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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781458211224 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Abbott Press |
| Publication date: | 09/24/2013 |
| Pages: | 206 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.47(d) |
Read an Excerpt
I Dated This Guy Once ...
By TONI RAE
Abbott Press
Copyright © 2013 Toni R DuckworthAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4582-1122-4
CHAPTER 1
Episode 1
Change Hearts One at a Time
There's always going to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing—light trumps darkness, every time. You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light. —Jodi Picoult
I miss my niece. Hell, I even miss my mom and dad. I am all alone. I might even persuade someone to hold me tonight. But it would go against all of my moral beliefs, so I'll just sleep alone again. And let's be honest—I wouldn't have to pay someone to lay in bed with me. I'm quite cute and quite the cuddler.
I am currently twenty-five years old and working as an English teacher in a foreign country—South Korea, to be exact. I guess I'm of a different breed in certain ways. At least that's what I've been told. I like the feel of the big city, but I love the comfort and warmth of the beach and mountains. I want to travel, see the world, and experience all it has to offer, but I also want a husband and a couple little ones to love. I like to get outside my comfort zone, even with those I cannot communicate with due to a language barrier. But I also love sitting next to someone I know inside and out and being able to know what they're feeling or thinking.
I suppose every day I am figuring more of myself out. Every day I am becoming more of the woman I set out to be. I used to like things—cars, apartments, clothes, houses. I didn't love them, and I never thought I couldn't live without them, but as I grow, I understand that those things are only things of this world, man created, not God created. I find myself drawn to the things of the earth—the people, the sights, the sounds, the peacefulness and innocence in a child. Earthly things, they would be here whether we were here or not. But worldly things, man created, they are a temporary fix to a much deeper, long-term yearning, an unfathomable fulfillment that a thing could never fix. They pollute us and everything we surround ourselves with. They give us some false sense of security or hope that doesn't exist within, but rather exists for the temporary high of what feels like something that could satisfy you. But never does. So I say, the fewer things you need, the better off you are.
In fact, I usually say, the less you own, the less that owns you.
Some people live a lifetime thinking they know everything. Some people even die thinking they were always right. I know I don't know that much. Compared to Gandhi or other wise men and women, I really don't know anything. I also know I'm wrong a lot. And I know that I know that I know that all that matters in this world are those you love and that which you believe. The rest is just previews, what you are bound to watch before the main feature you actually wanted to see.
I am not a Christian because I always do what is right or even because I know what is right; I usually don't. Being a Christian is a daily struggle, but I am Christian because I have faith. I believe in the unknown; I believe in what I do not see. My faith turns my questions and worries into beliefs. Believing in the unknown is hard—not because you don't want to believe, but because the intelligence of this world breeds skepticism.
"Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as its own intelligence." – Author Unknown
We were made to love, to serve, to touch others' hearts with our own. If you are doing that, you are doing exactly what I intend to do.
I think at some point every one of us gets caught up in this world, waiting to get a new job, waiting for a raise, waiting to move, waiting to get married, waiting to tell someone you love him or her—in other words, waiting to be happy. So many of us get caught up in waiting that we forget to be here now. We forget to live. So I say live now. Live for today. Ignore your cell phone when you're talking to someone you respect. Love someone who disrespects you. Hold the door for a stranger. Buy someone you care about flowers out of the blue. Be the best you that you can be. Change hopeless hearts one at a time.
I have spent my whole life working. At age fourteen, while sitting around my birthday dinner at Applebee's on July 10, 1997, I was hired on the spot to be a grocery sacker by a store director. It was family tradition to work at the local grocery store until you were old enough to get a real job. I was very excited about this at the time, and the grocery store director, Mark Davis, just happened to be at Applebee's, so it was an easy interview. I loved going to work, getting up for work, making money at work, being at work—I loved everything about work. After two years as a sacker and then a cashier clerk, I got a job at a local clothing store called The Buckle; that was at age sixteen.
I should mention that my first high school boyfriend and I met while I was working at the grocery store. His name is Michael, and we were together for a little over two years. It was, of course, the perfect high school sweetheart relationship. Michael was a great boyfriend to me. He is now married and, coincidentally, still works part time at the same Applebee's I was hired at eleven years ago. Some people, like Michael, are better off with little to no change—same job, same town, same friends. Not me. I prefer drastic spurts of change. More on the high school sweetheart later.
Back to work. I worked at the clothing store for two years, until the end of my junior year in high school. Then, at eighteen, I miraculously got a job at a very young age at T-Mobile, a retail cell phone store. I made $31,000 that year. I was a sales consultant, and although the job was tiresome and somewhat stressful, I loved it. I worked at T-Mobile for a little over four years and was in and out of relationships through those years. Where do I even start? I will put that on hold for a minute.
