Author: Ramona

Lessons Learned

I’m not sure I believe in karma. It seems a little like wishful thinking. But I do believe that life teaches us the lessons we need to learn– sometimes the hard way.

Judgmental about fat people? I sense fifty extra pounds coming your way quick. Dismissive of chronic pain sufferers? Here, have a 2-week long back spasm.

Think of girls who date assholes as utter bimbos unworthy of your sympathy? Enter the asshole with whom you shall fall deeply in love.

lessons

Matt was that asshole. And I was that dismissive, superior harpy, screeching about the fact that only girls with really low self-esteem date assholes, and they should get ahold of themselves and just quit doing it. Duh.

The thing is, assholes don’t wear name tags identifying themselves as assholes. They can be sweet and charming, and often are at first. Hell, Matt was sweet and charming sometimes in the very midst of assholery.

I’m fairly certain all my friends knew what he was, and probably my family, too, but if I knew, I certainly was not going to admit it. I was not one of those simpering doormats with tits-for-brains that would ever date a man like that… Except I did, and it wasn’t because I was a doormat or a bimbo or any other combination of factors that were necessarily my fault.

It was because I fell in love. It was because I saw good in him.

And, the thing is, I like that about myself– the ability to see good in people. It doesn’t make me dumb or passive. It makes me compassionate. It makes me able to learn lessons like this one, so that now when I see someone dating an asshole, I feel the empathy of experience for her.

Oh, and, also, if karma does exist, I would like to say that I have nothing but pure sympathy for those members of the population afflicted with bacon allergies. May I never have to walk in those shoes to learn that lesson.

Bored

I’m bored. I feel bad about it, but there it is. I’m bored with Luke.

bored

Maybe it’s because the rest of my life is so exciting, in terrifying (sometimes awful) new ways. I am a soon-to-be sophomore in college. I’ve taken my first college-level courses. I’ve made it through a hellish year of ROTC. Because of said hellish year, I’ve avoided the freshman 15 and in fact have dropped a few pounds. I’ve failed my first class in the history of ever, and still managed to keep my GPA reasonably high-ish. I’ve gotten a new job for next year during the school year. I have a full-time job for this summer. I’m a freakin’ grown-up. It sucks, but I’m there, and there’s no turning back now.

Luke is living at home, taking some computer tech classes and selling vacuum cleaners door to door. He’s grown a tiny beer gut and has the same floppy teenager hair he’s had since I’ve known him.

I try to spice things up. I introduce biting to our necking sessions. He responds by sticking his tongue in my ear and I barely manage to avoid punching him in the nose for that.

I try to think about the future. Someday when we’re both grown-ups, we can go to the World Series together. I tell him about it, in great detail. We will watch the whole season so we know every player and all his stats. We’ll take a road-trip to the chosen stadium and we’ll be in the stands– maybe the nosebleeds if we’re low on money, but we’ll go. He seems excited.

And then he fails to do his computer tech class homework and drops out. He doesn’t like selling vacuums either. “It sucks. Get it? Bwahaha.” I get it. But I don’t laugh. He quits selling vacuums.

I dump him. (Afterwards, I sit on my parents’ deck and cry so hard I shake for hours, but I never tell him that.)

He’s heartbroken, and he cries for weeks, sometimes in my presence, sometimes not. He keeps asking me why. Why, why, why over and over again. I won’t tell him.

It seems the worst kind of awful to tell him that I dumped him because I was bored.

Mr. Perfect’s Icy Ass

Before any of the four exes were exes, and well before I’d met them even, I was a gangly, weird-haired middle-schooler who, nevertheless, hoped to find love someday.

I’m told that I “blossomed” in eighth grade. This was the term used by my beloved leadership class advisor, and I think it meant that I stopped wearing so much pink glitter and started attempting to comb my hair most days. These changes attracted very little notice among my peer group, as all middle-schoolers are so locked up in their own weirdness that they barely have time to notice anyone else except to break free now and then to make mean jokes.

