Hello You,
As I’ve said before, every Friday I ask Siri to pick the name for my next Thankful Thursday letter. Well, it was bound to happen, yesterday it was S. My ex-husband. I am grateful for every minute of the 9 years we were together and have no regrets. I’m not bitter or angry. Thankfully. I have seen firsthand what those feelings can do to a person. I didn’t have those feelings then and I don’t now. Because of that, I think it was hard at the end to know if we were doing the right thing. If we were making the right decision. When we went to the lawyer to do the paperwork she even said, “are you sure? You seem happy to me.” A part of me was happy, I got to hang out with my best friend every day. But a huge part of me was sad, the man I was in love with wasn’t there anymore.
Sometimes I wonder if I was mad at him for how it all turned out, would it have been easier to know that it was the right choice? I know now that it was for the best, but it took me time to get here. It took many nights of questioning, many nights full of tears, many nights of wanting to pick up my phone and call to see if he felt the same way. S and I were terrible at making decisions and sticking with them. We couldn’t decide on where to go on vacation, so we just didn’t go. We couldn’t decide on what to hang on the walls, so our walls stayed bare. However, this decision, we followed through with. I had to believe in my heart that there was a reason for this. I had to trust it. It has been almost 11 years, since we said goodbye, and I am and always will be thankful for S. I am grateful to have met him. I am grateful that he loved me for the time he did. I am also thankful that he broke my heart, that he didn’t fight for us. I am thankful for all the moments that we shared, and the stories that we made together. Here is our story. I’d like to share it with you.
Part One. The meet cute.
I suppose it started the Summer between my Freshman and Sophomore year of college. My friend M and J and I were sitting in my mom’s backyard late one night, talking girl talk. You know about guys. At the time M was the only one of the three of us that had a boyfriend. I remember saying, “I think it’s going to be a long time before I have a boyfriend. I mean, I want to be friends with someone first then fall in love.” A few short weeks later I was back at school, and a couple of my friends decided they were going to throw a party, for me. A party for me to find a boyfriend. Yes, I’m serious and yes that happened. They had their boyfriends invite all their single friends over that Friday night. It was the last Friday of the Summer. We had so much. I’m also pretty sure I gave my number out to several people that night, but I had a date for the next night, so I guess it was a success. Saturday afternoon, my friend J and I were headed to the beach when my date called and asked me what time he could pick me up. I told him I would call him, texting wasn’t really a think back then, on our way back from the beach. He proceeded to call me several more times while I was at the beach, asking where I was. He was relentless. “This wasn’t going so well,” I thought. When we arrived back at their apartment, him and his friends were already there waiting. “Seriously?” I’m not sure how many times I told him I would call him on my way back. But what made it worse was they both had started drinking already. There was no way I was getting in that car to go anywhere. I decided I would stay home and skip the party; I was no longer in the mood. My friend A, who is still one of my dearest friends, said, “come with F and I, we’ll take you.”
“No, you don’t have to do that. I’ll just stay home. I don’t want to be the third wheel.” I replied.
“You have two choices, you can join us and meet some more people tonight, or you can stay here and be the third wheel with J and her boyfriend.”
“I’ll finish getting ready now.” I said without hesitation.
We piled in F’s car and headed to the party. It was on the Navy Base, both A and J’s boyfriends were in the Navy as were most of our group of friends. When we got to the house, I remember walking in and seeing some guys in the kitchen funneling beers, saying to A, “I can’t have much to drink tonight, I am still a little queasy from last night.” There were a few familiar faces that I had met the night before, we mingled a little and then headed to the balcony to smoke. A and I spent most of the night out there together, we were the only two women there. One of the guys broke out his guitar and start playing. He was playing “Faith” by Limp Bizkit, everyone was singing along when this guy right behind me, had noticeably messed up the lyrics. I was feeling a little sassy and feisty after a couple of beers, I said, “how does someone not know the words to this song?” He quickly snipped back, “oh and you do?” We began singing loudly together and both messed up the lyrics and laughed. At this point, I still didn’t know who I was talking to, our backs were toward each other. We went about our previous conversations and didn’t really talk again for a while. Knowing he was still there and could hear me, I said to A, “this party is lame, no one is talking to us.” He quickly replied, “well, if you’d stop talking to your girlfriend, maybe someone would.” At that point I had to find out who he was. I turned around and saw S’s face for the first time. “Wow! He’s super cute!”
The party was winding down and F was about to take us back home. While we were saying byes, S was still standing around but never asked me for my name or number. I remember I had just gotten to the car and opened the door to get in, when I saw him at the top of the stairs, he yelled from the “Juliet, I love you,” as he ran down toward me. He reached out, grabbed my hand, and kissed it and then without saying anything else he ran back upstairs to the party. We all stood there completely surprised, “What just happened? Did that really just happen?” When we got in the car, F said, “I think you really made an impression on S.” “What? No, I’ll probably never see him again. He doesn’t even know my name and he didn’t get my number.”
F dropped me off at A’s apartment and I began walking back to the dorm, it was only a few blocks away but it was late and dark, so I called my roommate to have someone on the phone just in case. In the middle of our conversation my phone beeped, I had another call coming in. “Who was calling me now?” When I clicked over, I heard his voice. It was S. “But how did he get my number?” We chatted with until I was just about back, but suddenly he had to go, he began to run and said, “someone is chasing us, I have to go. Can I call you tomorrow though?”
“Uh, sure. I mean if you want to.” I replied.
When I got back to my room, I was beaming, I couldn’t stop smiling. I filled my roommate in on the randomness of the night and the cute guy I had just met, and already couldn’t wait to see again.
xoxo
Letters to You 