Oh yeah.
I had a boyfriend...
_______________________________________________________
I didn't tell him. Not right away.
This... "John" (names have been changed to protect the guilty)... and I had been dating for a while and broken up more times than I could count. It was your typical teenage boyfriend/girlfriend relationship; we met when I was a mere 14. I was unhappy, "John" was unhappy, and T was a ... relief.
Nothing happened. I simply enjoyed being around him. He exuded this air of honesty and directness. He was kind and polite, and not just to me. As the group of us walked around campus that night I watched in awe as he held doors for females, spoke without foul language, and was - to the core - nice.
That's rare in 19 year old boys.
Like any good wingman friend would do, Dave decided to talk T up by telling me that he was a pitcher for Georgia Tech and had a good chance of going Pro. Little did this boy know that the extent of my baseball knowledge came from my brief stint as a right field onion picker in 9 & under softball. I had no clue what any of this meant and was therefore unimpressed.
Take for example the fact that I was completely unaware that the average baseball team has 12 pitchers and the starters only pitch every 5th game. Over the next few years I would pause on any GA Tech game I happened to come across on TV to see if T was pitching. When I never saw him, I assumed Dave was a liar being a good friend and made the whole story up.
Again... unimpressed.
After we spent a disturbing amount of time in WalMart, Talley and I went back to her apartment with plans to meet the guys for lunch the next day before they headed back to their respective campuses. I told her when we got home that night that I was breaking up with "John" for good this time. T had shown me what I wanted in a guy and even if I never saw him after the next afternoon, I knew there was better out there.
Let me back up just a minute...
You need to have a bit of background on "John" and I before you can fully understand why this was so instrumental in my future.
As I mentioned before "John" and I met when I was 14. We dated, on and off, until I was 19. He was a nice guy we just met so. young. and brought out the worst in each other. I had tried multiple times to break it off only to fall back into the comfort of familiarity. When you meet someone - anyone - that young one tends to mold into who the other person wants or expects them to be. Those teen years are so important in a person's development that I think it's hard not to conform your developing interests to mold into the other person's.
(***Note to Cali (and every teenage girl, for that matter): DON'T GET IN A SERIOUS RELATIONSHIP UNTIL YOU'RE AT LEAST A JUNIOR IN COLLEGE***)
(A mother can dream right?????)
So here I was at 19 with absolutely no clue as to who I was as an individual.
That's where T comes into play.
He asked me about myself: my likes, dislikes, preferences, beliefs, etc. He wanted to know me.
Which is why, I suppose, the timing wasn't right for us then. I believe now that God was just sewing a seed that would later become His full blown plan.
We all met up the next day and Talley informed T that I had a boyfriend and I don't think he liked me keeping that from him too much.
Oops.
The boys left that day and I desperately wanted to explain to T why I didn't tell him about the boyfriend. So that night Talley and I drove to Atlanta to go line dancing (that's my story and I'm sticking to it) and just so happened to end up at GA Tech (again... I'm sticking to it).
Have you ever seen John and the Sprinkles?
That's me and my line dancing story.
We found him in his dorm and chatted for a bit about how sorry I was, blah, blah, blah.
He forgave me.
Of course.
So Talley and I drove back to Auburn that night (somehow ending up in FL... my directional skills have never been good) and talked about how I'd break up with "John". At this point I knew it's what I needed to do whether I ever saw T again or not. He had shown me something different, something better, and I wanted it.
When I got home at the end of the weekend I did the whole breakup thing and never shed a tear.
Looking back I realize how right it felt because who doesn't shed one. single. tear. over a guy they dated for 5 years?
Me.
That's who.
T and I IM'd (there's a time warp for ya) a little over the next few weeks but eventually we both got caught up in school and other activities and lost touch.
Then something happened.
Something that would forever change who I am and the way I look at my faith.
A guy I was in school with gave me a book to read called "The God Delusion".
*audible groan*
Here I was at 19, no clue of who I was, having grown up in a Christian family but never having had my faith tested, and someone hands me a pro-athiesm book.
Am I a cliche or what?
It made me question everything I had ever been taught and whether or not I ever actually believed in God.
Then something else happened.
I met a boy - that I instantly clicked with - who happened to be having the same questions I was.
A recipe for disaster...
Until Next Time...
No comments:
Post a Comment