Starting Over...Again

Chapter 15

I.

When you’re a kid, you have quite a few preconceived notions about adulthood. These are built from the examples set by your parents to what you see from movies and television. As a child of the 80’s, a hearty part of the (non-animated) entertainment I watched showed successful people in successful relationships. The 80’s had the iconic Cosby Show, a must-watch comedy in my household (being one of the few things a child under 10 with two teenage siblings and parents that went to high school in the sixties could agree on) while, on the drama front, there was Little House on the Prairie. When my siblings went off to college in successive years (they were ‘Irish twins’ born eleven months apart), shows like The Wonder Years, Family Matters, and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air provided even more examples of positive relationships—and the requisite hilarity befitting a good sit-com, canned laughter be damned*. Others like Diff’rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, and Seinfeld that, while not necessarily capturing the model nuclear family, were still littered with positive adult role models (though it could be argued that the latter of that bunch was an examination of what NOT to do as an adult). Adding all of this together with the examples set by my parents and my older relatives, I imagined that by 30 I’d be married with children (and hopefully not in the dire vortex of disdain Al Bundy had for his brood).

Unfortunately, my thirtieth year on this rock of life floating through space found me in the rockiest portions of my second adult relationship. April and I had been together nearly five years by this time and the last two hit turbulence that had never truly evened out. Maybe it was because she was my first live-in romance, or perhaps both of us being introverts that glossed over the messy stuff that came up in relationships rather than talking about them. The latter unfortunately was a behavior my introverted self must have embraced from my own family’s proclivity for such behavior—but alas, that is a topic for another chapter. Either way, things came to a head and, within 8 months of turning thirty, I was single and forced to start over.

So, what did ‘starting over’ really mean? Unlike many my age—then and now—I had never lived alone. April and I had been dating for maybe six months before my all-weekend visits became “why don’t you just move in?”. It had been a lifeline of sorts for me who was, as a mid-twenties guy, a bit cramped up living with my folks who were in their mid-fifties and were all about the traditional. In that time with April, while I did the laundry and a small amount of cooking, now all of that would be on me. That’s not even counting the bills (all on me), finding an apartment and furnishing it, while focusing on work and tolerating another stint at my parent’s home.

It only took me eight days to find a new place, a two-bedroom apartment close to work and, coincidentally, in the exact same apartment complex April and I had lived before we moved to a rental house a few towns away. To be fair, the complex had been purchased by another company and its remodel made it far more impressive than what we’d lived in but still, some would call my decision to revisit my past, however tangentially, weird. I’d agree. More than anything, I believe my affinity for nostalgia and a comfort for the known powered my decision. No matter, said decision had been made and I found that living on my own offered me a freedom I never truly experienced, not even in college.

*I have discovered that I am decidedly not a fan of canned laughter. Though all sit-coms I watched used the farcical sounds, it wasn’t until the early 2000’s that I realized how much the effect bothered me. Watching shows like The Office, Parks & Rec, Community, Modern Family, and the like gave me an appreciation for comedy that allowed its jokes to tell the story, not some arbitrary laugh track. As it stands, I refuse to watch any modern shows that go this route. There are a few that do so but, thank St. Joker that they are few and far between. Still, as a man who loves his nostalgia, I will continue to be entertained by the older shows that deploy this maneuver. What can I say? They’ve maintained a special place in my heart.

II.

One would think that, after nearly five years of being in love, getting back in the saddle of dating would take some time. Heck, even the prospect of intimacy could be considered daunting.

It took me all of six days to knock the rust off and realize that I still had a lot of life left to live.

Keep in mind that, other than a nice TV stand, a Sharp Aquos TV, two wire baskets for clothes and bookcases for the plethora of books I toted, and a gaming chair, I had no furniture to speak of. Not for the dining room, living room or, in the case of entertaining company, any bedroom furniture. When I invited my first guest of my new abode, it had to be someone I knew. And that someone was Nami.

If you’ll remember, Nami (not to be confused with Luffy’s comrade-in-arms from One Piece) had been my rebound friend from my first breakup with my college girlfriend, Amy. Though nearly a decade had passed since we’d seen each other, we’d kept in contact primarily through instant messenger, email, and some texts (yes, it was a thing in the early 2000s). We’d always gotten along though there was something about her personality that admittedly intimidated my self-conscious introvertedness. It led to a few embarrassing moments for me, moments where the phrase ‘failure to launch’ was apropos.

It’s a wonder what a few years away can do for a guy’s confidence.