My goals were always career oriented and, therefore, monetary. By twenty- three, I was making $50,000, $70,000 by age twenty-five, and in the six figs by thirty. This is the American dream, right? This is why we waste thousands of dollars on a very expensive piece of paper someone tells us we must acquire and then have sit in our closets for all of eternity, right? Right. Well, after four years in the wireless communications industry, I got into inside sales at a small health-care company, making $34,000. Then I worked in marketing at a small technology company, where I was making $50,000 by age twenty-three. But I was laid off after a year. Then I worked as an executive assistant for nearly a year and was laid off again.
I had hit my career goals as well as my financial goals. I was working hard and doing the right things. But after the consecutive layoffs, I was seriously struggling financially. You know how it's been; times are tough. Or maybe you're reading this later; times were tough. It is extremely difficult when you are making really good money as a single person and then are laid off, because as a single person, there is no backup income. Of course, I'm thankful I was single and not a mother of three children being laid off. Perspective is imperative. So the economy was falling headfirst into a recession, and I needed a way out. With a degree in social psychology, which I earned as an online student, there was not much I could do without going back to college. Let's spend another twenty-six grand on another piece of paper to sit in the closet for all of eternity. I think not. So after attempting to run my own public relations firm for nearly a year, I finally found a way out.
That is what leads me to this episode of my life, Korea, single and writing.
CHAPTER 2
Episode 2
Our Lives Are a Book
And remember, "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." —1 Peter 4:8
I prefer to think of life like this. Life is a book. Some chapters are short. Some chapters are so good you don't want them to end, even when they do. Some chapters last lifetimes, and before you know it, the book is over; your life as you knew it is gone. So I say write a story that lasts forever; write a story that people want to read, maybe even over and over again. My book is going to be long, I hope. This is the beginning of it. And none of it is perfect. Most of it just plain sucks at this point. But because I think its worth sharing, because I think it might help someone in this world, I'm going to share my story with you—all of it: the pains, the loves, the losses, the joy, everything. This is my life, my story, my open book. I hope that it's one you want to read over and over again, or at least pass on.
My story starts like this.
A couple years ago, I started to write a book about dating, life, love, relationships, and various other topics. The book was supposed to be called Rushing to a Red Light. I lost the majority of the contents of this book because of a simple computer mishap that set off a chain of events leading to a car break-in in which my laptop was stolen. I had reset the computer to run faster, but once the reset was complete, it only blinked a blue screen. Nice going, genius. I was going to buy another laptop that day and left the broken one in a small, brown leather bag on the floor of my car. I had tinted windows, and since I lived in downtown Kansas City, I had rented a spot in a "secure" parking garage. Nevertheless, someone shattered the window, and the broken laptop was stolen within a couple hours. Not that it mattered that much, the stupid thief stole a broken computer. But I was upset because it was another disappointment at a very difficult point in my life, and mainly because I had lost two years' worth of effort and hard work. At that point, I had nearly given up on writing, on relationships, on life—on everything, really.
Most of this started when I was twenty-two. A male best friend of mine, Joe, asked me to be his roommate. My parents surprised me with a puppy, which I named Harley, and Joe and I were raising the puppy together. Harley was a Maltese dachshund mix. Some refer to this as a Daxitese, but there are other names. Harley was only a couple pounds when I got him and grew to be about eight pounds. This was a genius sort of small dog who knew how to sit, stay, shake, heal, pee in the shower, and fetch. He always stayed close to me when we were outside. He wasn't the yippy, barking, run-from-his-owner, doesn't-know-how-to-sit sort of small dog you want to smack. Harley knew submissive positions when he did something wrong, though such positions were rarely warranted. At the time, moving in with Joe to save money and live rent-free was the best decision I could have made. But I was still extremely immature, not ready for a serious commitment, and just not aware of his hidden agenda in the whole scenario. I mean, I was twenty-two. Let's be realistic.
Joe was twenty-nine, looking to settle down, extremely wealthy and, as I mentioned, had an entirely different mindset than I. After a couple weeks, it was obvious—pretty much because his best friend told me—that he was unsustainably, irrevocably, madly in love with me. As best friends, he wrote me an e-mail confessing his feelings and then telling me—promising me—that he could handle his emotions, that everything would be fine, and that we could remain friends and roommates. However, very shortly thereafter, I found this not to be the case at all. Ah, the red flags we ignore in order to sustain ourselves.
When you love someone as much as he loved me, you cannot suppress those emotions. You can attempt to stop loving someone. You can try to hide your true feelings. You can even try and pretend they don't exist. But the cold, hard truth was his feelings were very real and very much on the surface. He wore his emotions on his sleeve and was not able to keep them contained.
Within a month of living together, it had gotten to the point that I was being "disrespectful" if I had a date even pick me up at "[Joe's] house." And further to the point, if I was seeing someone, he was not really allowed to come to the house where I lived. In other words, Is pent all of my time with Joe. We were best friends, we ate dinner together, we drank together, we raised Harley together, we cooked together, we watched movies together, we played games together, we traveled together, we ran errands together—we did everything together. After a few months, it was inevitable—we started dating.
His plan worked.
