Long but intriguing catch-up post
I haven’t posted here in a very long time, and I’m sorry. I’m also sorry that I’ve since forgotten how to use LJ cut, but would be glad to update this with it if someone sends me instructions.
The fact is, there’s been a lot of changes in my life since the last post. I can’t believe that the last time I wrote here, I was only just considering going out and meeting people. Truth is, I did go out. I did meet someone.
I began with some of the online dating sites like www.match.com and www.plentyoffish.com. Right away I got lots of responses. Much to my surprise, the number only increased when I put up my picture. Among them was someone on Match.com, who I later came to know as Tim Wright.
Now, don’t think this is a fairytale where I fell immediately into Tim’s arms and we ran off into the sunset. Oh no. In fact, I wasn’t too interested in him. For weeks we e-mailed, instant messaged, and text messaged, mostly on his prompting. I came to really enjoy talking to him, but was just too busy with some of the other guys I met who I for some reason believed were more promising.
Finally one night I was out by myself after a not-so-promising meeting with another online potential when Tim text messaged me. On a whim, I asked him to meet me at Ivar’s. My first thoughts, I hate to admit, were not flattering. I simply wasn’t attracted to him, but I couldn’t find a way out of spending the evening with him. After a while, I relaxed enough to have a good time. Near the end of the night, he even found the perfect way to ask me on another date: He asked me to Fiddler on the Roof, one of my favorite musical plays. I just couldn’t turn that down! Most confusing of all, when he walked me to my car that night, I let him kiss me and it was one of the best kisses I’d ever had! Seriously. Even despite all my other negative thoughts that evening, I couldn’t help but tell him what a wonderful kisser he was.
Soon after our first meeting, we went to the movies. Again, my first shallow thoughts were that I wasn’t attracted to him. But in the theater, Tim put his arm around me and pulled me close. Perhaps I needed the physical contact. Perhaps I’m just a touchy-feely person. Either way, I loved it. I felt like a teenager making out with her boyfriend in the back row of the dark theater. But that enjoyment only served to scare me more as the movie ended and reality intruded. I ran away so quickly that he must have suspected my confliction.
For weeks after this, I avoided him. I would answer his texts, but only in short responses so as not to encourage him. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I enjoyed his friendship, but didn’t want more.
Finally, the day came that I had to confess. Over instant message, I told Tim that I just wanted to be friends with him. However, I invited him out that night. I told him I would buy him a beer in the spirit of friendship.
Maybe it was the lack of pressure of knowing that we were just friends. Maybe it was the too-much alcohol I drank that night or the idea that Tim actually knew how to dance and didn’t mind doing so in a bar without a dance floor. But that night, something changed. I realized suddenly that all the feelings I’d decided were just a desire to be friends could be a solid foundation for something more. By the end of the night (which wasn’t reached until after 4am), I’d retracted my earlier just-be-friends decree and made it known that I would like to explore the possibility of more.
A few days later, we went to that play he asked me to on our first meeting. Afterwards, we went to Port Royal, the bar he usually hung out at and I met all his friends, who I liked very much. By the time the bar closed, I asked him if we could go somewhere just to talk, so we parked by the LSU Lakes. We hashed out everything that had happened, including our brief foray into friendship and what each of us wanted at that time. We didn’t leave until 5am. On that evening, the only definitive conclusion was that we were both quite confused, but in retrospect, we count that day as the one we officially became an exclusive couple.
It just so happened that a week later, I was moving into an apartment. After all, I could only take living with my parents for so long. Tim helped me move and ended up staying the first night with me. As a matter of fact, he stayed the next night, and the next too. We joke now that there was no official time that he moved in with me, he just never really went home again.
At this time, Tim was in his last semester of nursing school to become an RN. Because it was his last semester, he had saved enough money to not have to work, therefore devoting all his energy to graduating. Since I make my own hours with my job, this allowed us to spend quite a bit of time together, which we both enjoyed. Very quickly, we settled into a routine that caused most people we met to think we were a long-married couple.
Three months into our relationship, we got a surprise - a BIG surprise.
If you’ve read my journal before, you know that I tried for 5 years with my ex-husband to have a child. It was decided by the doctors that the problem lay with me. Therefore, when Tim asked me if I was on birth control, I said “Nope,” then explained that after so long, I doubted I could get pregnant at all, but would welcome a happy little oops.
