Rewind

I'd had it. After several dates, a few sexcapades, and no real relationship since Anthony (if that's what that situation could be called), I was tired of dead-end, meaningless tirades. I was working on my second year in Oklahoma, and the closest I'd come to even remotely having something serious was "Kirt" who was looking for a substitute mother for his 3 kids but didn't want to invest the time nor energy into getting a relationship off the ground. Yeah, I didn't mention him, did I? Probably because that situation lasted all of a heart-beat in time, and wasn't even worth mentioning. But I can give you the briefing just so you know that I did actually try to have something meaningful.

During my times in MacTown, after my "relationship" with Anthony, my 1 night stand with Job, and before I met James, there was Kirt. I've mentioned MacTown's small population, so there was no Starbucks there. I practically bleed caramel and soy green tea frappaccinos, and the closest place to feed my habit was the big city of "Where It's At" (what I'll call it). It was about an hour and a half away from MacTown, and I'd drive up there bi-weekly just to get my nails done, do some shopping, hit up Starbucks, and see some real civilization. During one such trip, I was at Starbucks sitting on the patio, enjoying a caramel frappaccino, reading a book, and enjoying the nice weather. There was some construction going on in the building connected to Starbucks (it was in a shopping center) so there were a few construction workers constantly going in and out of the building. At one point, a tall, slender guy walked out to go to his work truck. I don't know what made me glance up at that particular time, but I did, we exchanged looks and brief smiles. My first impression was "wow, he's cute", but didn't really look like my type. I guess because he was slimmer than I was accustomed to, so there was no second thoughts. I sat on the patio for close to 2 hours (the book was really good, and I wanted to finish it), and Kirt passed by several more times. When I'd finished my frappaccino, and was wrapping up my reading to get ready to leave and head back to MacTown, he stopped by the rail that separated Starbuck's patio from the parking lot. I looked up, and immediately noticed that he was alot cuter than I originally realized. He gave me a crooked smile, leaned on the rail, and without an introduction of any kind, immediately asked "do you date white boys?". I was in no way prepared for this exchange, but, since I try not to let them see me sweat, I immediately put on my sultry, bat-my-eyes-at-him look and answered "yes, I do. Why do you ask?". Without another word, he reached into his work apron, tore off a sheet of scrap paper, and wrote his name and number down. He handed it to me, and said "call anytime", and walked back in the building. Just like that. I sat there stunned for a bit by what had just happened in that 2 minutes of time, but glanced at the paper, stuck it in my purse, and left.

I was smiling the whole time I was driving out. I'd never had a guy approach me out of the blue and just give me his number like that, so it was a bit exciting. Like I said, it was about an hour-and-a-half's drive home, so I contemplated when I should call him. I even solicited outside help on that question from my closest cousin who told me I should wait a few days, but, "waiting" wasn't necessarily a word in my vocabulary. When I arrived home, I took his number out of my purse and sat it on my nightstand, trying to figure out what would be a good time to call, after all, he did say call anytime. Around 8:30 that night, I figured he was home from work, and was hopefully settled in enough to where he could talk. I didn't want to call too late and catch him sleep.

I dialed his number, half way expecting him not to answer, and was mentally going over what type of message to leave him.
"Hi. This is R, the girl from Starbucks, and I was just giving you a call. My number is (xyz). Call me when you get a chance."
That sounded ok. But at about the third ring, he answered. I stammered out a "hello", and when he laughed, I felt at ease.

We spent the next 2 weeks conversing, and getting to know each other. I found out he was a single father, raising 3 kids on his own (with the help of his mom and his aunt), because his wife (their mother) had run off and abandoned them a few years previous for drugs and another guy. They hadn't heard from her in almost 8 months. I felt bad for his situation, but debated if I wanted to take on 3 kids at one time, being that I don't have any. And I had to look at the fact that even though his wife was gone, he was still legally married, and that still sort of made him off limits to me (to each his own on their thoughts about that). I eventually settled into the thought that it may not be as bad as I thought, after all, he had to be a good guy to accept that sort of responsibility, so I could only think he would probably make a good boyfriend, and possibly a good spouse, if the road led that way. Being that I know I have a tendency to get attached to children, though, I told him that unless he saw something potentially long term between us, I didn't want to meet his kids. He agreed, and said he doesn't introduce his children to a woman unless that's in the works. We agreed that my next trip to Where It's At would be an overnight trip for us to spend time together.

A couple of weeks later when I arrived at his house, I immediately knew the 3 kids that ran out to greet me were his. I groaned, because I thought we'd established an agreement on that, and here I am looking at an 8 yr old girl, a 6 yr old girl, and a 4 yr old boy wildly waiving at me and running around their yard. He walked out of the house just as I was turning my truck off and innocently smiled as he walked to my door to open it for me. I got out, gave him a hug, but jumped right to the case at hand:

Me: Hey, you. I thought you were sending the kids to your mom's for the night?
Him: Yeah, they're going. She lives right over there (pointing to a house about 150 yards away)
They wanted to meet you first, so I figured you wouldn't mind.
(great, he's assuming these things)

I made light of the situation, and started talking to the children. I knew I could get attached to them really quick, because his 6 yr old voluntarily gave me the biggest hug her little arms could muster, before he called to them and sent them to their grandmother's.

I'm not going to spend any more time on Kirt and his kids. That whole courtship lasted less than 2 months. I'd met his mother, his aunt, his aunt's husband, and spent more time with him and his kids (my second trip to see him, he decided the kids could start staying at the house with us), but soon into us dealing with each other, he decided that regular phone communication wasn't his thing anymore. It took one time for us to go a week without communicating, and telling me he didn't have to talk to me or text me on a regular basis for me to see that this wasn't going anywhere. So, I cut my losses. I'm glad I didn't get too attached to his kids..we'd done the whole "going out as a family" thing, but not enough had been invested to establish ties that were undoable...with him or his children.

And that was that. I wish I'd kept that mentality of "cut my losses and walk away...early". Somewhere along the line, I got soft and started developing easy attachments. Had I not gotten to that point, that probably would have spared me the heartaches and heartbreaks that you'll soon begin reading about, and how I really got to the point of being (not totally) jaded.