Crazy/Beautiful

I got married when I was 22. It was an ugly marriage. It was unhealthy for both of us. Drugs, physical and mental abuse, etc. I believe it was also unwanted from both of us. In retrospect, I have no idea how we ended up married. After that, I got involved with a coworker. We started hanging out while I was married. We were great friends. He was so not my type. Which, I guess at the time, I thought was a good thing. After I left my then husband, Dave and I got involved more intimately. Well, sort of after I left – never mind, that’s a different story.

I was with Dave for a bunch of years. I passed on another relationship for him. A relationship with a guy I had a soft spot for that would have been a better one for me. But that’s another story. I gave up a lot of myself for Dave. Looking back, I know he didn’t like who I was at all. He was constantly trying to change me into something else. I think he thought I was broken and he needed to fix me. We had fun together. We were good friends. Sex was an issue with him. I’m not sure exactly why. I mean, I have some idea of why but he took it to an unnecessary extreme. Meaning we didn’t have sex. At all. There was occasional oral sex. But anyway. He never spent the night. Sasha, Savannah and I lived alone. There was no reason why he couldn’t spend the night. Maybe he was afraid I would try to make him have sex. Bizarre. So one day, he decided that we needed to take a break. This sounds so humorous to me now because he was very much not good enough for me. And for me to say that really says something. At the time though, I was crushed. I cried and cried and locked myself inside my house. I stopped eating. I started smoking regularly again. I drank more than usual and constantly. I chopped my hair off in chunks and then called my sister crying. She had to come over and fix it. I called his house but he wouldn’t come to the phone when I called. His parents were worried about me. His sister called me every other day or so. I didn’t know what to do. I think that the biggest problem was that I knew that I was ready to settle for him, that I was about to give up myself for him. For him! And he was going to dump me? After I wasted years of my life recreating myself for him because he was a good friend? What.ev.er.

So, I lost weight. I believe I lost 21 pounds in a few weeks. Then my boss (my then boss) made me eat jell-o. It was red and it had peaches in it. I started going to the gym. I started eating again. I kept smoking and drinking but at least I was eating and getting out too. My coworkers and bosses begged me to get help. To seek therapy. I went to my family doctor instead and got medicated. A friend of mine, Dee, (a mutual friend of mine and Dave’s actually) and her husband, Frank, decided to watch over me. They took me everywhere with them. They bought me stuff. They checked up on me constantly. They were courting me almost. She went to the gym with me. They took me to Wolf Park. Wait, that wasn’t until July, back up to May…

Let’s see. Dave dumped me in February 2002. By May, I was very thin and finally starting to get pretty muscular. They started to tell me about a friend of theirs. He used to work with Frank, he helped them move, he watched their dogs. My ears perked up at the last part. An animal appreciator? Dave didn’t appreciate animals. Least of all mine, which had by this time increased to two cats and one dog, Sasha, Savannah, and Serena. I got a kitten from my sister during all of this and named her Serena because she was supposed to be my serenity. So I agreed to meet him with no promises or obligations. I wasn’t in the mood to date, quite frankly. I hadn’t been on my own since I was 17. It was time for me to be single for a bit. I wanted to find the right guy. I didn’t want to settle down with the first guy that fell into my lap. I was happy with the way that I looked for the first time in_ like_ ever and I wanted to laugh at stupid boys falling all over me for a while.

We went to the restaurant where Shawn worked. My dad asked about him later and I said, “He has a nice face.” Man, my dad hated Dave, but that’s another story. So Dee and Frank asked me what I thought of him and I said that he seemed nice but reminded them that I wasn’t in that place yet. The next time Shawn and Frank spoke, Shawn bitched at Frank for bringing a hot chick to meet him while he was greasy and smelly from work. A little time went by and a few failed attempts at setting us up went by. Not because of me. I wasn’t going to refuse hanging out with the guy. He was nice and he was their friend. Our schedules just weren’t clicking. I don’t remember why because I really didn’t do anything besides work and go to the gym. Well, and I guess I went to the bar a lot but I wasn’t going there as much at this point. So Dee and Frank took me to Wolf Park and Shawn watched their dogs. That was July 4th weekend. We watched fireworks in Indianapolis.

Frank’s birthday is at the end of July. We went to dinner. Me, Dee, Frank, Shawn, and Laura, a friend of Dee’s that liked Shawn. Heh. Then Laura left and we all went to the movies. I can’t remember what we wanted to see but there weren’t four seats available together. Shawn suggested we split up and sit two and two. But Dave was in that theater. He turned and looked at us and I said I didn’t want to sit in a packed theater, which was partially true. I hate packed theaters. We ended up seeing some movie about dragons that had Matthew McConnaughey and Christian Bale in it. Shawn doted on me all night, getting me drinks at the restaurant, getting me popcorn and Twizzlers at the movies. It was cute. We went back to Dee and Frank’s house and I was getting ready to go home. Shawn said he enjoyed the night and hoped to see me again soon. I smiled, said something like, “yeah,” and walked out the door.

The following weekend, my sister and her husband wanted me to go to the demolition derby. So, naturally, Dee and Frank were coming with me. I asked Frank to ask Shawn if he wanted to go. Guess what? He did want to go. At the derby, Shawn was cool with my sister and her family. He bought me, my niece and my nephew snow cones. After the derby, we went back to Dee and Frank’s and hung out for a while. Shawn and I went outside to smoke a cigarette. We sat on the porch step. We talked for a while with three big dogs piling all over us, licking our faces and trying to get us to play with them. We were about to go in and Shawn touched my arm and said, “hold up.” I looked at him and he asked me if he could kiss me. I thought that was just about the cutest thing ever. So I let him kiss me. It was a sweet and tender kiss from a sweet guy. I hadn’t had one of those in a long time. We stayed there and talked for a while. I told him I was crazy. He told me I was beautiful. I told him about my problems. He told me I was beautiful. I wasn’t ready for him to see where I lived yet. He was living with his parents in like the richest part of town and I was living in a trailer in a trailer park. I’m not sure why this bothered me at the time. I guess Dave did a number on my self esteem. Dee and Frank told me I was being silly. They reminded me that he lived in his parent’s basement and I was all grown up and living on my own.

That Sunday was the Italian Club picnic. I went and I had fun. I got really drunk and made out with some young kid. I also made out with some girl. But that’s another story. I went home and Dee called me to tell me Shawn was at their house waiting for me because I said I would come over that night. I did? Okay. So I went over there. Shawn ended up coming to my house that night and we had incredible sex. Oh, and he passed the dog test. He got along well with Sasha. Very important.

Two weeks later, I went to his twin cousin’s 25th birthday party and met the entire family. About a month later, or less, I think it was less, he was living with me. He called me Crazy. I called him Beautiful. We had a lot of ups and downs but that was the beauty of us living together. I knew enough about us to know that there was going to be more ups than downs. He started to learn things about me that most people never do. I started to trust him, after some time, more than I ever thought possible. We decided that we would buy a house, get married, and possibly have kids. Then we bought a house and got married. I’m still undecided on the kids thing. Anyway, now we call each other ‘honey’ or ‘hon’ and we have two dogs and three cats and a house. I call him safety and security and love and home. The end.