Where have I been? Working for the most part. As you know (well, those few who read this), I arrived in Mesquite, Texas on April 7. Mama stayed until April 9th and then I was on my own. I didn't have any furniture so I puttered around and napped and went to work on Thursday, totally confused about what day it was. Two days of work and then hit the weekend.
Not having much in the way of furniture (an air mattress and a patio set that I kept inside until I got the rest of my stuff), I got bored and decided I'd walk to the bar and have a few drinks, eat some, and knit. I looked like hell with my hair in a bun, my broke ass glasses on my face, no bun, shitty outfit. But I was content to sit there and chill and knit. Just before I was getting ready to leave, a guy sat down next to me and asked me what I was knitting. I acknowledged that it was a scarf and that that is the only thing I can do and we got to talking a bit. I'd had a few and was a bit tipsy so I don't remember the whole conversation (well, I was nervous too, so that doesn't help). What I do remember is asking him, half way through "so, are you going to ask me for my number?" That sounds confrontational but I just wanted to get it out of the way. He said yes and so I gave it to him. The last thing I said to him that night was "So look, I'm drunk, so I have to go." He was taken aback but very nice and asked if I needed help. But I wasn't plastered or anything, just tipsy enough to know it was time to go. So home I went.
The next day I was doing laundry when I saw that he'd called... 41 minutes earlier. So I texted him just saying "I didn't ignore you, I just didn't see that you called till now." He called me pretty much right away and we chatted, his saying "so you made it home OK?" and my explaining about not having been too drunk but not wanting to be "that girl" etc. He asked me to dinner that night. We hung out every night that week actually.
So what is he like? He's an inch shorter than me and quite thin. Oddly enough, this doesn't actually bother me. He's 37, a software engineer or developer or programmer or all three, and he's really enthusiastic. On our first date I remember telling him "you are really enthusiastic; usually that bothers me but for some reason, it doesn't with you." He very sweetly said things like "but you know you're pretty, right?" We quickly moved on from that topic.
He never went to college but taught himself to be a programmer and makes more money than most people I know and is also smarter than most. He served as a Marine for four years. He is scared of/doesn't like flying. His first ever flight was from Dallas to San Diego for boot camp. That was fine. His second flight was the first leg of his way home, from San Diego to Colorado. The plane almost crashed because whilst they were trying to land, another plane hadn't finished their take off so if the pilot hadn't pulled back up, they would have t-boned the other flight. He told me it was terrifying and just what you see in the movies, people screaming, crying, praying, the over head bins opening up and luggage coming out, the drinks trolley rolling down the aisle. They were going straight down and then went straight up, circled, and then started to descend again. He said you could hear a pin drop and that when the landed safely, people clapped. Then he had to get on a second flight to get back to Dallas. Who can blame him for not liking to fly? Now imagine that he had to fly to various places such as Croatia, Spain, and Japan during his time in the Core.
He's had a very interesting life and grew up in the country. I know how that sounds and I didn't get it at first either. Let's just say that one year he got a horse that he had to saddle break and that one year he was on the rodeo team in high school so once rode a bull. Yeah, country. His accent is adorable*.
Oh, and he was divorced in 2009. And he has three kids. His first kid is 17 and was born back in the day because he got a girl pregnant before going into the Marines. The other two are soon to be 11 and 4 and are the product of his failed marriage. He's a fantastic father, very involved in his kids lives, very concerned about their feelings and their future. When we first started dating he told me that he planned to eventually go for full custody. He had a plan to save money for x number of years so he could pay cash for one half of a house and have a lower mortgage. He helped find his daughter a ballet class and he was seeing her every Thursday for that and every other weekend with both of the little ones. Those Sundays were hard because he had to take them back to their mother and he missed them.
Then his ex said she was going to move to the East coast and take the kids. He said "fuck that" and immediately hired a lawyer. Long story short, the judge signed the papers on Monday (the ex signed away her rights the previous Friday) and so he now has full custody. This is his weekend with them and he is moving into the old family home Monday (his ex is moving to North Carolina the same day).
I'm really happy for him and for the kids. From what I understand, the mother, whilst not a bad person, is far more concerned with her own wants and feelings than her children. They need to be with him and he will be a great full time dad. I know he is happy as well. I'm also proud of him for taking action right away and not giving a shit about the money or stress or anything, just doing whatever it took to get his kids. When I left him this morning I told him I'd miss him. When I got to work I texted to wish him luck with the move and to congratulate him again because he worked hard for this and this is right. I'm happy for him.
So I feel a right shit for being sad for me. I'm not even that sad, just that weird sort of selfish feeling because I don't know when I'll see him again. We didn't hang out every day other than that first week so it isn't like I'm going from all to nothing, but I don't know when I'll see him next. I'm not going to meet his kids for some time, both because of how he feels and how I feel. He has a long road ahead of him and if he told me in two weeks he wanted me to meet them, I'd tell him no because it's too early.
I've never dated a guy with kids before never mind a full time dad. But I like him a lot and I'm going to do what I can to see where this goes because I want it to work. So I can't see him on any regular schedule, that's fine. If we can make it work we can make it work. In the mean time, I have a ton of shit to study for my job so that I can start feeling a bit less stupid.
But that is basically where I've been, working and hanging out with my boyfriend, Murdoch**. Wish me luck.
*One thing I love about living in Texas is that I am the one with the accent! I say "parents", "marriage", and "embarrassed" oddly, apparently. I don't say "go ahead", I say "g'head". It's fun being the one with an accent for a change!