Prime example: My best friend from elementary school and I ended up on different “tracks” in middle school, which meant that we rarely saw each other. I did see her one day in the hall, though, and I said admiringly, “Oh, Rebecca, your hair has gotten so long!” and she responded snippily, “Well yours is short. What did you do, get ahold of the scissors?” And her stupid friend Michelle shrieked with laughter that echoed off the cement walls for hours. I ducked my head to keep them from seeing the tears in my eyes and hurried past.

See? Middle school. It sucks. A lot.

There’s the occasional bright light, though. My church youth group went to “winter camp” when I was in eighth grade. “Winter camp” was basically a coed weekend sleepover at a church in the mountains where there would probably be something crusty and white on the ground somewhat resembling snow. We were thrilled.

The first day there I saw the crush that I would stalk from afar all weekend. Well, first I felt him.

We were all walking between buildings and I heard a shriek and then felt a cold thwack on the back of my head. I’d been roundly beaned with an icy “snow” ball that was probably more parking lot gravel than actual frozen stuff. I winced, rubbed the forming bruise on my head, and turned to face my attacker.

He was slim and tall and beautiful and he looked horrified. “I’m so sorry,” he babbled, and turned red up to the roots of his hair. “I didn’t mean to hit you. I was aiming for someone else.” He needn’t have worried. I forgave him immediately.

mrperfect

 

I was unaccustomed to noticing body parts of the opposite sex (besides lovely smiles, which had besotted me since the age of, like, 5), but this kid had the most amazing butt, and I watched that butt all weekend. Yeah, the guy nearly brained me with an ice-ball, and all I could do was admire his ass. Middle school.

Somewhere near the end of the weekend, I was walking with some other kids from my youth group, and he was walking with some kids from his youth group a few yards ahead. I was, of course, fully aware of the proximity. In a moment of manic middle school something-or-other, I leaned over to my friend, whispered, “Hey watch this,” quickly made a snow/iceball, and launched it at Mr. Perfect.

It hit him square in his delightful bottom.

I cannot express the giddiness I felt. My heart soared. My bosom swelled. A chorus of angels sang. All the stars aligned, and Mr. Perfect did a half-turn toward me, looking perplexed for a moment, then broke into a grin.

“Got ya back,” I said.

And imaginary trumpets blared the triumph of my young life.

The Dream

I met Shane before I actually met him.

Of course you already know that’s true in one sense– We met online (in a role-playing game chat room, though I am loath to reveal this, and thus the extent of my geekery) and were long distance for a long time before we ever met in person.

But I saw him.

I was dreaming.

dream

I’ve had the odd prophetic dream before, but this one… When I saw a picture of Shane, months later, I sucked in a shocked breath. I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream. Yep. That.

Of course, not all the details were right. For some reason, in my dream he was a bicyclist.

But the hair, the eyes, the body– it was all there. The sweetness? Yeah, that was there, too. And the touch– I have to just guess about that because we kissed in that dream, and never again, in a dream or not… but oh what a kiss.

Because of that dream, we were connected in my mind before I even knew his real name– when he was still just a puppeteer behind a character in a game.

Jonathan

Matt loved my hair. At the time, I kept it long– like down to my butt long. It wasn’t all for his benefit… Long hair meant never paying for haircuts and always having enough hair for a quick braid or updo. Also, my dorm showers’ water pressure made the task of washing butt-length hair doable on a nearly daily basis.

But, partly, it was for him. I will admit I felt like a princess when he was dazzled by my styling prowess or enamored of running his fingers through just-washed, shampoo-smelling tresses.

When we broke up, I cut it off, a little out of spite.

I wish I’d been the type of ballsy to stare at myself in my dorm bathroom mirror, grit my teeth, and take a pair of safety scissors to my hair myself. (And, of course, if you believe the movies, it ends up looking all cute and French, because everyone who gives themselves a short haircut with no prior experience can make it look like a $400 cut from a European stylist-of-the-stars.)