Oops.
I picked up a pregnancy test in the beginning of November despite being convinced that it would be negative just like all the ones I took while married. I waited until after Tim left to take a big test he’d been studying for, then took mine. I went to fix lunch, completely unconcerned about the outcome on the little stick. A couple of minutes later, I returned to the bathroom to find two lines. I walked out, then back in, sure that it was a mistake! I started shaking.
Waiting for Tim to get home that day was the longest hours of my life. During them, I took another test, only to find the same result. I rehearsed many ways to tell him. But when he walked in, all that would come out of my mouth was “I’m pregnant.”
Tim handled it very well considering the shock it must have been to him. At one point he held his head in his hands and mumbled “silver-freaking-bullets”. It took him about a week to get over the shock, although he was supportive from the very beginning.
I’m now 14 weeks, 4 days pregnant and Tim’s as in love with our baby as I am. He talks to my stomach often. In fact, last week while we were out playing darts, he was jokingly talking to it and our opponent said, “Quit making out with her stomach. You’re going to make me miss my shot!”
I’ve just started wearing maternity clothes and passed the second trimester mark a few days ago. I’ve gotten past the morning sickness and am starting to move past the extreme moodiness (PMS on crack) and tiredness.
Tim and I have bought a house together, although we won’t close on it until the end of February. It’s an amazing deal that’s easily giving us $20,000 in equity from the start in a neighborhood we never thought we could afford.
Tim graduated nursing school and now has a great job at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in the Cardiac unit.
Finally, he and I decided that we would compromise on the issue that was most brought up to us by older relatives: marriage. We are unofficially engaged (officially when he buys a ring), but are not planning a wedding until the baby is at least a year old. The logic to this, of course, is that he or she will be old enough to leave with Grandma so we can go on a real honeymoon. However, the deeper reasoning is that by having a long engagement, neither of us will ever have to wonder if we only got married for the baby. After all, we will have been together for two years and by then I would have told him to fish or cut bait anyway.
Well, hope you enjoyed catching up on my life. I’ll try to update here more often so that I don’t have to write three pages next time. Although I think you will agree that there’s been more than enough changes to justify the length.
The fact is, there’s been a lot of changes in my life since the last post. I can’t believe that the last time I wrote here, I was only just considering going out and meeting people. Truth is, I did go out. I did meet someone.
I began with some of the online dating sites like www.match.com and www.plentyoffish.com. Right away I got lots of responses. Much to my surprise, the number only increased when I put up my picture. Among them was someone on Match.com, who I later came to know as Tim Wright.
Now, don’t think this is a fairytale where I fell immediately into Tim’s arms and we ran off into the sunset. Oh no. In fact, I wasn’t too interested in him. For weeks we e-mailed, instant messaged, and text messaged, mostly on his prompting. I came to really enjoy talking to him, but was just too busy with some of the other guys I met who I for some reason believed were more promising.
Finally one night I was out by myself after a not-so-promising meeting with another online potential when Tim text messaged me. On a whim, I asked him to meet me at Ivar’s. My first thoughts, I hate to admit, were not flattering. I simply wasn’t attracted to him, but I couldn’t find a way out of spending the evening with him. After a while, I relaxed enough to have a good time. Near the end of the night, he even found the perfect way to ask me on another date: He asked me to Fiddler on the Roof, one of my favorite musical plays. I just couldn’t turn that down! Most confusing of all, when he walked me to my car that night, I let him kiss me and it was one of the best kisses I’d ever had! Seriously. Even despite all my other negative thoughts that evening, I couldn’t help but tell him what a wonderful kisser he was.
Soon after our first meeting, we went to the movies. Again, my first shallow thoughts were that I wasn’t attracted to him. But in the theater, Tim put his arm around me and pulled me close. Perhaps I needed the physical contact. Perhaps I’m just a touchy-feely person. Either way, I loved it. I felt like a teenager making out with her boyfriend in the back row of the dark theater. But that enjoyment only served to scare me more as the movie ended and reality intruded. I ran away so quickly that he must have suspected my confliction.
For weeks after this, I avoided him. I would answer his texts, but only in short responses so as not to encourage him. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I enjoyed his friendship, but didn’t want more.
