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...

SOS - A camping trip

Welcome to Soap Opera Sunday... I'm your host for the month of October. If you're new, the "rules" are here. Link up your story at the end of this post... the more the merrier!


This month's theme for Soap Opera Sunday is Long Distance Relationships.

Last week you learned that Brad came to meet my parents... and it never happened. My grandmother recovered okay from her broken hip, she's still with us today at 92. She could never live alone again and so ended up moving into an assisted living home just 2 blocks from my parents.

But back to the Brad story...

Summer turns into fall. Brad is still in North Carolina and it doesn't really look like his unit will be going to Iraq. They're covering the base while all the other units are over there. He's hopeful that he will be able to get out soon (his 6 year term was already up), but there's no end in sight. He's getting really bored.

Another trip out west is called for!

This time he's coming for over a week. All the leave time he has available.

It's the middle of September and he's supposed to fly in Friday morning so we can meet some of my friends for lunch before heading off to Oregon for a wedding and some sightseeing. Unfortunately there are the remains of a hurricane drifting over the east coast so his flight is delayed. Too many hours to make lunch and we get to Oregon late in the evening.

We're staying with some of my younger college buddies in their dorm rooms, me in a girls room, he in a guys room. My girlfriend is a bit worried when I tell her we're going camping after leaving her. I just brush her off. What other option do we have?

Saturday is my friend's wedding. We get there too early and take a walk in the woods. A little make-out session is had, but it gets a bit too hot and steamy for me. Disturbing?

The wedding is fantastic and in the evening we headed down to Eugene to visit Reser Stadium and the memorial to Prefontaine. Brad is a big runner and Pre is his idol. This is where he lived, trained, and died prematurely. I planned this so he could "walk on hallowed ground".

We ended up camping that night just outside Eugene. Brad had brought along Army MRE's for us. I can now say I've tried one. They're not horrible, but they're not great either. And they have more calories in them than a normal person would eat in 3 days! Lots of carbs and protein.

Then, the two of us, in a tent. The clothes stayed on, but his hands didn't. I'd never done anything more than kiss a boy before this. I didn't quite know what was happening. I didn't know what to do with myself. I finally told him that it was likely I could get pregnant if we didn't stop (because I know my body). He said that's not what he had in mind, but I'm not really sure...

Sunday we ended up back in Seattle and things just started to go downhill. He needed a rental car to do some touring during the week while I was at work. After picking one up we were tired and he was hungry. I wanted to go to bed since I had to work, but he insisted we go out to dinner. We did and fought all the way back.

He left in the morning for 3 nights out on the Olympic Peninsula. No cell service. Me going to work all week, thinking about what happened, and writing him a 5 page letter...


This story has two more weeks in it. I'm not sure who's hosting yet for November, but I'll be here, link or not!

SOS - 4th of July weekend

Welcome to Soap Opera Sunday... I'm your host for the month of October. If you're new, the "rules" are here. Link up your story at the end of this post... the more the merrier!


This month's theme for Soap Opera Sunday is Long Distance Relationships.


Last week you found out about the beginnings of a relationship between Brad and I...

Brad's still in North Carolina with no answers as to when they might ship out to Iraq, or if they even will.

I'm in Seattle, having found a job at a chemical testing company. My roommate has arrived and we set up our place. I finally have furniture!

The fourth of July falls on a Friday this year and Brad decides he's coming out to visit me again. This time we'll be heading over the mountains so he can meet my parents...

The day before he arrives however my mom calls to let me know that my grandmother has fallen and broken her hip. She's in the ICU on the other side of the state. They won't be home to meet Brad.

Mom had just figured out a week or two earlier that we were actually dating. She came to visit me for a cousin's wedding and drug it out of me... maybe this is where I should tell you that I was always afraid to tell my parents about any new boys in my life. They once told me that I could date "over their dead bodies" and I think that scared (scarred?) me for life. So I was a bit hesitant to tell them...

Anyways, Brad flies in on the 4th and we (my roommate, her boyfriend, his brother, and I) pick him up and head to Gasworks Park to watch the show over Lake Union. We got there early to get a good seat and were "blessed" to watch the Ivar's Clam boat go by, as well as be mooned by a bunch of guys on a fancy yacht!

The show was fantastic, but it takes us over an hour just to get back to the freeway. And we're supposed to drive to my parent's house that evening. Brad is wiped since he got up early on east coast time to fly out. So I end up driving while he sleeps, stopping at the top of the pass to fill up my radiator since it was mostly dead (due to a blowout earlier in the summer).

