Trying to stop yourself from falling in love is like trying to stand on the shore in front of the vast ocean, waving your arms frantically and shouting "Stop, Stop" at the waves - trying to actually prevent them from coming ashore. You can't do it. And unless you are completely and utterly emotionally challenged or just plain devoid of emotion, period, it's really, really difficult to stop yourself from falling in love. In 2006, I fell really hard, right on my head. And it was unexpected, shockingly shocking and with pretty much the last person on earth that I would ever considered (even the remotest possibility) to fall in love with. And four years later, I am still "with" him - whatever the term "with" has as a full meaning.
My high school reunion (our 26th) had been planned for July, 2006. From August of 2005, my old classmates and I gathered emails, names, addresses, etc. and sent out announcements of our pending reunion. One classmate had emailed me to let me know other classmates were here and there and one in particular was "here" (work location remaining undisclosed) and he had forwarded my email to this person. Well, thus began an innocuous communication: what have you been doing the last 25 years, are you married, divorced, kids, job, blah blah blah blah. The usual civilities and trading of information that comes when you "catch up" and secretly think how your life just might suck compared to someone else. This particular guy who will remain unnamed because of circumstances that are, unfortunately, unchanged after four years, was someone I knew only fleetingly in high school and with whom I walked the halls and just "knew" because he was in my graduating class. For fear of revealing his identity now, I will simply call him BD - short for Bad Dog because that has been his nickname - one I dubbed - since the night we met. BD is and never would have been my type. I've always gone for the bad boy looks - the dark brooding eyes, just dark and brooding, period. I mixed in athletes here and there but that bad ass look always caught my eye. BD is so far from that "type" I am just not sure where he fit in to my grand scheme of things. But certainly, he wasn't then in high school my type - back to that remotely even remote description, but somehow that typecasting of my "type" evaporated on January 20, 2006, or actually, certainly, specifically, five months after that date.
BD and I exchanged a barrage of emails over a two week period in early January. One such email he sent to me was in response to my married/divorced/children questions email. He answered me "divorced, now engaged but unsure." That statement puzzled me - it was not really the kind of thing you tell someone after 25 plus years, someone you've really never ever talking to, seen or had any kind of a relationship whatsoever. A frown etched itself in my brow that day (which, suffice to stay is now still there after four years of consternation and frustration over this one little statement) but within a few seconds of his response, I shrugged it off and plunged on. We suggested a mutual meeting, lunch, or whatever just to "catch up." He remembered me: the sports writer, my love of baseball, etc. That's how all my high school friends remember me because there was nothing else that I did in high school which required any more memories of me. Sports and Paula, particularly baseball, went naturally together like apple pie and vanilla ice cream. He remembered somehow, or why, as I asked myself.
We met on January 20, 2006, a day after my 43rd birthday. I went to meet him with no expectations whatsoever because at that point in my life, I wasn't looking for anything - no one, nothing. He got out of his truck and I greeted him with a hug. The usual display of friendliness after you haven't seen someone for 25 or more years. He didn't rock my world. He was exactly the same height as me (I like tall guys), he rocked some really cool hair and his eyes - well, I had always been drawn to eyes and his were this liquid deep brown color and they crinkled when he smiled and laughed. But what woman wouldn't notice stuff like that? But there was no "spark," no "electricity" no nothing. He was just BD.
We sat for nearly 2 and a half hours talking and talking and talking. We didn't run out of things to say to each other. Frankly, now that I look back, I should have seen this coming. You don't just meet someone after 25 plus years, sit down and be able to talk to them for that amount of time as comfortably and as, well, normally with someone you've known for that length of time. That just does not happen at all.
We laughed ourselves silly over so many things. And then it was time to go. We walked out to the parking lot and I stood next to my car, keys in hand. I think I said "well, I had a really nice time," or something inane like that and he took one step, got in my space and kissed me.
I can't sit here and say I was shocked because it went beyond that. I'm not sure if it was the kiss or the fact he was unsure about his engagement and he was just trying me on for size or the millions other things that went through my head because kissing him BACK seemed like the most normal, natural thing to do in the world.
And he fit perfectly to me, I didn't have to bend down or stand on my toes. He just fit to me. Perfectly. He stepped back, I had no words so I laughed. And so did he. I said "Look, I have to go," and he said "Maybe I should follow you home" and I laughed again and said, "You are a bad dog. Go home." And he looked at me, burst out into this amazing laughter, and said "I'll talk to you real soon" walked away, turned back and looked at me one more time and got into his truck and left.
I was still standing there, holding my keys in my hand, wondering what the fuck had just happened. I touched my fingers to my lips - I know - lame - but because he was the first, uh, different kind of guy who had kissed me (I have no choice but to say it that way because I'd end up revealing his identity with any other choice of words and I can't do that) I realized that aw hell, he kisses just the same.
But somehow that kiss was better and different. And then I squashed my thoughts, cleared my head and went home.
I did not sleep that night. All I heard was our laughter, all I could feel was his lips still on mine and then I realized what a terrible mistake he'd made.
Or was it?
Four years and four hundred breakups and make ups later, I now know it wasn't a mistake but realistically two people who really belong together - the last two pieces of a really intricate puzzle - but can't be "together" in the sense that word is meant to be used in this kind of relationship - because that "engaged but unsure" statement was and still is an invisible, two-ended, sharp serrated knife that if either of us move too close to each other, that knife will surely rip us apart.
OK so five months later I moved way too close to that knife and it ripped me open, bearing my heart and soul and I realized I had fallen in love with the goddamned bad dog that went home that first night but came back two weeks later and just kept coming back again and again and again.
And is still hanging around.
Tomorrow: Bringing me back to life, doubt, pain, and questioning my sanity.
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