I knew from day one Joe was not the man I realistically wanted. But you know how it goes. Your family and friends start to tell you all the things that are wrong with you, why you never choose the right person to date, why you always end up getting hurt—or worst yet, that you'll end up alone if you don't start giving other guys a chance. Yada yada yada. Most of us have heard this at some point, to one degree or another—unless, of course, you are a "serial relationshipper." And let's be honest: that can be just as detrimental to one's mental health.
Deep down in my heart of hearts, after all the persuasive speeches I should have ignored, I slightly agreed. I wanted to try and love this man rather than to hurt him or break his heart. So I tried desperately to develop the sort of emotions that would attach myself to him. I wanted so terribly to feel something, to kiss him and feel love, to see him and think love, to be given a romantic candlelit dinner and roses and melt in his very presence. And trust me, I tried. Daily. Sometimes even hourly.
Throughout this time, we were both learning and growing a lot. But we were also making habitually horrible decisions. We went out a lot, drank a lot—almost every night actually. My best friend, Rachel, and his best friend, Daniel—well, the four of us made quite the foursome and were pretty much inseparable for a year. Looking back, it was one of the best years of my life. We were carefree. We were actually free. The money Joe made allowed us to do the sorts of things you only see in movies.
Sometimes we would pack up and within hours be on an airplane to somewhere, all four of us. It seemed like overnight we would end up next to Paris Hilton at a club in Las Vegas. Pure was the one she was at that time. We traveled every chance we got. It was part of the escape, I think.
More than anything, I think I fell in love with the lifestyle, not the man. I fell in love with the freedom, the unknown, the lack of structure and responsibility. I fell in love with sleeping in, going to the pool, going to the lake, going out of town, having help with my puppy, help with my homework, help with everything in my life. He was there for me. And this was my first real relationship with a man—an established man ready for marriage, that is.
There was this one trip, probably my favorite one we ever went on. It was just Joe, his family, and I visiting his grandma in Arkansas. She was dying from multiple illnesses and could only write; she had lost her ability to speak. It was so sad watching her write to each of her grandchildren, and even sadder as Joe showed me all the pictures of his family and life along the wall in the hallway. I took their last pictures together, and her smile brought tears to my eyes. I think this was the best trip because it was the first one where I saw Joe without his vices, without his blanket of security—material things, cars, work, money. I finally saw him stripped of everything he was usually wrapped up in. He was stripped of the things of this world that separate us, that divide and conquer relationships every day. Part of the reason I couldn't love him was because I didn't see him as the man he was with his grandma. I saw him as a womanizer, the way people knew him before he met me. I look back on this trip and think maybe we could have worked had the materialism of this world not gotten the best of him, had our mindsets ever matched what really matters in this life. Don't get me wrong. I recognize the hypocrisy in myself, but I was not raised with money. A new outfit for the first day of school was a big deal, and sometimes our grandmother sewed them. It was nice to finally relax, be taken care of, and not work.
So we drove his Hummer to Arkansas, following his sister, brother-in-law, and niece. We made an overnight stop in Branson, Missouri, and stayed at this place called Big Cedar Lodge. Our room was hilarious. It was filled with stuff ed deer heads, squirrels, birds, and other wildlife. I had a hard time falling asleep with all those animals staring at me. But eventually, after a relaxing and sexually stimulating time in the Jacuzzi, I got over it.
Our sex life was always subpar; the sparks just were not there for me. I think that is what always held me back from being in love with him. I need the sparks. I need the moments that take my breath away. However, in that hotel room, kissing him finally felt real. I remember his kiss and touch being meaningful and passionate during that trip, and I fell for it. Maybe part of this was all in my head, and certainly much of it was in his, but during this trip into fields and rolling green hills, we were a different couple. It was comforting.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from I Dated This Guy Once ... by TONI RAE. Copyright © 2013 Toni R Duckworth. Excerpted by permission of Abbott Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction.................... xi
Episode 1 Change Hearts One at a Time.................... 1
Episode 2 Our Lives Are a Book.................... 7
Episode 3 The Breakup.................... 17
Episode 4 Blind Love.................... 25
Episode 5 A Brand-New Life.................... 33
Episode 6 Be the Fire.................... 41
Episode 7 My Palace.................... 49
Episode 8 Little Devil in a Lockbox.................... 57
Episode 9 Happiness.................... 63
Episode 10 Oh Shit, I Am Lonely.................... 73
Episode 11 South Korea.................... 79
Episode 12 Poetry and Letters to My Future Love.................... 87
Episode 13 Truth Be Told.................... 93
Episode 14 Much-Needed Trip to Thailand.................... 99
Episode 15 The Foreign Love Affair.................... 107
Episode 16 Something Is Seriously Wrong with Men, or with Me............... 115
Episode 17 The Chapter of Jesse.................... 121
Episode 18 Return to the States.................... 137
Episode 19 Dating Games? Really?.................... 145
Episode 20 Technology Is Ruining The Dating World.................... 153
Episode 21 Positive Thoughts.................... 163
Episode 22 Are Options a Luxury or a Hindrance?.................... 171
Episode 23 Falling In and Out of Love.................... 183