I’ll leave most of the details from that night to your imagination but let’s just say that I was glad I carted out the yoga mat from my parents’ house as a bed had yet to be delivered.

One would think that such an entanglement would have soothed any hurt I carried from the breakup with April and, for several hours it did just that. But being someone who couldn’t help but pick, pick, pick at those internal doubts and, glutton for punishment that I was, decided to fire up the that wonderful MySpace to drop-in on April’s new life without me. I saw April’s post raving about a great night out with her new boyfriend. Had this happened even a few years later and my experience with social media had improved, the post would have stung but I would have forgotten about it and focused on the woman waiting for me in my room. Instead, I had a mini-meltdown, sending a passively aggressive message to April and then complaining about it to Nami after she woke up—in all her naked glory, might I add, before the tears of anger and frustration came.

I am not one to ridicule anyone for tears shed before, during, or after a breakup has concluded but there is a time and place for everything. Crying in the arms of someone you’d just shared an intimate night with over someone else was not only poor form it was far from an adult thing to do. But Nami was there for me and it wasn’t until later that I found out how much that had hurt her. I can understand that and it was a few months before she and I got together again, though we never lost our BFF connection. The one positive was that that tearful explosion was a final goodbye and the impetus I needed to accept the end of things with April and truly move on. And move on I did.

III.

Though Nami was the first to see my humble abode, she was not the last. Two weeks later I had a most unique experience some would see as a life goal while I would call it an unexpected case of happenstance.

Diving back into yesteryear (must be that nostalgia of mine), I’d chatted here and there with Sarah, an old high school friend who just so happened to have been my first (Chapter 7: The Boy Becomes a Man). Much like Nami, we had remained in contact over the years and I had communicated to her my recent release back into the wilds of the dating pool. She suggested I invite her and her girlfriend Jen over and, without a thought, I said yes.

Though these pages have not yet done so, there was a naivete to me then that, thinking on it now, is more than a bit hilarious. I’d been around women my entire life and have heard them refer to another woman as ‘my girlfriend’ countless times. Never did that mean anything other than a girl and her friends that happen to be girls.

Note: Men will never refer to one another in this way, even as a joke. If a man uses the phrase ‘my boyfriend’ when referencing another man, there's no confusion in that colloquialism.

As it turns out, Jen was Sarah’s girlfriend. As in really her girlfriend. It took about thirty minutes into their visit with me for me to actually pick up on that particular vibe (don’t judge me, I was putting together a lounge chair to accentuate my nearly empty living room) and it started with my favorite college suggestion: a massage.

Alas, I am a gentleman and as such, I shall keep the details of that particular tryst for the ears of the distant past, but suffice to say, it was a most shocking and illuminating experience I would only partake in one more time (in a similarly unexpected way but with someone who…yeah, we’ll get to that).

While my first year back on the market and living on my own may have closely mirrored many young men (and women—for we’re about equality here) on their first excursions away from home, there were other milestones that, looking back, shaped me more than any others. To start, Gonzo and Rick (again, we didn’t name him) came to live with me.

As mentioned in Chapter 12: My First Adult Romance, April’s cat Behemoth was my first ever experience with the domesticated feline. We’d gotten Gonzo and Rick in the first two years of our courtship and when we split, she got all the fur babies. It sucked more than I admitted but seeing as I was out on my own and had never cared for a pet of any kind (except for the goldfish I grew up with…and we know how their lives ended: in a word, poorly) thus didn’t feel as if my experience was enough for me to ask for one (or both) to come stay with me. April though changed it for me.

This was about six months into the sowing of my college oats that she called to say she was moving a few states away with her new beau—a change I knew and expected and, by that time, was completely okay with.

(As an aside, she ended up inviting me to their wedding and it was then that I realized I missed her family more than I missed what we’d had. That’s not a knock on her or our relationship, rather the understanding that while romantic love may wither away, familial bonds—even those not of our blood—rarely disappear as such.)

She asked if I would like to take care of our two rapscallions and, knowing the loneliness I had yet to get used to in coming home to an empty house, jumped at the chance. Just like that, I wasn’t alone anymore. My two sweet kits were back in the fold and while their presence—particularly at odd hours of the night as they “fought” throughout the apartment—was something I had to reacquaint myself with, I couldn’t have felt better about what I was building. Even if I still didn’t have any furniture!

