Foster Care & Adoption Blog #8: The Final Chapter

This blog is in retrospect: began in June 2011

Things have changed drastically since I wrote this. My blogging has fallen behind but I will get you all caught up this week!

...

Well, today is the day: Our final home visit before sending our license off to the state. Our social worker arrives at 5:00 PM today, and neither of us can believe that we managed to do all of our last minute chores last night.

I recently ordered a book called Another Place at the Table by Kathy Harrison. If you've ever thought about fostering/ adopting, you should give this a read. It's a Foster Mother's journey through "the system", as we've realized it's referred to by insiders, and she tells the most bone-chilling tales of children that are brought to her like wild animals who have been abused for too long. Just like animals, they are unpredictable; one minute they may be snuggled in your lap, but if they feel any sense of fear they will bite in an instant.

In the book she describes rocking children late in the night, sobbing for a mother who will never come back, and that is the tamest of things.

I'd like to say that I'm confident that this is the right next step in our lives, but the reality is: I am not.

...

This is the last chapter of our love story.

If you've read this far, THANK YOU.

...

After my visit in early January, we made a commitment to visit each other at least once a month. We talked on the phone everyday for hours, me asking him endless questions in an effort to compile a list of perfectly good reasons why we would never work out. I remember our air conditioning conversation and being appalled when he said he set his thermostat to 80 in the summers, while I set mine to a frosty 72.

He had just been hired at the Nuclear Plant in Southport, so his schedule was very busy. But despite that, we still managed to fit in 4 hours of phone time almost every day. He sent me this photo of him with all of his Document Services ladies:



He flew to Ohio at the end of January, and it was bitter cold. I remember going to pick him up at the airport, still wondering what I was doing, where this was taking me (if anywhere), thinking about the Background Guy, and smoking a cigarette. I had just decided to take up the habit again, and really I wasn't even very good at it. I could never smoke an entire cigarette without feeling sick.

At this point I must mention my dear friend Mandy, who was a very special God-send to me during this period of my life. We ran in the same circle, but had never really connected until I met Mr. Casey, and when I look back I am still so incredibly thankful for her. This is a photo of us at Friday's right before I met Casey Samuel in person. I think we were making fun of our other friend Therese's new driver's license photo:

I arrived at the Dayton International Airport, parked my ol' faithful green Honda and went inside. Feelings of anxiety came over me: I was afraid of seeing him again, afraid that when I saw him I might not like him as much as when we talked on the phone. In my state, I called Mandy, who I knew could give me some logical, objective advice.

I hid myself beside a phone booth on the perimeter, surveying the crowd to see if I could find him, knowing that if I spotted him, I'd hide a little better so that I could study him for a few moments and work up to that first awkward greeting. I used the payphone I was hiding behind to call her, as I was going through a period in my life where I was living without a cell phone. I was rebelling against modern society.

Mandy answered her phone, and I spoke to her frantically saying, "I can't do this Mandy!" I tried to explain my predicament in trying to get my mind and heart to forget about the Background Guy, but that I couldn't. I tried to explain that I wasn't sure if I was making the right decision, and I'm sure she was exasperated with me.

In mid-conversation, I spotted him. He was wearing a black jacket and an orange scarf. "Oh no! I see him!" I whisper-yelled into the phone as I darted behind the phone booth. I needed her to say something profound, and quickly.

She spoke to me calmly and explained her insights: where the Background Guy was going, I could not go, and where I was going, he could not go. It made perfect sense to me, and yes, it was that simple for me to be okay with my situation at that moment after her simple words of wisdom. I add "at that moment" because my confusion came back to haunt me later.

"Oh no! I see him! What should I do???"
Mandy said cooly, "Just go get him."
I hesitantly replied, trying to have as much assurance as she apparently had, "Alright. I'll let you know how it goes." I hung up and rolled my eyes in despair.

I appeared from behind the phone booth, and made my way past a crowd of people walking through the baggage claim area, wondering how he hadn't seen me yet and even being annoyed with him that he hadn't. We greeted each other, awkwardly as expected, and left the airport.

Although we were facing arctic weather, we did get out enough to have Starbucks, Breakfast at Mimi's Cafe, and hit up the Cheesecake Factory once, and we probably went to visit Mandy just because they both got along so well and she made me feel like he wasn't so awkward after all. He spent the nights at his Aunt Alison's house which was only a 10-minute drive from my apartment.

