SOS - The End of Brad

Last week the end of Brad's third trip to Seattle ended rather badly. It's not quite the end of September...

Our phone calls are still going strong. An average of an hour every night. Mundane things we do with our days. He's trying to "be a better Christian" and get motivated to find a church. His roommate (a Mormon) is encouraging him.

Come November he gets to go on a special ops training for two weeks. Out in the woods, survival games or something like that. Obviously no contact.

I don't know what to do with myself. I actually talk to my roommate in the evenings.

When he gets back he has a million things to tell me. He met this really cool guy. He's so excited he had someone to talk to. He has some motivation.

And as soon as it starts it fizzles. He's depressed with being stuck in North Carolina indefinitely. He stops calling me every night.

December is my birthday. He forgets. I get nothing and get mad. He sends me a bear that he ordered from a florist. Late. Very late.

I decide he should get a lump of coal anonymously. My dad sends it to my uncle who sends it from Michigan. I send him a real Christmas present.

I have to spend Christmas day with my great aunt in Seattle since I couldn't get time off to go on our annual skiing vacation to Idaho. He calls me there. He's not impressed by the coal. My present hasn't arrived yet.

I never do get a Christmas present from him.

The first week in January he gets discharged from the Army. His dad drives out to help him move back to the mid-west. I hear from him maybe twice a week.

He gets back to his college town and eventually calls to tell me, "he'd like to back things off for a bit. he wants to keep his options open."

When I talk to him a few weeks later I'm done. I tell him I'm sick of being his safety net. I'm not his convenient go-to girl when no one else is around. I won't be there for him to come crawling back to.

In May, as I'm getting ready to go to grad school, I hear from a mutual friend. He's engaged. A girl he met in a book store after returning from North Carolina. They got married that summer, less than 6 months after meeting.

***

Later that summer I got a one line email asking what I knew about 2 small-ish towns in Washington. He was applying to be a youth pastor. I couldn't help but laugh (and ignore the email). Ironic, no?

I didn't bother following up, but now some years later, with the wonders of Google I discovered that he did move to Washington and live in one of those towns for a time. He's back in the mid-west now. I wonder what happened. But I don't really care enough to find out.

SOS - A trip gone sour

Last week we started Brad's third trip out to visit me. It's not going well.

He came back from the Olympic Peninsula on Thursday night and got his own hotel room. I played hooky and called in "sick" for work on Friday. I wanted a day to really show him Seattle, and hopefully end the trip on a good note.

So we headed to downtown. From where we parked the car we went to the Nike store and a few others. Then Brad had a running store that he really wanted to go to. But it was on top of Capitol Hill. He said we should walk... by the time we got there I was NOT a happy camper. I sat in a chair and sulked/dozed while he investigated every last nook and cranny of the store.

Finally he was done and at least the walk back was downhill...

We went to get some dinner at Ivar's. The real indoor restaurant on the pier. It was fun. He made me try fried calamari and I have to admit it wasn't sooo bad... but I wouldn't order it on my own. My dinner had lots of cheese so was a bit greasy, but overall it was a good meal... until his credit card was declined. And then his second card was declined.

Turns out he had maxed out both his cards with the trip, the rental car, the hotel rooms... so I ended up paying for our dinner.

We ended up back at his hotel to chill out for awhile. I handed him the letter I wrote while he was gone. He read it and pretty much didn't say anything. I wanted some explanations for what was going on. I was telling him what I felt. I got nothing.

Then dinner started to catch up with my stomach. I did not feel like going anywhere (and I really wanted to be with him before he left again) so I stayed all night. Of course it's awfully hard to do anything when you're almost on the point of puking...

However in the morning, that make-out session turned into him trying to force me to pleasure him. (call me naive), but at the time I had no idea that's what he was doing. I refused and he got ready to go.

After returning the rental car and dropping him at the airport (with the briefest of goodbye's) he called to let me know he'd left his cell phone charger in the rental car. Now it was my responsibility to go get it and mail it to him.

Oh, and when I got home, my roommate was about to call the cops on me... she was that worried.

Not the greatest of trips. I think this is where it started to go sour (I know you're all going, really?). I didn't know what to do with the physical part of us.

Tune in next week for the resolution...