**Boyfriend was adopted at the age of six and his adopted parents let him pick his name. His first choice was Murdoch because that was his favorite character from the A-Team. They nixed it so he settled on something else but it gives me a lazy moniker :)
Not having much in the way of furniture (an air mattress and a patio set that I kept inside until I got the rest of my stuff), I got bored and decided I'd walk to the bar and have a few drinks, eat some, and knit. I looked like hell with my hair in a bun, my broke ass glasses on my face, no bun, shitty outfit. But I was content to sit there and chill and knit. Just before I was getting ready to leave, a guy sat down next to me and asked me what I was knitting. I acknowledged that it was a scarf and that that is the only thing I can do and we got to talking a bit. I'd had a few and was a bit tipsy so I don't remember the whole conversation (well, I was nervous too, so that doesn't help). What I do remember is asking him, half way through "so, are you going to ask me for my number?" That sounds confrontational but I just wanted to get it out of the way. He said yes and so I gave it to him. The last thing I said to him that night was "So look, I'm drunk, so I have to go." He was taken aback but very nice and asked if I needed help. But I wasn't plastered or anything, just tipsy enough to know it was time to go. So home I went.
The next day I was doing laundry when I saw that he'd called... 41 minutes earlier. So I texted him just saying "I didn't ignore you, I just didn't see that you called till now." He called me pretty much right away and we chatted, his saying "so you made it home OK?" and my explaining about not having been too drunk but not wanting to be "that girl" etc. He asked me to dinner that night. We hung out every night that week actually.
So what is he like? He's an inch shorter than me and quite thin. Oddly enough, this doesn't actually bother me. He's 37, a software engineer or developer or programmer or all three, and he's really enthusiastic. On our first date I remember telling him "you are really enthusiastic; usually that bothers me but for some reason, it doesn't with you." He very sweetly said things like "but you know you're pretty, right?" We quickly moved on from that topic.
He never went to college but taught himself to be a programmer and makes more money than most people I know and is also smarter than most. He served as a Marine for four years. He is scared of/doesn't like flying. His first ever flight was from Dallas to San Diego for boot camp. That was fine. His second flight was the first leg of his way home, from San Diego to Colorado. The plane almost crashed because whilst they were trying to land, another plane hadn't finished their take off so if the pilot hadn't pulled back up, they would have t-boned the other flight. He told me it was terrifying and just what you see in the movies, people screaming, crying, praying, the over head bins opening up and luggage coming out, the drinks trolley rolling down the aisle. They were going straight down and then went straight up, circled, and then started to descend again. He said you could hear a pin drop and that when the landed safely, people clapped. Then he had to get on a second flight to get back to Dallas. Who can blame him for not liking to fly? Now imagine that he had to fly to various places such as Croatia, Spain, and Japan during his time in the Core.
He's had a very interesting life and grew up in the country. I know how that sounds and I didn't get it at first either. Let's just say that one year he got a horse that he had to saddle break and that one year he was on the rodeo team in high school so once rode a bull. Yeah, country. His accent is adorable*.
Oh, and he was divorced in 2009. And he has three kids. His first kid is 17 and was born back in the day because he got a girl pregnant before going into the Marines. The other two are soon to be 11 and 4 and are the product of his failed marriage. He's a fantastic father, very involved in his kids lives, very concerned about their feelings and their future. When we first started dating he told me that he planned to eventually go for full custody. He had a plan to save money for x number of years so he could pay cash for one half of a house and have a lower mortgage. He helped find his daughter a ballet class and he was seeing her every Thursday for that and every other weekend with both of the little ones. Those Sundays were hard because he had to take them back to their mother and he missed them.
Then his ex said she was going to move to the East coast and take the kids. He said "fuck that" and immediately hired a lawyer. Long story short, the judge signed the papers on Monday (the ex signed away her rights the previous Friday) and so he now has full custody. This is his weekend with them and he is moving into the old family home Monday (his ex is moving to North Carolina the same day).
I'm really happy for him and for the kids. From what I understand, the mother, whilst not a bad person, is far more concerned with her own wants and feelings than her children. They need to be with him and he will be a great full time dad. I know he is happy as well. I'm also proud of him for taking action right away and not giving a shit about the money or stress or anything, just doing whatever it took to get his kids. When I left him this morning I told him I'd miss him. When I got to work I texted to wish him luck with the move and to congratulate him again because he worked hard for this and this is right. I'm happy for him.
So I feel a right shit for being sad for me. I'm not even that sad, just that weird sort of selfish feeling because I don't know when I'll see him again. We didn't hang out every day other than that first week so it isn't like I'm going from all to nothing, but I don't know when I'll see him next. I'm not going to meet his kids for some time, both because of how he feels and how I feel. He has a long road ahead of him and if he told me in two weeks he wanted me to meet them, I'd tell him no because it's too early.
I've never dated a guy with kids before never mind a full time dad. But I like him a lot and I'm going to do what I can to see where this goes because I want it to work. So I can't see him on any regular schedule, that's fine. If we can make it work we can make it work. In the mean time, I have a ton of shit to study for my job so that I can start feeling a bit less stupid.
But that is basically where I've been, working and hanging out with my boyfriend, Murdoch**. Wish me luck.
*One thing I love about living in Texas is that I am the one with the accent! I say "parents", "marriage", and "embarrassed" oddly, apparently. I don't say "go ahead", I say "g'head". It's fun being the one with an accent for a change!
**Boyfriend was adopted at the age of six and his adopted parents let him pick his name. His first choice was Murdoch because that was his favorite character from the A-Team. They nixed it so he settled on something else but it gives me a lazy moniker :)
No comments:
Post a Comment