Finally, the day came that I had to confess. Over instant message, I told Tim that I just wanted to be friends with him. However, I invited him out that night. I told him I would buy him a beer in the spirit of friendship.
Maybe it was the lack of pressure of knowing that we were just friends. Maybe it was the too-much alcohol I drank that night or the idea that Tim actually knew how to dance and didn’t mind doing so in a bar without a dance floor. But that night, something changed. I realized suddenly that all the feelings I’d decided were just a desire to be friends could be a solid foundation for something more. By the end of the night (which wasn’t reached until after 4am), I’d retracted my earlier just-be-friends decree and made it known that I would like to explore the possibility of more.
A few days later, we went to that play he asked me to on our first meeting. Afterwards, we went to Port Royal, the bar he usually hung out at and I met all his friends, who I liked very much. By the time the bar closed, I asked him if we could go somewhere just to talk, so we parked by the LSU Lakes. We hashed out everything that had happened, including our brief foray into friendship and what each of us wanted at that time. We didn’t leave until 5am. On that evening, the only definitive conclusion was that we were both quite confused, but in retrospect, we count that day as the one we officially became an exclusive couple.
It just so happened that a week later, I was moving into an apartment. After all, I could only take living with my parents for so long. Tim helped me move and ended up staying the first night with me. As a matter of fact, he stayed the next night, and the next too. We joke now that there was no official time that he moved in with me, he just never really went home again.
At this time, Tim was in his last semester of nursing school to become an RN. Because it was his last semester, he had saved enough money to not have to work, therefore devoting all his energy to graduating. Since I make my own hours with my job, this allowed us to spend quite a bit of time together, which we both enjoyed. Very quickly, we settled into a routine that caused most people we met to think we were a long-married couple.
Three months into our relationship, we got a surprise - a BIG surprise.
If you’ve read my journal before, you know that I tried for 5 years with my ex-husband to have a child. It was decided by the doctors that the problem lay with me. Therefore, when Tim asked me if I was on birth control, I said “Nope,” then explained that after so long, I doubted I could get pregnant at all, but would welcome a happy little oops.
Oops.
I picked up a pregnancy test in the beginning of November despite being convinced that it would be negative just like all the ones I took while married. I waited until after Tim left to take a big test he’d been studying for, then took mine. I went to fix lunch, completely unconcerned about the outcome on the little stick. A couple of minutes later, I returned to the bathroom to find two lines. I walked out, then back in, sure that it was a mistake! I started shaking.
Waiting for Tim to get home that day was the longest hours of my life. During them, I took another test, only to find the same result. I rehearsed many ways to tell him. But when he walked in, all that would come out of my mouth was “I’m pregnant.”
Tim handled it very well considering the shock it must have been to him. At one point he held his head in his hands and mumbled “silver-freaking-bullets”. It took him about a week to get over the shock, although he was supportive from the very beginning.
I’m now 14 weeks, 4 days pregnant and Tim’s as in love with our baby as I am. He talks to my stomach often. In fact, last week while we were out playing darts, he was jokingly talking to it and our opponent said, “Quit making out with her stomach. You’re going to make me miss my shot!”
I’ve just started wearing maternity clothes and passed the second trimester mark a few days ago. I’ve gotten past the morning sickness and am starting to move past the extreme moodiness (PMS on crack) and tiredness.
Tim and I have bought a house together, although we won’t close on it until the end of February. It’s an amazing deal that’s easily giving us $20,000 in equity from the start in a neighborhood we never thought we could afford.
Tim graduated nursing school and now has a great job at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in the Cardiac unit.
Finally, he and I decided that we would compromise on the issue that was most brought up to us by older relatives: marriage. We are unofficially engaged (officially when he buys a ring), but are not planning a wedding until the baby is at least a year old. The logic to this, of course, is that he or she will be old enough to leave with Grandma so we can go on a real honeymoon. However, the deeper reasoning is that by having a long engagement, neither of us will ever have to wonder if we only got married for the baby. After all, we will have been together for two years and by then I would have told him to fish or cut bait anyway.
Well, hope you enjoyed catching up on my life. I’ll try to update here more often so that I don’t have to write three pages next time. Although I think you will agree that there’s been more than enough changes to justify the length.