guy that just ignored me? Come back?" Each of them walking past me like a choreographed broadway dance....and the line keeps going on and on and on.
"you will find him, you just gotta weed out the bad ones." A friend told me this tonight. So in my dream, I am letting the wrong ones go past me. Stopping at some of them, falling in love with a few, and affected by them all. My heart hurts....and not because of the ONE guy that did not choose me...but because I am tired. Tired of searching for the lead role in my life. All the wrong guys are making their way into the auditions and I sit in this chair and bury my head in my hands and think "I am never going to find him."
I know I sound pitiful.
All of us have been there.
Whether it is the guy that won't look at you, or the girl that gives you a fake number, or the guy that doesn't call back. It hurts....and it takes a lot of strength to pick yourself up and dust yourself off.
A LOT OF STRENGTH.
As I close this blog, I am listening to my favorite Pandora station, and the song I walked out to during my wedding comes on. I lift my fingers from the keyboard and let my head fall into my hands.
I had it...I had what I was looking for. And I gave it up in search of something better.
I will find it, I know I will. And until then, you may have to deal with me being sad sometimes, I may even poke some fun at myself from time to time, but know that someday....somewhere....he is out there and when it is my time....you will be the first to hear about it.