In one attempt to leave the apartment in the blizzard, he tried to gentlemanly back my car out of a parking space in the lot outside. I watched from my window, knowing he was about to fail miserably since he probably had never driven in the snow before.

And I was right! I watched through my cheap blinds and my super-cool indigo and lavender drapes with sparkles (ah, college decorations) as he was able to back up a total of two feet and then got stuck. The parking lot was at least two feet high with snow, and I actually felt bad for him instead of being disgusted, so I hurried downstairs to save him and show him how it was done, having a feeling that I would tell this story again someday.

After 3 days I took him to the airport and he was gone again. I was relieved to know that I would have at least another month to think about things before I saw him again. I spent the next month attending my last quarter of classes before I would graduate, which included mostly introductory classes that I'd put off until the bitter end: History 101, Intro to Biology, an Independent Study based on my recent trip to Kenya, and lastly, Western Civilization. I actually snuck Casey Samuel into one of the Western Civ. lectures once so he could see how scatter-brained the professor was.

I can't believe the memory of this class almost escaped me until writing out our journey.

Our last big assignment in the class was to write a paper on explaining why we thought female genital mutilation could be justified. He gave us a long lecture on both sides of the issue, and then set us free to write our papers. We all arrived at class and handed in the papers. A week later, the elderly professor came into class fuming, threw our papers back at us, and said that there was "no way" that we could ever think female genital mutilation was okay. He had a field day with us and the feature event was mind games. I have my own thoughts on the subject of "mutilation" vs. "religious practice" but that's for another day. Definitely another day.


Sidenote to Back-Track:

I forgot some great snippets of information from when we wrote to each other on Myspace! It is true that we did not see each other in person or talk on the phone during that 9-month period, but we did see video of each other.

We were both aspiring film-makers, and he had uploaded some of his short films featuring his best friend, Joel Winstead, on Youtube. They called them "Treestand Issues".



My inspiring film was made on a whim one day when I spotted a fundamentalist Christian ironically raising hell in the middle of the commons. I was trying to be deep and artsy:





Anyway, back to the story:

Something was brewing in February, and I had no idea. Mr. Casey and I continued to talk every day after work and school, and he informed me that he made plans to come and visit me the weekend before Valentine's Day.

In our phone conversations, after much prying on his part, I confessed that much of my hesitation about our relationship was because I needed a certain sign from God that would confirm our relationship, and that I had not yet received it. I did not tell him what it was or give any hints. Since I was gaining a lot of worldly knowledge and philosophy in college, taking classes like Philosophy of Religion, I was coming to think that it was very silly of me to hold out on such a far-fetched notion of this dancing with gardenias.

Another Sidestory:

I remembered that the previous year (I wrote this down in my sacred journal) that I had given into the guilty pleasure of the ultimate chick-flick: Pride & Prejudice.

I had a thing about TV: I didn't want to watch it because I was paranoid about wasting time and life. But, this time, I didn't care.

I had a really cheap DVD player that I think I bought from Meijer, that was hooked up to an old, white, 20'', SHARP, TV. It had never had skipped from time-to-time, but on this particular day, it just plain SHUT OFF.

Which, here's a sidenote about that phrase: SHUT OFF. I have wondered where North Carolinians picked up the phrase: CUT OFF. Why does one have to "cut off" the lights? But you know what I just realized? That phrase makes so much more sense than "shut off". What in the world does that even mean anyway???

Back to the movie:

I was watching, and probably eating, and I was about 15 minutes into the film (the point when you start to really focus). If you've seen it, you probably remember the flirtatious feud that Mr. Darcy has with what's-her-face in the beginning, when they are at the first ball.

They are arguing about how one shows another affection. He asks her, "How then, does one go about showing affection?"

She looks at him and says, "Dancing..." And then the movie shut off. The whole TV shut off.

My eyes got wide as I knew what was happening. The most curious thing though was that I hadn't even been thinking about the journal or the conference, but I certainly did after that. I dug out my journal and recorded what had happened. I tried to record all of the signs along the way of the journey.

At that point in time I had just discovered Casey Samuel's existence, but I did not even consider him a prospect.

...

He was very much aware of my past, and, at the time, truthfully present heartaches from too many romantic relationships that I'd had. I felt numb, like all the love had been sucked out of me, and it was difficult for me to latch on to anyone again.