Instead, I consulted a friend who told me I had to go see Jonathan. She said his name on a half-moan: “Jonnnathan.” I made an appointment.

jonathan

I wore a hat on the walk up to the salon. I’m not sure why. I never really wore hats. I think maybe I was nervous– I knew I wanted to ask him to cut it short, and if it turned out terribly, well, at least I had a hat. I don’t know. It must have made sense to me at the time.

“I have an appointment with Jonathan,” I squeaked.

“Oh, Jonnnathan,” cooed the receptionist. “You’ll love him.”

Turns out Jonathan was the tallest, best-haired, handsomest, biggest-bicepped hairdresser in all the land. My chewing gum fell out of my mouth when he came to get me.

He chatted with me while he washed my hair. I didn’t hear a word. I was too busy ogling his arms.

He told me I was brave for cutting my hair short. I giggled like a loon.

He put his face inches from mine while he was evening out the front. I couldn’t breathe.

When he was done, he told me my cheekbones were amazing and my new haircut really showed them off, and I blushed to the roots of my new ‘do.

He handed my hat back. I dropped it in the garbage can. He laughed. I nearly died on the spot.

“Cute haircut! Did you see Jonnnathan?” my friend asked later.

“Oh I saw him.”

“And?”

“I would love this haircut even if it was awful.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, and her eyes went all soft and starry.

Best rebound haircut ever.

Wrong and Perfect

couple-cuddlesI don’t think I’m breathing. I’m awake, as far as I know, but this can’t be reality. I’m lying on the floor of my dorm next to a man I met for the first time hours ago. Well, less “next to,” and more “entwined with.”

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Love Triangles

I’m Team Edward, for you Twilight fans. For the Buffyverse, I am totally, totally Team Riley. (Go ahead and hate if you must.) And, surprisingly, I’m Team Gale in the Hunger Games… Guess that’s my violent streak coming out. And if you’re into Veronica Mars, I’m Team Dick, just because. (Really, I’m Team Anybody Who Isn’t Piz.)

lovetriangles

I hate love triangles, actually. I’m an avid reader, but I tend to avoid Young Adult novels because of the love triangles. They make me uncomfortable.

“Come on. Don’t you remember what it’s like to be a teenager and want everything?” asked a friend of mine a few weeks ago when this discussion came up. Her argument has always been that humans’ natural state of being is to appreciate the sex appeal of lots of people at once.

“I remember undying devotion to my One True Love,” I responded, only a little bit sarcastically.

My M.O. was always full-on devoted monogamy. That’s partly due to my upbringing, partly due to my personality (a little shy, quiet, and secretive– and thus incapable of flirting in any real capacity), and partly due to the fact that I just didn’t have a bunch of different guys to choose between all the time.

Did I ever feel a pull in two different directions? Yeah. But nothing good ever came of that. And back then, I never, never would have admitted that I was attracted to two men at once because quelle sin, duh. I just ended up with two pissed off guys and a grapefruit-sized ball of guilt in my guts– and nothing even happened.

And so, natural state of being or not, I can’t ever be ok with not being able to choose between two men. Whether that’s because I can’t imagine it, or because I can imagine it, and it’s the most horrible thing ever, I can’t quite decide.

The Joy of Kissing

Joe was my first boyfriend, and my first kiss. The first kiss wasn’t much to write home about, and subsequent kisses were a lot of me trying really hard to enjoy it, but not succeeding… although he was pretty good at necking, I’ll say that for him.

kissing

I didn’t really discover the joy of kissing until Luke. This was possibly because mine and Luke’s first kiss was tentative and light, and much less intimidating than a full-on French from the beginning. There was a lot of teasing and exploring and slow, slow progressions along the way. He pretty much let me have the lead, and I was good with that.

We went on a lot of hikes, but the short loops would take us hours because every time we were alone on the trail, we’d stop, and lean, and touch, and kiss. The game was to see who could make who shiver with delight, and the winner was both of us, pretty much every time. Hundreds of those breathless Sunday afternoons have all grouped together in my memory like a rabble of quivering butterflies.