My roommate and her boyfriend decided to come as well - so we'd have some chaperonage since my parents would be there, but they didn't come until the next day. No worries, it was well past the middle of the night when we got in anyway!

Saturday we went to play in the river. This is my hometown river, but of course I fall off a rock and manage to slice open the bottom of my foot on a piece of glass. One trip to the ER (in a bathing suit) later I have 5 or 6 stitches in the bottom of my foot.

Good thing I had a boyfriend to carry me around the rest of the weekend!

Oh, and he finally kissed me...

He said he didn't want to rush it, but I was pretty desperate for a kiss. A little needy in the love = touch department over here I think.

He said I was a good kisser and so we got in lots of practice...

Unfortunately he had to fly out on Monday morning and I was left to hobble myself in to work...

SOS - A Visit to Seattle

Sorry for not having Mr. Linky up with my post! He's there now.

Welcome to Soap Opera Sunday... I'm your host for the month of October. If you're new, the "rules" are here. Link up your story at the end of this post... the more the merrier!


This month's theme for Soap Opera Sunday is Long Distance Relationships.


Last week you found out about Brad, my friend what was about to be shipped off to Iraq shortly after the invasion...

Well, Brad and his unit sit in North Carolina for weeks waiting for their desert uniforms. In the meantime he's trying to finish up his semester course work long distance so he can at least get his diploma.

Finally it seems that they may not be shipped out any time soon and Brad starts to wonder if he can get out. His National Guard term was for 6 years and he was supposed to be done sometime that summer. Of course this was extended indefinitely due to the invasion.

The first of May rolls around and I graduate from college and move to Seattle. I have a roommate from college moving in, but not for a month. I have no job (I'm looking) and don't really know anyone in Seattle. I'm LONELY!

Brad is in North Carolina. He has some light duties and training during the day, but he's bored.

My parents set me up with a cell phone for graduation (mostly to keep tabs on me I'm sure!) and of course the first thing I do is call Brad. Only I didn't know that I didn't have a national plan! So after a week I figure out that I'm going to have a HUGE bill and be in trouble. But I call the company and actually manage to talk my way out of the charges by signing up for that national plan.

So, basically I start talking to Brad nightly. We talk for hours, about anything and nothing. He makes me laugh. When it's before 9pm my time he calls on my house phone. When his battery dies, we stop talking.

He decides that he's going to use his leave time and come visit me since he's never been to the west coast. So for Memorial Day weekend he flies out to see me. He has to stay in a hotel since I'm living alone, but that's okay since we're just friends, right. Right?

I take him up to Mt. Rainier where we have a snowball fight. I take him to the top of the Space Needle to see the view. I take him out to see the ocean. We sit on the jetty and he starts playing with my hair... and then my hands.

Pretty soon we're holding hands. And we do so for the entire 3 hour drive back to my place. I guess this is a relationship?

He flies out the next day...

SOS - A wartime story

Welcome to Soap Opera Sunday... I'll be your host for the month of October. If you're new, the "rules" are here. Link up your story at the end of this post... the more the merrier!


This month's theme for Soap Opera Sunday is Long Distance Relationships.

I'm going to skip ahead in my Saga of Boys to one of my very last boyfriends...

When I was in college I spent two summers working in a national park with a ministry team. The second summer I was there I met a boy named Brad. At that time I had a boyfriend from college so we were just friends. We had a few things in common and we got along pretty well. He was goofy and made me laugh.

At the end of the summer I went back to college for my senior year. I ended my relationship with my boyfriend for personal reasons (but that will be another saga) and a few weeks later started communicating with Brad over the internet.

He was half the country away, going through his senior year, and DJing for his college radio station, which I could listen to on my computer. At one point he dedicated a song to me, his buddy from the summer.

Fast forward to the end of February (it's the year 2003). The US is getting ready to invade Iraq and Brad is in the National Guard reserves. His unit gets called up and he is getting ready to head out for some training in North Carolina (even farther away from me) before they are deployed.

I go to a production of A Piece of My Heart at school. It's a very powerful play about women in Vietnam in various roles (nurse, candy striper, and GSO performer girl being the ones that I remember). I come out of there just devastated.

It's almost 11pm my time and he's 2 hours later, but I call him anyway, just sobbing because I'm so afraid for him and what will happen. He calms me down and I eventually go to sleep, but I don't get over this feeling.

I believe this was the first time we talked on the phone and after that we start having weekly conversations.

