I'm here. No, really, I am.

Numb

That’s the best way to describe it. Not only had I driven for an hour and a half, but I had been sitting for 45 minutes on top of it. I had started getting this sick feeling in my gut on the way (again, but different this time). I realized that I may be about 10 minutes late to our first date. The reasons aren’t pretty (I’ll say this, nerves plus a Chinese buffet plus a complete lack of sleep equal a situation that’ll leave you worse than just a little sick to the stomach.). I figured I’d call, to tell her I’d be a couple minutes late, and she didn't answer.

It wasn’t a blind date per se; I don’t really know what it was supposed to be. An audition maybe? Dunno, but my last “date” had ended this way…

Me. Sitting in a car… waiting for someone who would never show. I had never been stood up before then.

Little did I know that it wouldn’t be long before it happened again. I would have expected it from the same person, but this was someone completely different. I never figured that things had to be that way. I don’t think I’m that hard to approach, or say “No.” too.

In all fairness I found, after lots of drinking and pondering, there was an email when I got home that said she wouldn’t be able to make it. It was sent just before I would have left. The problem with that is I didn’t go home. It still didn't temper the myriad of thoughts and feelings leading up to that moment. Lesson learned.



Numb

That’s the best way to describe it. It’s 100 degrees out and I’ve worked hard all day; so has everyone else. I’m burned, I can see it, but I don’t feel it. I’ll find a bruise on my shin the next day. Seems I may have taken a worse shot than I realized. The bases are loaded, and there’s a batter that’s taken me far into the outfield every time he’s been at bat.

It’s slow pitch. I don’t have control over how hard he hits it, just where… if I’m lucky. So, I make the best decision possible…

Walk him.

That’ll score one run, but I like my odds with the batter that follows. She isn’t swinging, I have bases loaded so we’ll have lots of opportunities to get her out. I’ll take one run over a possible 3 or 4 if history is any indicator.

So, I walk the one run. HEHATEME looks on knowing that I’ll stay out there til the end if need be. He also knows that I’ll pull myself if I don’t think I can do it. I’m left completely alone about the whole thing. Thankfully, I got no groans from the outfield, they trust me… I think.

I back her into a full count.

The final pitch… strike… dead on the mat.

Numb… that’s the best way to describe it. To hear me tell it, you’d swear it was the world series, and you know what? It is. We should all look at events in our life as having those types of impacts.

HEHATEME told me I had “intestinal fortitude” when I came off the field.

Actually, it prolly took a lot more for them to watch, than for me to pitch.




The ex…

Called yesterday to apologize for everything she ever did to me, including blaming me for everything that was wrong in our former marriage, when she had been the one creating the problems all along. She said that she was reading a book and it really “opened her eyes” to just how horrible she had been to me. She said that she knows she could never make it up to me, but that she wanted me to know that she felt absolutely terrible that she had done all those things to tear apart our family’s lives…

…Well, how do you think I responded?


Sometimes I say too much. ;)


Take care,

Mo