The Story of Us-Part I
Every blogger that is part of a duo tells the story of how they first met. Some are fun. Some are beautiful. Some are kinda smokin' hot! Mine is pretty redneck.
Well, here goes. I'm going to share with everyone about the night I met my beloved. My Southern Born and Bred hunk o' manliness.
My life was upside down. I was in the middle of a ridiculous custody dispute with my ex husband. It was bad. Really bad. I had to move back in with MY PARENTS! I had to find a job to support Jacob and I, while paying for two lawyers. A mess? Yeah, to say the least. (Ladies, NEVER marry and divorce a man who won't work, smokes weed, plays video games, and has a doctor for a father. All that play money leads to hiring lawyers every time you breathe in an offending manner.)
My wonderful friend Jen, and her mom had gotten me on at The Palace. This was a bingo hall on the reservation. (Now its a big casino.) I had gone from Mommy/College Student, to Mommy/Bingo Floor Clerk. That made me the girl who passes out the game sheets, collects the money, and calls out the winners. (Or the occasional invalid bingo.) It was exciting. The place was crazy smoky, even with a state of the art air filtration system. But it kept me running all night, and occupied my terrified mind.
Not only was the place fun to work, it was like a soap opera. Everyone was sleeping together, getting caught, having babies. Not exactly the pinnacle of morality. I found myself starting to get caught up in some stuff that was so not classy.
With lawyers breathing down my neck, I decided I needed to do everything I could to live as squeaky clean as a rubber ducky. (Hey, I lived like a saint compared to my drug addled, sociopath ex.)
Many nights after work a group of girls would head out to the local bar to have drinks. They asked me to go with them for months. No way. Uh uh. I was not going to be seen at a bar. (I was convinced my ex had hired a detective to watch my every move. I was wrong. I think.)
One night, I decided, "What the heck..." and I went with them. We walked into the rinky dink dive. I headed toward the bar and was immediately shouted at by some guy.
"Damn, you're tall!"
Eye roll. What a shmuck. I carried on getting some beers while he tried to talk to me. He was really drunk. Really. He went back to his table and stared at me.
My friend Rebecca (where is she???) asked who that guy was. I grumbled that I didn't know.
"He's CUTE!" Really? I took a second glance. Hmmm...really drunk, kinda cute, probably harmless.
We got our beers, and headed outside so she could smoke. As we passed his table, I gently poked him in the back. After that he was on me like white on rice. He begged me to come home with him, asked me to marry him, gave me his wallet, and his ring. Yikes!
I talked to him, asked him his name, what he did for a living, where he was from. His name was Jon, he was in the Navy, he was from Alabama originally. I told him I didn't notice an accent. At all. He looked at me funny. He asked how old I thought he was. I looked at his hairline and said "30?".
"I'm 23."
Oops.
He told me he was leaving in the morning. To which I responded "Oh, the old, I'm shipping out tomorrow line! Ha! That's a new one!"
Then he said something that made me admire him. He said that he was going to San Diego to get help for his drinking. It had become a problem.
Now, let me make this really clear. I had never dealt with alcoholism before. I had no clue what the guy, (or later I) was in for. At that moment all I saw was a guy, who was doing what my ex would not. Admitting the problem and taking steps to deal with it. So pardon my being so terribly naive when all it took for me to take a shine to this drunk sailor was him sharing that with me. My heart softened.
The conversation turned kinda silly, to running off and getting married. Then he looked at me in all seriousness and said " I could see myself working really hard to make you happy."
Two o' clock came much too fast. The bar began kicking us all out. He and I were the last ones outside in the smoking area. Not smoking. He scribbled his phone number down. (I mean scribbled.) He told me to keep his ring, he kissed me and we went our separate ways.
For two days, I looked at the phone number and the ring. This was nuts. Completely nuts. All I could think of were his big blue green eyes. When I pictured him in my mind I saw eyes. Just eyes.
I even went back with the girls the next night to catch the guy in a lie. I figured he'd be back at the bar hitting on some other tall blond. He wasn't.
Monday morning I called the phone number and spoke to his room mate. I told him that he had given me the ring, and I wanted to return it. (I figured he was already gone at that point and maybe could just drop it off. Then I would be done with the whole mess.) His room mate told me that Jon was actually leaving later that afternoon and he would have him call me back. If I wanted him to.
Of course I did. I left my phone number, and waited. Waited. Waited. Finally he called. And after a few brief lines of conversation, I realized, he didn't remember much of anything. Not even that magical first kiss. Awkward!!!
He asked if he had told me where he was going. I said he had. We talked naturally and easily for about twenty minutes. Talk about a completely different person. The hook was set. I wanted more. But he was headed off for a month. Bummer. He gave me his email and told me he would like to chat online whenever we could.
We did. For that whole month. I was so open and honest with him about everything. He was supportive and caring no matter what fears I had. I could run anything by him and he would just listen, or talk me through it.
I knew. This guy was different.
I couldn't wait for him to get home....
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