Shortly thereafter Brad is shipped off to North Carolina where he's told their departure is imminent, as soon as they're issued their desert uniforms. Basically he's on pins and needles knowing they could be deployed with only a day or two's notice.

I remember that we had a little craft project we were doing one evening, weaving Easter baskets* for some local children. During the middle of the evening someone walked in and told us that we had just invaded Iraq. My heart dropped because I knew it was just a matter of time before he would be shipped over there. This is one of those moments I will remember forever...


*underwater basket weaving anyone? :)

SOS - The Story of Dan

For the intro to this story go here (or just scroll down).

After I inserted my foot in my mouth and pretty much let Dan know that I was interested in him I tried to back off.

Somewhere along the line I found out that his "nickname" was Mickey. I think he may have actually told me this himself. So being the cool junior high girl that I was I called him on Christmas Day. Only when I called I asked for Mickey. And then I said "Merry Christmas" and hung up.

He never asked if it was me so I have no idea if he ever figured it out...

Towards the end of that year I convinced one of my girlfriends to ask him out for me. She was sweet, and super intelligent, and was "one of the guys" so I figured she was a good one to ask him.

So when our class went to the library she went up to him and asked if he would go out with me. He said no, there's someone else I have in mind. When she asked who? he said "you".

That pretty much showed where his affections lay and after that I never tried to be anything remotely resembling romantic with him again. It seemed he was way out of my league anyway. He was a good basketball player and a decent football player. I think his spring sport was golf. But he hung out with the "cool" crowd of which I was decidedly not a part. (I was one of those "runners" if finishing dead last in ever cross country meet can be called "running"! But I did it for 4 years...)

We continued to be acquaintances through high school (not hard to do in a school where your class is less than 100), but I don't think we ever had any classes together.

I saw him a couple years later and he was attending a police academy, but the school had some issues so he never finished.

This year was my 10 year high school reunion and I was so hoping he would show up. He didn't, although a good friend of his told me he was supposed to be there.

I did a little internet searching (the unusual name makes it pretty easy) and found a few simple references to him so I know he's still in the state, actually following in his father's footsteps and has a good job that I'm sure he enjoys.

His friend told me he has a little boy although he didn't mention a wife/girl so I half wonder if he was ashamed to come to our reunion because of where he's at in life. Sad.

I guess you might say I've carried a torch for him all these years and I was hoping to get a chance to talk to him once more...

This post is part of Soap Opera Sunday hosted by The Extraordinary Ordinary.

SOS - The Saga of Boys

I have decided that it might be a worthwhile endeavor to chronicle my life in relation to boys. Thus begins a Soap Opera Saga that might go on indefinitely. I hope you'll join me...

When I was in the 7th grade we moved. From one small town to one slightly larger small town. We moved on Friday the 13th of November, 1992. An auspicious day to move I think, but it turned out to be a good thing in the long run.

Before this move I had no serious contact with boys. Oh, sure, there were only 2 of us in my age Sunday School class at church and the other one is a boy, but he was just a boy, and rarely even a friend.

But when we moved a whole new world of boys appeared. Boys I hadn't grown up with and known since the 2nd grade (when I switched from home school to public school). Boys who didn't live in quite as much of a backwards hick town as the one we came from!

Being the new girl part way through a school year in a small town during the middle school years... not so fun. Especially when at your old school big hair was ALL the rage and at your new school everyone has their hair pulled back flat in a clip. I bought some clips real fast!

There were a few people who were pretty cool to me as the new girl, one of them being a guy named Dan*. He was nice and I thought he was pretty cute - for a guy with color tinting glasses in the early 90's! He had also recently been dumped by a girl because he came back from hunting with dried deer blood under his fingernails. Oh the drama of middle school romance! (my dad was a hunter so it didn't bother me)

One night he called me up and asked if I wanted to come to the high school basketball game with him. I, being completely clueless, simply blurted out that I wasn't allowed to date yet. He, awkwardly, informed me that it was just a group of friends going. Blew it!

Of course my mother had overheard from the other room and wanted to know who I was talking to. Interrogation!

I have a feeling that this one instance colored the way he saw me for years to come...


*Most of the time I will simply use real names in stories of the past. You'll understand why later :) However this guy's name is so unique and uncommon that I have used a different name for him.

This post submitted for Soap Opera Sunday hosted by The Extraordinary Ordinary.

SOS - Can I Die Now?

Don't worry, I'm not getting all suicidal on you. This is a Soap Opera Sunday post...