He was also aware of the battle with the eating disorder, but I assured him that I was doing much better. The thing was though, that I was never really better. I went through waves of it: okay, then horrible, then great, then horrible, and so on. I guess you could look at it as a bi-polar sort of thing, but I actually have come to think that true bi-polar disorder is quite rare, and I don't think that was my problem.

I had previously agreed (since Mr. Casey and I were still in the "talking" process and were not mutually exclusive) to go to dinner on Valentine's Day, which was falling a Wednesday, with a guy from "The Barrel" named Adam. I knew that Adam was an awkward guy with little to no friends, and I was being polite when he had asked me to dinner. I did stress, however, that we would be going just as friends. Casey Samuel asked me kindly one night on the phone if I would please consider not going out to dinner with this Adam character, and to be exclusive, and I agreed that I would and wondered how long it would last.

...

The weekend before Valentine's day had arrived, and, as usual, I went to pick up Casey Samuel at the Dayton Airport. And, as usual, it was so cold that our breath formed thick clouds in the air when we struggled to breathe.

During his last trip up, I took him shopping at the mall so that he could buy himself a decent winter coat, since all he owned before that was, in my opinion, a Spring jacket. The final decision for the coat was made after we were out one chilly afternoon and he squinted his eyes through the icy wind and struggled to say, "I've. Never. Experienced. Cold. Like. This. Before."

It looked so nice on him, I thought. It was a Calvin Klein, long dress coat that was soft to the touch. The fact that is was a name-brand winter coat made him feel British.

I felt more comfortable around him during this trip, like things were maybe going to resemble something akin to a normal dating relationship. The jacket was helping.

He would fly in on Fridays and we would spend that time just hanging out and getting reacquainted. That weekend I had the most terrible cold that I think I've ever had in my entire life, and he was very gracious to me and didn't mind kissing me anyway.

In honor of Valentine's Day, I made him 22 Valentine's Day cards to make up for the Valentine's Days that he hadn't had a significant other in the past, and he probably teared up over it as he often does over emotional things (but never over films).

Saturday, my cold had put me out of commission completely, so we stayed in my apartment all afternoon watching movies. I wanted to get out in the evening, so we drove a block to the college Starbucks to get him a Mocha. I was, of course, still wearing my gardenia perfume. I'd kept buying it since the conference.

While we were standing in line, he noticed my perfume for the first time. He asked me, "What kind of perfume do you wear?" I told him "it's gardenia body spray (because it was). It's not a perfume, it's a spray." I have no idea why I was so clear about what it's liquid form was, but I think it had something to do with that I had spoken the word, "gardenia" and was afraid he'd be on to me. He told me that he always noticed how good I smelled and was just curious.

He asked me if I wanted to do anything else special for Valentine's Day, and suggested that we go to a park. This suggestion baffled me because the outside was covered in ice, and I declined the offer.

We went back to my apartment, and he told me that he wanted to give me something. I was mortified because I thought he was going to give me an engagement ring upon only our 4th visit, and sat stiffly on the couch. He got out my guitar, and started to play me a song that he told me he'd written in the airport.

He called it, "Stay A While", and I'll just share the chorus with you:

So stay a while with me
'til I fall asleep
Stay a while with me
Sing your love for me
Stay a while with me

It was very sweet and I loved it. I was also relieved when I thought this was his gift and that I had avoided an awkward moment.

But, that wasn't everything.

He said, "I want to give you something."

I noticed my eyes got wide a lot during this time of my life, and once again, they did. He walked behind the couch to get something out of his bag, and to my surprise, he reached his arm around me and handed it to me.

His offering was 2, perfectly white, perfectly bloomed, gardenias.

I almost died.

Where did he get them? It's February. How did he bring them in his bag and keep them in such mint condition? How did he know? Oh my God, does this mean I have to marry him? I'm not ready to marry anyone just yet.





But despite my racing thoughts and doubts, I was delighted at my gift. I also had a conflicting sense of relief because I knew then that he was the man I was supposed to marry, but I was wondering how the readiness of my mind could influence the unsteadiness of my heart.

I immediately asked, "How? How did you know?" He confessed that he'd been doing his homework on the subject of me and the instructor was none-other than Mandy. But thankfully Mandy was a faithful friend, and had not divulged my secret to anyone.

Apparently he figured out that he needed a prize to claim me, and he was determined to figure it out. He deduced on his own that it was a flower, and called Mandy to confirm his hypothesis: secret flower=future bride.