It was somewhere around this time, or perhaps a little before (a memory timeline is often like leaving the house in a hurry. You think you’ve got all the necessities and turned off all the lights and appliances, but you’re not 100% certain) that Zee and I rekindled our dalliances from nearly ten years prior. But unlike what I had with Nami, there was something extra special, if not destined, between us. Ours is a story that deserves its own chapter (Chapter 19: Zee and Me) but suffice to say that she loved those two cats to the point where I think she may have come by more for them than for me.

IV.

That first year though wasn’t all centered upon my romantic entanglements or even my home life. It was also a time where I focused on both my physical and professional well-being.

Growing up in a sports family, I’ve always enjoyed the grind of physical activity, though I was generally focused on strength training. I’d always done it but found myself riding the lazy train the last few years. Couple that with April’s homecooked meal goodness and I had put on a slight amount of weight. Slight in this case was nearly 40lbs in four years. No longer did I have the jawline of a Hollywood heartthrob or the abs of a runway model (fair play, I never had those and still, to this day, do not) but I was…gasp, portly. I’m not a tall guy, just a scootch below average height, though my bodyweight is well distributed. Yes, my thighs and butt are the picture of athletic power, I had added some unhealthy weight that I needed to start cutting.

Enter Sports Zone and Triple Fit.

I was introduced to these classes by my former co-worker Tim, whose thirst for the endorphinous rewards and a physical ass-kicking was well known at our place of employment. Knowing I needed a jumpstart, I accompanied him to what was ostensibly the tamer of the two classes, Triple Fit. It was a combination of cardio, strength and step training that, for someone who hadn’t pushed himself for a 60-minute session of anything over the past several years, bordered on the masochistic. Of course, I didn’t know that then. So, I faced the day like any other, eating a bit around noon and never even adding a snack to my repertoire for the post-work afternoon class, thinking I’d be fine.

Spoiler alert! I wasn’t.

It was a bloodbath in all but the most literal sense. I was sweating like (insert your quippy analogy here, dear reader) after the first six-minute warmup session but that was to be expected. Hell, I was still good after that second 6-minute block. The true stirrings of discomfort began in earnest during that third block. It wasn’t that my lungs were on fire (they were) or my muscles quivered (they did), rather it was the spots that started dancing the Merengue and Swing before my eyes. The fourth block (which thankfully was paired with a two-minute break) nearly broke me but when I got to the fifth, for one brief moment, I felt as if my second wind was kicking in. Athletes know about this; that hump you work your way over as your body begs you to quit but once you climb it, it’s like all that lactic acid buildup dissipates and you’re a new man (or woman). Second winds are wonderful. I, however, was experiencing what one would call a false flag because, thirty seconds into that sixth session, which was past the halfway point of the hour, I experienced what I could only describe as a spacey sensation where my consciousness warred with my failing body to stay, well, conscious. I excused myself from class, feigning the need for water (in a rookie move, I hadn’t even brought my own water bottle) and drifted to the locker and sat back on the couch there where every sight—particularly the unforgiving lights—and sound was nearly overpowering. I lay there for more than an hour until I gathered my faculties. I had been beaten down and spat out by a class where men and women fifteen and twenty years older than me had powered through. It was humbling. It was embarrassing.

It was exactly what I needed.

The first few weeks were slow and frustrating but eventually I began to see the results. I took anywhere between three to five classes a week, even throwing in a bit of Saturday morning cycling, and that didn’t even take into account the strength training. Not only did I begin to feel better physically, my mental faculties began to line up in a way they’d had in flashes throughout my life. Though I still dallied with the ladies, the aimlessness began to dissipate. It was proof positive how a strong and healthy body fed the mind. Work may have seen the biggest boon from my newfound focus. I began to apply myself even more so than I did after April and I split. The direction I wanted to go was clear to me and I looked to distinguish myself from those around me. It was truly an awakening of sorts.

Yet, as all things, the traps lie in wait.

At my father’s suggestion, I started directing some of that focus into online dating. Something of a wildcard, its popularity was not close to the level we know now but, at the same time, far greater than the years I had been with April. As I dipped my toe into that particular mind field, I experienced the various ups and downs of dating in your thirties. On the positive, I did have some great experiences, learning and otherwise, shared with some wonderful women, some of which, I am still friends to this day. And then there were other experiences that were…less positive.

One person in particular though, encapsulated that first line from A Tale of Two Cities. She was one who evolved from a friends-with-benefits to something more, something deeper. Over the months we dated, she planted a seed in me that whispered she was the one. Using her sex appeal, natural charisma, creative soul, and artful intelligence, she slowly convinced me that she was the woman who I’d hitch my wagon to for years to come. The woman I’d say ‘I do’ to and live a life most happily ever after.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.