High school was not a real fun time for me. Honestly I have no idea why, but I wasn't popular and I was probably too smart for my own good. I think somewhere along the way I started being less outgoing because it was just less painful that way. (unfortunately, yes, it still seems people act that way)

This story takes place during my sophomore year...

The church I went to was roughly affiliated with a Boys Ranch. A Christian place for boys who had for one reason or another been separated from their families and were supposed to be getting their lives back together. (yeah, one of my best friends is married to one of these guys and we won't even say how crazy I think he is - makes my blood boil thinking about - but that's a story for another day)

These boys all lived in family groups with group parents who rotated out every week. So every week they showed up at the parents' church, which on odd weeks happened to be mine.

This is how I became acquainted with Ryan.

Ryan had a huge crush on me.

Ryan also had no people skills and very little common sense. He would say whatever came to mind with no thought to the consequences. He was a self-proclaimed "Jesus Freak" who went around telling people that he had slept with girls and all sorts of other things that fell under the category of TMI.

Let's just say that every Sunday Ryan was going to be at my church I would try my hardest to wedge myself into a pew with a group of friends so that there was absolutely no room left over... otherwise I'd be sitting by Ryan. This is not to say that sometimes he didn't try to sit by me even when I was already touching thighs with the people on either side of me!

Ryan was also in my sophomore history class. With my track coach as the teacher. Track coaches, I have learned, are sometimes not the greatest teachers. This teacher, on occasion, didn't really want to conduct class. He had a school photo of himself that he had cut out the head and thumb tacked to the end of a pencil. He called it Slappy. He would also sometimes make the filmstrips "jump" or "ride" across the screen for better effects on still pictures. He was that great of a teacher... (he was also proud of the fact that he got his hair cut with a FlowBee!)

But I'm getting off track. (ha, I crack myself up, I'm so witty!)

So one day "everyone" in class decided that they didn't really want to have history class and were going to try to get the teacher off track. He was pretty agreeable to the situation and so we tried to ask him all the random questions about himself we could. But there is a limit to what you will ask and what a teacher will tell you about himself (at least he had limits...)

He said, "Well, I guess we'll just have to go back to history". Everyone protested and someone came up with the 'great idea" of asking one of the students questions about himself.

And who did they pick?

You guessed it.

Ryan.

Ryan gets to sit up in front, on the teacher's stool behind the podium. He is thrilled (almost) beyond words that his fellow classmates want to interview him.

(A little side note here. I believe it's roughly October and by this point in the school year Ryan has asked literally every girl in the school if they will go to Homecoming with him. He doesn't have a date.)

So by this time in history class I am most likely halfway immersed in whatever book I'm reading. (I am a bookworm to end all and routinely read a book a day while in high school - maybe that's why I wasn't so popular?)

However, I instantly snap to attention when someone asks him, "If you could go out with any girl in the school, who would it be?"

I know, before he even opens his mouth, that he is going to say my name. And I wished with all my might that a hole would magically appear under my desk so I could disappear.

Unfortunately that did not happen, he looked right at me with this sappy grin, and said my name.

Cue all heads in the classroom swiveling in my direction and snickers emanating from all the "cool" boys.

I wanted to die!

Shall we say, I didn't live that one down for quite awhile?

For more drama you can go to The Extraordinary Ordinary and read other people's Soap Operas.

The 5th Wheel

It's fair time around here, but I won't be going this year (we're sick). I have always loved going to the county fair. We had a pretty decent one up until a few years ago when people decided to quit entering stuff...

But this story takes place when I was somewhere between 19 and 21. I was single. Two of my good girlfriends from high school were respectively married, and either married or in a serious relationship (which depends on if I was 19 or 21!).

We all decided it would be fun to go to the fair. I was so hyped up about this that I neglected to realize that I would be...

The 5th wheel.

That's right, I didn't think to invite another girlfriend, or even a guy friend (of which I had many, thanks to our imbalanced youth group).

It was all fun and games through the eating and the walking in the animal barns, until we got to the carnival section.

Anyone ever been to the fair/carnival? Those rides are designed for 2.

Guess where that left me?

Alone.

And then it was getting dark (and romantic, in a carnival atmosphere-ish way) and so the two couples were strolling along holding hands while I was left to bring up the rear.

I trailed a few feet behind and made a solemn vow that I would never go to the fair by myself with couples again.

And that I would do my best to never put any of my friends in this position.

Lessons can be learned from painful situations! ;)

This post written for Soap Opera Sunday hosted by The Extraordinary Ordinary.