She confirmed this hypothesis, and then he asked her if she could give him any hints: colors at least? She held firmly to her no.

He took some time to think and to pray, and he had finally come up with his answer. Lilac. He called Mandy immediately.

She answered.
"Mandy! I think I've got it!"
"Okay, go ahead."
"Lilac." He waited for her to gasp with joy, but instead she sighed with disappointment.
"No, that's not it."

He was a let down soul. He grasped at reasons for why God would not reveal this to him, and didn't want to give in to the possible truth that maybe he was not the one for Casey Lauren.

They filled the phone static with small talk, and then, he had a revelation.

He thought of another flower.

An argument began in his mind.

He said he heard it as if a voice said, "Ask about gardenias."

"That's just stupid. That's grasping at straws and guessing random flowers."

He said at first he thought it was his own mind playing tricks on him, that it had never occurred to him that it may be supernatural.

And then it said, "Just ask about this one flower, and nothing else."

So he waited until there was a lull in the conversation.

"Okay Mandy, I've got one more. I don't know why, but I just have to ask."

"Go ahead."

"Is it..." he paused to contemplate it himself..."Gardenias?"

There was a squeal of delight on the other end of the phone as she confirmed that that was the right answer, and that week he was off on his search for the elusive bush.

I need to let you all know that Casey Samuel was not savvy about finding things. He wasn't the kind of guy that looked for things online. For goodness' sake, he hadn't even visited any of the restaurants in Downtown Southport until we were married and he'd lived there his entire life. If he was looking for something, the first place he would go was Wal-Mart, as it is the most happenin' place in town.

So he went off to Wal-Mart in search of a gardenia plant in January. And the power above seemed to want to make things very easy for him that day, because Wal-Mart did, in fact, have gardenias for sale, a rarity that I have not seen again since that year-April is the earliest, March, maybe, that they would be out.

He skimmed through the plants, looking for any signs of blooming. There were none. It was no surprise either, since it was so early in the season. But then, he saw it: the only one with blooms or buds on it, with two blooms as a matter-of-fact, and he bought it.

Gardenias in bloom in January in the Southport Wal-Mart-seriously?
...

There was another situation at hand but I didn't realize how close it was.

Before Mr. Casey had come to visit, I got a typical, accusatory phone call from my dad. He had developed some severe paranoia in his later years that led him to believe that my favorite thing to do was to give his phone number out to strangers, which I never actually did.

The phone rang. I answered.

The first words out of his mouth were, "Why is he calling me?"

I assumed he meant Casey Samuel, since he could never bring himself to say his full name. I also knew immediately why he had called him, and was kind of annoyed with my dad for not being able to subdue his psychosis just this once.

I didn't even have to ask my dad if he had answered the call, because I knew him so well that I could recount the entire scenario without knowing anything.

Casey Samuel called my dad. My dad didn't answer. Casey Samuel left a message. My dad checked the message, and instead of calling him back like what the rules of cultural social norms say, he called me instead, fearing that Casey Samuel probably already had access to his bank accounts and was funneling profits.

I tried be gracious with him while also trying to calm him down, "Dad, he probably wants to ask your permission to marry me."

"Oh.... Well......Alright. Do I have to call him back?"

"YES."

Even though I think I probably explained to Casey Samuel that my dad wouldn't be able to comprehend such a gesture, he felt an obligation to it and I thought it was very sweet.

Since the surprise had been revealed, I was a little on edge that weekend and hoping that the proposal wouldn't be happening that soon. Before he gave me the gardenias, I thought he was just calling my dad to make his intentions known, although I knew my dad didn't sense an obligation to give me his permission for things unless it involved money.

When I told Casey Samuel later that my dad had blown the secret, I recounted the entire conversation that I suspected he had had with him, and he confirmed that it was accurate and was amazed at how well I was able to quote my dad without having heard the conversation first-hand.

...

And then it was Sunday.

We made plans to go to church at Faith Lutheran, my grandparents church, and then go out to lunch with my mom and Jeff, who is my step-dad. Casey Samuel wore his long, black coat and I kept thinking that day that he looked like a husband.

He held the hymn book and sang the songs played to the old organ as loud as he could and I could tell that my grandfather (Paw-Paw) was pleased with him. My grandma (Nanny) has no filter over what she says. Whatever pops into head will come out of her mouth, which no one minds since she's now 87.