I’ve said before that I wasn’t attracted to Luke the same way I was attracted to Joe, but I guess chemistry isn’t all about attraction– at least physical attraction. Maybe it’s more about how well you can read the other person, and how much energy you put into finding out what will make them shiver.

A Dream About Matt

I had a dream about Matt last night. If I’d had a choice in the matter, I would have passed.

dreammatt

But I saw a family picture on Facebook of Matt and his wife and kids right before I went to bed, without thinking about it or really processing it at all, and my subconscious decided it wasn’t done with that shit, I guess.

It wasn’t exactly an unpleasant dream. There was a confrontation of sorts. Matt called me out for pretending I didn’t notice him and his family sitting near me in church every Sunday. (Psyches are weird. Matt doesn’t even live in my country, and I don’t ever go to church.)

And then I explained that I don’t really want to be friends with him, because I don’t. He seemed sort of ok with that.

The rest of the dream was me playing with his kids. I don’t even really want to venture a guess as to what sort of messed up thing that probably means.

Hopefully my psyche is done processing this now and will leave me in peace.

The Relief of Breaking Up

dandelionWhen you break up with someone, everyone wants to focus on the heartbreak– you know, the despair over losing your best friend or partner in crime or whatever, all the implications of going to every social event for the rest of your life all alone (because obviously you will never find anyone else), the endless hours of weeping into a half-eaten gallon of rocky road ice cream. Read More

Superpowers

superpowers

Joe’s superpower was making me forget about all of his less attractive traits and habits (wrestling, smoking, writing terrible poetry) by flashing that big blinding grin at me. It was like the Men in Black pen blinky light thingie that melts your brain a little bit every time you look at it.

I think Shane’s might have been negging, before negging was even a thing. He told me, after he met me in person for the first time, all about how I was lovely, of course, but my sister’s hair was just a little shinier than mine, and her voice was just a little sweeter. Not that I don’t agree, but I probably shouldn’t have had to hear it from my boyfriend. But it didn’t make me hate him– it made me want to try harder to impress him, and also made me love him a little more because he said nice things about my sister, even if they were  sort of at my expense. I’m not sure if that’s my psychological damage coming out to play or his– maybe a bit of both.

Luke’s superpower was niceness, which sounds like the lamest superpower ever, but I mean this guy was nice. Like, he was even nice to me in my teenage years, when my greatest aspiration was to be a badass with a bad attitude. Nice was not high on my list of Things To Be, but Luke never, ever, ever, not even once snarked back at me when I prodded him with my meanness.

Matt doesn’t get a cape. He gets a red t-shirt with “ASSHOLE” printed across it real big. Maybe that’s not quite fair. It’s possible that his superpower was butting in to other people’s lives, telling them how to live, and then bargaining, bribing, and cajoling (with God, if necessary) to get what he wanted.

It’s possible that my superpower is long-lived bitterness. Oops.

Vows

What I can promise from what I have learned:

vows

I promise to tolerate your taste in music, and even go to a concert with you now and then. (Be grateful. I suffer because I love.)

I promise never to spit in your face when I am trying to demonstrate the latest vocal percussion sound I learned (and that one time was totally an accident, by the way).

I promise not to make jokes or assertions at your expense. “I was only teasing,” is not a good enough excuse.

I promise to try to love your crazyass family, because every family is a little crazy, but I do not promise to buy in to the crazy.

I promise to take your compliments gracefully.

I promise to write you love notes.

I promise not to neglect my other relationships, because you shouldn’t have to be my bestie or my therapist or my critique partner.

I promise I will always think it’s sexy when you load the dishwasher. (I do not promise sex in exchange for loading the dishwasher, although your chances do increase.)

I promise to try to be supportive, even if you’re being kind of a dumbass.

I promise to laugh at your jokes, no matter how stupid.

