I want to remember every good feeling

In Aril 2007 I met a man who had randomly pulled up into my driveway one afternoon. It was clear there was something special about him. I found him attractive and intelligent. That alone was unusual for me. I regarded most men with distrust and the ones I knew well with disdain. I had decided that men were just too difficult to have at the same time I had children. In my experience the two never meshed. Men in my life tended to compete with my children. I had decided contempt was my best defense. I never wanted to date again.
I awoke the next day wondering if I would ever see him again. I mean, after all, he was just some random guy looking at some old junk in my yard. I decided to trim all of my trees closest to the road (of course) just in case he should decide to drive by. You know, maybe he'd give a wave. Who knew, maybe he'd never look down my driveway again. I got the ladder and the electric saw and went out front.
Yes. He came back. He brought his son. He brought a puppy to show me. He talked to me about him and he asked me about me. This guy wasn't just trolling for junk. We compared cell phones each of ours only a day old. His was the smallest and mine had a full keyboard. he gave me his number and told me to put three A's in front of his name. I figured he's just flirting. After all, he's awfully charming. Cowboy charm, you know? Long legs, broad shoulders, blue eyes, quick to wink, clever witt, everything I've ever been attracted to. Nope. He definitely won't be putting three A's in front of my name. I can't let myself begin to think he could be looking at me that way. I'm short and I dress dumpy, I'm chubby and a few years older than him. I better not let my hopes get up.

Turns out we both had been single for a while. He was the consumate, "sworn bachelor", and I was a disconsolate woman who had sworn off men until my children were moved out. He came back the next day and the next. His visits were brief and always we had four sets of prying eyes examining our every move. Not much escapes them. My two boys and his two kids, the oldest being a little red-haired girl, and her brother, kept a jealous watch over us, respectively. We're both full-time, single parents so privacy comes only at the sacrifice of being without our kids.

It's hard to explain, but when you don't share your children with a partner you and they become everything fixed in the universe. Anything outside of that can be dismissed without much deliberation. Suddenly, here we are. We are two seperate, complete, universes, trying to decide how to merge without colliding. We had to find a compromise, a way to ease into this "situation". You see, we couldn't really call it a relationship, yet. We were trying to figure out how to hold hands in a crowd of six. We were falling in love and we were trapped in the dedicated roles we had securely adapted ourselves to. Each of us afraid to relive our mistakes. Afraid of trying and failing. After all if it seems too good to be true, it probably is, so why take a chance and believe? I guess my mother raised a fool because I couldn't let this chance pass me by. Win or lose I had to take this ride.

He was like a conglomeration of all of my favorite things. He had Gary Busy's shoulders and Dwight Yoakum's long legs. He joked with me like my favorite uncle did when I was a kid. He smelled like the shade tree mechanic that used to live next door. He was confident, like my best friend that I grew up with. He had fast reflexes, physical and cerebral. He was from West Texas, a real Texas boy. He loved horses, and roping, and John Wayne movies. He knew how to dance and sing. He wasn't shy. He was calculating and clever. What a package. I was moon-eyed over him. I couldn't see anything that was less than stellar about him. I believed everything he said.

Over the next three weeks we kept talking, we started texting one another. I found it to be truly frustrating trying to cram all of my feeling, emotion, insecurity, and need into the 150 character spaces available to me and still try to sound cool. Of course, his responses were typically related in two or three words that I tried to interpret (is he joking or is he serious?). I let my heart pour out four lines at a time.

By April 30 I knew I wasn't going to walk away and I started opening up to this strong, independant, man who obviously could do anything, have anyone, go anywhere. I was intimidated, but I was hooked.

I texted my best friend:
2:47PM 04/30/07
He finally kissed me!
(I was so releaved)

Being an emotionally responsible, independant, unobtainable, hard-headed woman in the throes of a huge crush I did the thing that made the absolute least amount of sense. I revealed my heart to him in a text message:
4:41PM 04/30/07
I've been waiting 4 so long, I will keep
waiting if I must. U r like a drink of cool
water in the desert I want to take so badly.
Plz, no mirages.

He responded:
4:51PM 04/30/07
Drink up babe

Delirous! In three words he said it all, but what did it mean?