She was on one side of me with Casey Samuel on the other, and she turned to me indiscreetly and said, "You know, I didn't think he was good-looking before but that hair cut really helped; he's really a cutie!"

Thankfully Mr. Casey is a gracious man, and he laughed about it.

...

When we left church we walked out into the snow and ice-covered parking lot and got into my car, which I was letting him drive that weekend. As we pulled off, he asked me, "So, would you like to get married in a church like this someday?"

At that moment I was feeling good about our situation, and so I smiled and said, "Yes. I think so."

...

I was starving and eager to eat some First Watch Crepes. I even have a First Watch coffee mug at my house, thanks to my thoughtful friend Stephanie McSpadden (now Rowlan), so that I can remember my favorite restaurant in Ohio.

All four of us were there, getting into a booth. I sat down first, and asked Casey Samuel if I could hold his jacket for him after he took it off. I grabbed it to shove in the corner, but instead decided I'd use it to cover up since it was so cold. When I draped it over my legs, I adjusted it and smoothed it out, and as I did, my hand grabbed right at the jacket pocket, and I felt an unmistakable object: a ring box.

I was mortified because I knew that my answer would be no, and also because we were sitting down to lunch with my family and we were in the middle of small talk. I tried to act natural as I felt the ring box and I knew that my eyes had to have at least doubled in size for about 10 seconds as I stumbled over my words when my mom asked our how our weekend had been.

We finished up eating and then went back to my apartment, and by then I was nearly exploding trying to keep the secret that I was onto him.

"What are you doing?" I demanded. "I know what you're planning!"

"I don't know what you're talking about." He said innocently. He was never a good liar. He always thinks too long and his nostrils flare which is always his giveaway.

I told him the situation at First Watch and he was very amused. He admitted that he had a plan, what he thought was a fail-proof plan. I told him that my answer was "no", that I wasn't ready yet, but he didn't believe me or he just didn't care. He took out the box and told me that he was going to wait to see if the right time came up, but then decided that that time was right now.

I was sitting down on the couch, which I inherited from Grandma Townsend, in what we had dubbed the "snuggle corner", and he knelt down in front of me with the ring box. I was probably shaking my head at him, wondering why he was putting himself through this pain. He told me that he loved me with all of his heart, and asked me to marry him. I said "no."

There was more of an explanation of course. I told him that I wasn't ready yet, and he was trusting enough to give me the ring anyway. It is not the wedding ring that I have today. I had told him that if we ever got married, I wanted a simple ring with no diamonds. Just something artsy that I could wear for any occasion.

It was a silver ring and the design was two leaves intertwined. I loved it and wished that I had the guts to agree to his proposal.

And that was how we left off: with a turned-down proposal. He flew back to North Carolina the next day.

...

My "no" did not end our relationship. He told me that he knew that one day, I would say "yes", and that he would never give up on me.

I would like to say that things got better for me, but they actually became worse. The stresses of work, college, relationships, and the eating disorder were consuming me. I wasn't sure if I wanted to marry Casey Samuel, when I still had feelings for someone else. So, in a moment of total desperate weakness, I called The Background Guy. I was an emotional disaster, crying over the phone and I think even hoping that would make him more transparent in his confession of loving me. I hadn't heard from him in months at this point, and the saga of our complicated friendship had been going on for 6 years. The last time I saw him was one unfortunate night the past July, and it was now February. I told him I'd been dating someone else and was having some doubts, and this conversation was the last chance. I asked why I hadn't heard from him, and wanted him to tell me that it was officially over on his end so that I could peacefully move on. He hesitated before he gave his unforgettable answer.

He said he'd had a heart-to-heart with one of his friends at college, which is where he was at the time. He told him, "I'll do anything God asks me to, but I won't marry Casey Townsend." At first I was confused and wondered if he meant that he just wouldn't because he was afraid to or wouldn't because he didn't want to, but deep down I knew what he meant. We hung up the phone, and that was THE END of that.

Looking back I can see that what I thought were strong feelings for this man was only a cry for acceptance by someone who had repeatedly rejected me. I would say, "I don't handle rejection well", but, does anyone???

I add this part to the story because I don't think that you need to wait to get married to someone once you've forgotten all of your past loves and losses. It works that way for some, but the reality is, you don't forget about the ones you thought you loved before or the pain they caused you. You choose to move on instead of feeling ready to move on.

