
Me meeting this woman occurred by accident; Mother had sold some jewelry for her once, and she had mentioned her to me one day while at lunch. She thought she was nice and that I had nothing to lose.
My instinct then immediately said, 'what the hell?' And so I walked into the bank where she worked and I started talking to her. Good thing I banked there too, otherwise it would have been random and made me look like a creeper.
Anyway, that is besides the point. The point here is that I asked her out one day; like my mother, I said to myself, I got nothing to lose, and I asked her out. This was during a time when I wanted nothing to do with dating or anything like that, but I was also in a whatever mood. However, after asking her out and walking out without her number, I realized how stupid I had been. I had written down my number on a deposit slip and given it to her, but walked out without getting hers in exchange.
Obviously my whatever mood had clouded my judgement; it wasn't until later when I was home that I had gotten a text message from her telling me that was her and now I had her number. I felt silly; but I saved her number and proceeded to plan it all out. I always liked having a plan for things, but as Lady V once told me, never make any plans, they always seem to either get changed or fall apart.
So I went ahead and planned to go bowling; I thought it was a good idea. Something fun to do and get to know her. And probably kick her ass at bowling since I was so good, or so I told myself.
Joke's on me, though, as the day approached and I picked her up and drove to the bowling alley, I realized that the coupons I had been given to by Mother no longer worked for the deal, and on top of that, the bowling alley had rented the space out to have a League Game that day.
Welcome awkwardness, for as I sat in the car banging the inside of my head to come up with a backup plan I had no idea what I was going to end up doing. Then I realized I was close to Barnes and Noble, and the idea of sitting around getting to know each other seemed plausible. So I told her the plan and to my surprise, she loved Barnes and Noble and so it was a date.
Date. I hate that word. It wasn't really a date, or was it a date? It could have been, I guess depends who you ask. Anyway, I trail off.
We sat, ordered some coffee and snacks and sat down to talk. I eased up into conversation, for I was still very shy around new women in my life, and as we started talking I started liking her more about her. She was a writer, she liked to read, she was very passionate, and had goals, had already graduated college, so she was a couple years older than me, more mature, and with her head on her shoulders, to put it simply.
It seemed too good to be true.
It was.
We started dating, we started going out, started holding hands, then kissing, then I started buying her flowers, and she started hiding my birthday present who apparently she was knitting behind closed doors.

We started meeting at her place to talk about life and future goals, and I started growing fonder of her. She really had set goals she wanted to achieve, she had a vision of the future where she got done what she wanted to get done, and I respected the hell outta her for that.
We started exchanging our writings, critiquing each other, editing each other's work. This relationship was growing, she met Mother, and Mother spoiled her. I thought we were going down a great path.
Until we weren't.
She had met me at a time where I couldn't have been further away from God and Catholicism, and even though I thought that was a sign, her deep love for Jesus and her Christian faith was way out of my league. I kept telling myself that there was no way I could compete with God. Meanwhile she kept telling herself that there was no way she could compete with my family, most specifically, Mother.
Mother has always had her best interests and mine at hand; always protecting her first born and taking care of him. It's why 'Mother knows best' is a damn saying in the first place.
So our relationship hit a wall, a most spectacular clash of religion and affection. We never got to the point where we said 'I love you' to each other, which is my great takeaway from this failed relationship, not because of the lack of doing so, but because it showed me what kind of relationship I was heading into.
There was affection, yes, there was physical attraction, but we were both at different emotional levels.
I was on the mend, she was ready to move on.
Her maturity; I will never forget that, I looked up to it.
And so the day came when we had to break up. We did, and we parted ways. There was one last awkward moment to come full circle when I had to close my bank account and she was my teller.
In the back of my head, although I was hurt, I knew that it was for the best, and that she would succeed achieving her goals no matter where she ended up or with who.
And she did. She became a published author, pursued her dreams, moved onto a better place, and made of herself her best version.
Until this day I imagine that and I envy it, for when it comes to my writing goals and dreams, I am nowhere near close to them--my novels still covered in dust, my plans laid bare for me to ignore, and the only progress, if we can call it that, is this website to which you are reading.
The Writer had become The Author.
But this writer, well, you know where I'll be.
And I'll be writing right here.