I promise to keep learning and changing and improving– even if that brings up the possibility of growing apart, because at least it’s growing.

The Narrow Marriage Escape

If Matt had asked me to marry him, I would have said yes.

There are a lot of reasons for that, some of them better than others.

escape

Probably the best reason was that I could picture us married and raising a family. We both wanted kids someday and I figured we’d buy his folks’ house from them and raise a family there. I practically had the playroom designed in my head.

Other reasons? Well, before Matt, I’d always thought I’d “save myself” for marriage. And when that wasn’t an option anymore, I thought at least I’d be marrying my “first.” (Sorry for all the quotes, but those were the actual words I used in my head, even though that phraseology squicks me out in my older and wiser years.)

I was the right age to commit. Sure, I was still in college, but a long engagement could serve the purpose of allowing me to graduate, and after that, we could move in together. Logic.

Funny how those reasons outweighed all the ones that should have had me running away screaming at the very prospect of marriage.

We fought all the time.

We couldn’t agree on fundamental questions of morals, ethics, and religion.

His family was crazy– and not in a cute, quirky way. They were literally dysfunctional, and I would have been marrying into that.

He didn’t love me. I knew it, somewhere in the repressed corners of my mind, even before he dumped me. I think he did love me once, but not by the time we broke up.

He called me a “fixer upper.”

I could keep going. But I won’t. Because it’s depressing. What the hell was I thinking?

All this is to say, I guess, that it’s a damn good thing Matt didn’t ask me to marry him, because he saved me from a life full of all that shit– saved me from myself, really.

So, thanks for cruelly dumping me and breaking my heart into a billion pieces, Matt. I owe ya one.

Eye of the Beholder

I’ve never been a great beauty, and I’m not saying that to fish for compliments, so don’t. I’m not terrible to look at, but my hair leans toward “ashy” (which I think is the polite way to say “mousey”). I have thunder thighs (even when I’m relatively thin, which is not always, as I lean toward the chunky side anyway). My skills in fashion, make-up, and hair are fair-to-middling at best. All of this I know, and all of this I am ok with.

beholder

But there have been some exes who made me feel more than average.

Joe loved my eyes. He’d wax poetic about them… badly, sort-of-rhyming, and without any kind of meter, but still “poetic.”

Shane told me I was beautiful all the time– my hair, my face, ya know. Then after we broke up, he made an off-hand jab to the effect of, “You’re actually not that great. I was just saying it to make you feel better.” Oof. Part of this I’ll blame on the fact that I dumped him and he needed some revenge. But part of it, at least, I have to accept as truth.

Luke’s compliments never went much past, “You’re purdy,” but he meant it from his heart.

And Matt? Well, Matt was probably the most convincing, but that’s likely because he had the best chance of getting in my pants, and when you want to get there, you spread the compliments on pretty thick, unless you’re dumb or something.

So if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess I have to tell you I’m beautiful. I have pretty eyes and soft hair and a lovely smile. At least if you’re trying to sleep with me.

The One That Got Away

 

Do I have a one that got away? Hmm…

onegotaway

For a while it was Luke. I think Luke was my hardest break-up, even though I was the one instigating the whole thing. Luke was just so good, and I didn’t have a great reason for not wanting to be with such a good guy. So, yeah, I had regrets, and I thought, maybe, just maybe, he was the one who got away.

But then he ended up with someone who’s way better for him than I ever would have been, and she is happy, and I would have been miserable, and that’s the honest truth.

Shane’s the other one, but I’m not sure how much of that is based on reality and how much of that is based on the fact that we saw each other in person for a total of maybe 48 hours ever. It’s the Titanic romance. It’s pretty easy to have a perfect romance when it spans the course of days. I mean, we were long-distance daters for longer than two days, but does that really count? I don’t know. Maybe not.

So Shane’s the one that got away– or maybe just the fantasy that got away.

Oh, and I’m pretty sure I’m the one that got away for all the exes. Yep. Pretty sure. (Humble too.)