Last year was quite possibly the craziest year of my life. I know a lot of people look back on their last year and say that, but this time, I think it's actually true. So here I will recount with you, my 24th year, as I embark on my 25th year tomorrow. Last year, I was living in a shitty part of Los Angeles, with a husband, a cat, a dog, and an eating disorder in a one bedroom apartment. I had been married about a year and a half, unhappily. Why did I get married in the FIRST place you ask? To that I say, GOOD QUESTION. Guess I just thought it was the next step even though there were CLEAR signs that it definitely was the WRONG decision. Anyway, I digress. I was teaching at the same job I am now, which was fine. Friends = none. Husband = lame. We were not in love and probably never had been. We had sex three times during our entire marriage... THREE and that INCLUDES the wedding night and honeymoon. He apparently didn't see anything wrong with this though. OK, so what did we do with our time? We drank at home, played board games, played with our pets. Mostly I was alone because we worked different hours. The only time we went out was to go out to eat. I was not attracted to him, although he was very attracted to me. So here comes my 24th birthday. What did he get me? Nothing. We went to this murder dinner theater thing with a friend that came up to visit me from Orange County (when I said no friends I meant in the area). When she first got to our apartment the look on her face was just like OH MY GOD, what happened to ******. She clearly noticed he had let himself go, as I had been noticing for a long time. I was actually embarrassed, isn't that terrible? You're not supposed to be embarrassed of your own husband. Regardless, she saw our meaningless existence and was quite frankly ready to leave when she did, at least that is how it seemed. So that was birthday 24. Fast forward to approximately a month later. I find out that my childhood next door neighbor and best childhood friend dies. I try to decide whether I should go back to Iowa for the funeral. Something in my soul keeps telling me to go back, that I HAVE to go back. I even used my savings to pay for it. So I go back. My best friend picks me up from the airport and asks me how things are. I tell her the truth. Terrible. She already knows what is wrong. She tells me that she knew all along and that it seemed like my wedding was more of a production than a celebration. And she was exactly right, that's exactly what it was. Regardless, we decide we will have a good time together even though it is under sad circumstances. So on our drive to our hometown, we call up an old friend that was a little older than us, and who was very good friends with our friend that died. He had not been taking it well, so we decide to go see him. He asks us if we want to go out with him and a friend to the bar, we of course say, sure. I slowly start remembering what it is like to have friends, and to go out, and to have fun. So he says, my friend is supposed to call, I'm going to take a shower, if he calls, answer it and tell him we are coming over after I get ready. I'm like oooookay. Meantime, the husband calls and sees if I got there okay (yes thats right, i didnt even call him to tell him that, nicely done, me, but again, we really didnt like each other all that much, just co-existed). Regardless, friend's phone rings, I answer, voice on the other end asks me how old I am. Uh, 24?! I answer... Oh so you're coming too? Voice on teh other end says... I was planning on it, am I invited... I reply. ..See you soon he says. I hang up, look at my friend quizzingly, all she says is... Uh Oh. Fast forward about an hour, Nicole and I are drinking Champagne, RD is finally ready to go, we go to mysterious voice's house, and I meet the man I live with currently. WHAT?!? You say. I'll get there. Voice on the Other End ends up being the single handedly most gorgeous man I had ever seen. When he first saw me, RD was trying to fix the butt of my jeans..LOL.. I turn around and theres hot man, we lock eyes for a GOOD five seconds, and it was all over from there. Okay, so we have to do very sad things all week, visitation, funeral, etc, but we also manage to have fun...the four of us. Anyway, last night I'm there I have a talk with Gorgeous man, now named Ben. We decide that we do ultimately like each other and would enjoy being together if we were closer (I KNOW, you don't have to tell me, this is crazy after having known each other for three days and me being MARRIED.. and yes I was honest.). So anyway, we leave it at, we will see each other again. How? We don't know. When? Don't know. Under what circumstances? We don't know. He drops me off at the airport and that is that. Now comes the fun part, I have 8 HOURS to figure out what I am going to do. What should I do? What could I do? I was stuck in LA for at least 5 more months, so do I end my marriage and be alone? Do I stay in a loveless marriage and forget about Mr. Perfect? What to do, what to do. On my long flight from Chicago to Los Angeles, I decided. It wasn't fair to either husband or I to stay married. As soon as I got off the flight, I said We Need To Talk. And he knew it was over. He was not happy, but he was not surprised. He was sad, but he understood. So we had to live together for about 4 weeks until he found another apartment. It was very difficult. We were cordial, we even had dinner together sometimes. I started going ot the gym a lot to not have to be as home as much to make it easier on both of us. He, luckily, had recently started a new job and had made some friends in Long Beach, so he decided to move there, far enough away that we wouldn't run into each other. So he moved out. Meanwhile, Mr. Perfect and I had kept in touch, talking on the phone a couple times a week, and ultimately, I invited him out over his Spring Break, he came, had a great time, ultimately decided we really did need to be together and in teh next four months would somehow figure out how that could happen. I went back a few weeks later for MY spring break, and we did a couple long weekends. Well we had decided that we were going to move to Kansas City because his dad lives in the area and he was going to try to help him find a job in pharmaceutical sales, plus it was cheap enough so that we wouldn't have to live together, which we thought would be a good idea to not live together for quite a while. So about a month before I was supposed to move there, he comes to visit one last time, I take him to meet some friends of mine that live in Hermosa Beach. The day ended up being perfect, it was about 80 degrees and sunny, he liked my friends, they liked him, and they said "Ben, why don't you move here? Why KC, it's cold there..." And the idea got planted in his head (he HATES cold weather). Unfortunately, we WOULD have to live together here because rent prices are through the roof, there was no way we could each afford it on our own. We talked it over and I said I need to know IMMEDIATELY because I'm going to have to ask for my job back!!! So it was settled. He was moving here, when he finished his degree which would be mid July. Fast forward, I found us apt. in Hermosa, and sure enough, he moved! It's been up and down and up and down but it's been six months of living together and we are more in love than ever. Everyone might judge me for the decisions that I made during my 24th year of existence, but overall, I am stronger, I am happier, and I am healtier. So I think that it was a rollercoaster ride, but a beneficial one.
|
|
| Views: 72
