Why Were Your Eyes Open?

Fear can be a big motivator. It can also be what holds you back. I don't want to be held back anymore. I have an nominal job, and I'm seeing this pretty awesome girl. Which means for the first time in quite a while, I actually possess something worth having a fear of losing. I have this deep fear that I'm ignoring something staring me right in the face. Like when the detective solves the crime at the end of the movie and your shown flashback after flashback to clues that made it so damn obvious how the plot was being set up the whole time, and you wonder how you missed it.

I don't want to be afraid though. Fuck, after the last three and a half years of total misery maybe this is the big pay out. This is when the great scales of karma come back into balance. I feel like I pulled the lever and finally came up with triple cherries, jackpot. And I call her RIC.

Things are moving entirely too fast, but I'm so eager to have a life again I don't care. I'm seeing things that might be clues to something being wrong. Or maybe I'm imagining them. I don't know. I decide until I can put the pieces together and see a picture, I'm not going to invent a problem that exists only in my imagination. To clarify, I've never been one to be scared of having a relationship, I do fear never being able to get close to some to have a relationship. I also fear it ending, so I guess maybe I'm looking for the reasons why it'll end now, so I'm not surprised when it does end. So maybe I can head it off at the pass. So what's now a tiny splinter doesn't become so infected the only solution is amputation. I don't want to be afraid.

I push forward with reckless abandonment, which is a risky strategy for a new relationship, unless of course the other person is doing the same. She is too. It starts simply enough, spending way too much time together for two people who just met. Eventually I find myself making excuses to NOT be at her place, not because I don't want to be there, but because I feel like that's something I should be doing at some point. I have chores to do. I need this. I want that. I need to change clothes. I need to do laundry. Eventually it's only a matter of time before I just take the whole laundry basket over and then I don't need to go home to do laundry, or to get clothes. As it turns out, having lost so much over the past few years, I can pretty much live without my stuff..

RIC is amazing. The first week we're dating she has dinner on the table waiting for me when I get home from work more times than my ExWife did in the 12 years we were together. Not this is something I expect from any woman of mine, but ... it does impress me. One day at work I'm pondering going home for my iPhone dock/alarm clock and perhaps a pair of lounge pants for comfort. I don't even get around to telling her this, and by the time I get to her house after work she's purchased both for me. Any problem, no matter how small, she seems to be there with a solution. It's a new experience for me. I'm enjoying it, even if I'm not quite comfortable with it.

Meanwhile one day I see a Facebook post, announcing plans for a benefit for Dino's memorial fund. Anyone interested in contributing should contact her BioDad's sister, the child's aunt, The Librarian's ex-sister in law, whatever you want to call her. I sent her a message. "I'd like to help anyway I can. As I graphic designer, I'd be honored to design the flier to promote the event." She takes me up on the offer. She asks me if I can use a picture she saw on Facebook where Dino looked like an angel "Do you know which one I'm talking about?" " 

We'd been shopping in the mall, ducked inside the Disney Store for just a look. Of course the girl wanted everything. She was placated though by being allowed to try on a Cinderella dress and posing for a picture in front of a mural of the castle. "Yeah, I know which one. I took that picture."

We discuss the plans, it's clear that her hearts in the right place, but she really has no experience with planning an event like this. She wants fancy dinners and a fresh salad bar. I tell her to go with cheap spaghetti and lettuce with dressing. Every penny spent on food is a penny not going to the memorial fund. I throw her more advice along those lines. Don't feel like I did that much other than point her in a direction, she's grateful for the help. As I'm about to sign off, she says "If you don't mind me asking, how do you know the Librarian and her daughter?"  I'm not sure how "I dated the Librarian immediately before her fiancé" would go over. Might helping with this event be misconstrued as some bizarre selfish attempt to get her back? "I originally worked with her Lil' Sis, then later her. I'll just leave it at that." Woefully lacking, but truthful.

The benefit is scheduled for the Saturday before Easter. This is a challenge. I'm off work on Friday, my daughter is off school so I can pick my kids up a day early. However the benefit is going to be up by my kids, so driving 15 hours in three days is too much for me and 10 hours in three days is too much for the kids. We also have to find time to color Easter eggs in there. The only option seems to be to pick them up at the regular Saturday morning time and skip the eggs.

RIC however offers another solution. Pick up the kids Friday morning. Do fun stuff with kids all day Friday, get an extended stay hotel room so we can color Easter eggs, then Saturday do the benefit before coming home and soon Easter at my parents the next morning. Yeah, sounds like a great solution, but I don't have the money for that. "I do" she says. Again she's left me dumbfounded. "You do realize what you're offering right? Go to my ex-wife's and meet her, then spend the day with me and the kids, spend the night in a hotel with us on your dime, then go to a benefit for the daughter of my ex-girlfriend, where you'll meet her and likely her entire family, and maybe an emotional event and if you'd happen to have any feeling of jealousy you'd just have to eat them for the time being, plus a ton of driving, then meet my parents the next day?" 

"Yeah, I know." Damn, she's kinda awesome. 

 I could say that the fact she makes significantly more money than me was good thing, but it's not. Not entirely. She's used to going out regularly, as in almost every night, and not worrying about the cost. Just trying to keep up is taxing my resources, trying to be be a proper gentlemen and pay for our dates is getting to the point it warrants a conversation. "I don't have the money to go out all the time. I also don't want to feel like a mooch and make you pay for everything. At the same time I don't wanna become recluses and never leave the house." "I don't mind paying" "I know you don't, but I do." We make a plan to deal with this problem. Go out less, when we do do cheaper things. Don't need to buy drinks with dinner every time. Our first "fight" if you can even call it that. Problem identified, and solution propose and enacted. No hurt feelings. No drama. She decides to mark the occasion by taking me out to a seafood restaurant where dinner was $100 before tip. *shrug* 

I wish I could say there's progress on the war front, but the divorce isn't really isn't moving forward. We go, the lawyers negotiate, nothing is solved. After five hours of negotiation we reach a settlement. As with all good negotiations, neither of is is exactly happy. All that's left is for the lawyers to draw up the papers and my ex decides, "Uh, never mind." My lawyer is starting to think she has no intention of doing anything but making it go to trial.

I'm venting my frustrations, RIC sympathizes, yet doesn't blindly take my side. She pushes me to go for more with the kids. Wants me to consider, trying for full custody. I tell her I can't, not yet. I've struggled so long to find solid ground for my life, I can't yet build on this loose gravel I've managed to lay down. I need a real foundation first. Maybe someday. "I don't know how you can stand to be so far away from your kids. If it were me I get a job, any fast food job just to be close to them." "I tried that, it didn't work." "Well if you could find a job up there, I'd be willing to sell my house and start over up there with you. It's easy in my line of work to did a job." 

That almost sounded ... I mean it didn't sound like "I'd do that tomorrow for you." It sounded like "you need worry about having to choose between your kids and me if you want to move because I am not handcuffed to this area." Still her unbridled generosity, her adoring attention, this feels like a dream. I don't wanna wake up.

Suddenly she has that look, the look that she was trying to remember something for days, now three days later when she wasn't thinking about it, it hit her like a bolt of lightning. That's the look.

"I love you"

Did she just say that? Oh crap. What do I say? I'm not there yet. I'm on that road, but not there yet. Close, maybe. Right? There's still these hints of something wrong. But maybe those are my imagination. I definitely need an answer to that before I say it back. How long have I being thinking about this? A second? A minute? Oh geeze do something!

I kissed her ... Passionately. 

I didn't say anything.

This is my life now.