I knew that God was separating me from this person once and for all, and I was relieved for it, but also deeply sad because I knew that this time I had to obey.

...

Thankfully, I had a friend who didn't let me isolate myself from her, as I often do with people. Her name is Lorri Linkhart. I confided in her about my eating disorder, and my epic mistake with calling The Background Guy. The eating disorder was taking a toll on my blood sugars and all-around well-being, but I couldn't find it within myself to get it together. I was missing classes and work because of it.

In addition to that, I told her about the epic phone-call mistake I had just made. After hearing all of these updates, she made me an appointment with a therapist that specialized in eating disorders for that same week. I will always consider her a true friend.

None of my blunders were kept secret from Casey Samuel. I always told him everything, and he always displayed endless grace.

When she made me the appointment, the problems that I had all of a sudden became a lot more serious in my mind. In my mind I went through aspects that were making life harder, and Cracker Barrel was one of them. I went to work one day with the intention of quitting, and I knew that I couldn't give them 2 weeks notice, that I had to be done that very day.

I had cut my hours a lot anyway so I knew it wouldn't be a big loss to them. My boss was a Jewish man, and interestingly enough we had a lot in common and I found it hard to believe that my local church would tell this sweet man that he would spend his eternity in hell for not accepting Christ, and I often tried to reconcile what I believe to be absolute truth.

I confessed everything to him, and he was very kind to me and understood that that shift would be my last.

...

At my first appointment with the therapist, I felt relieved to just be in the office; I knew this was something that I really needed. There were a few others in the waiting room, and I couldn't help but wonder why they were there and if we had anything in common.

My therapist's name was Betsy, and the first thing she had me do was take a psychological exam. It was my first one ever, and I was feeling very anti-establishment that day so my answers may have been skewed just a little, but nonetheless probably accurate.

I thought of my parents and realized that their main emotion had always been anger, and then the other pieces of the puzzle began to fall together which would take too long to explain. My results came back predictably with anger and anxiety.

She gave me a chart to fill out that had space for me to write my thoughts and emotions down, and also what I would eat during those times. It's amazing how an objective opinion can shed such light in a dark place. I obviously saw that when I listed specifically feeling out of control or stressed out, I ate. I ate an entire large pizza in one sitting before.

It wasn't just the out-of-control feelings that contributed to the eating disorder. Getting diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes comes with an assurance of developing at least some sort of food psychosis, since you are forced to be obsessed with it. You write it down, you do calculations, attend carbohydrate counting classes, and plan your entire day and sometimes week around what foods you will eat and what foods you will have to avoid at whatever social events you'll be attending that week.

...

She gave me some of the most practical advice I've ever gotten: park your car in the back of the parking lot to avoid extra stress of finding a parking space and to get the extra exercise.

Four years later, that is the thing I truly gleaned from those sessions and I still put it into practice. You will see my car in the far, back, left corner of any parking lot.

There were a myriad of other issues that were not unearthed until recently (2011) due to the abrupt ending of my sessions. My dad was very unhappy about me going to therapy. I hadn't told him in hopes that he wouldn't find out. I forgot about insurance and I didn't understand how it worked at the time and that he would be getting the bill in the mail. I thought I just paid the copay and that was it.

He was furious with me for going to a therapist, which makes him seem like a villain but I'll explain in just a minute how he redeemed himself. I tried to explain to him in his own language that it isn't easy going to college and taking 20 hours a quarter, while working and having an illness that was becoming impossible to manage.

He always thought I should have been able to hold a full-time job and go to school over-time, and I probably could have if it hadn't been for Diabetes coupled with psychological issues. But, despite the many trials the former have brought me, I have to trust that there is some reason for it all.

...

In 2008 he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He called to tell me the day before he was having surgery to remove the tumor. Luckily, I got to the hospital in time to sit with him before he went in.

I sat with my step-mom for the afternoon while we waited, and at the end of the day we got a call that he had been taken to the ICU.

When they finally let us in to see him, he told me how glad he was that I was there, and I told him, "Of course I'm here." He looked at me and said, "I wouldn't have come", and I knew what he meant.

I eventually had to leave him at the hospital to come back home. We had a lot of phone conversations that never thought we'd have. He told me how brave I had been when I was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes, and that now he understood what it was like. I knew that he had always been angry at himself for not being able to give me everything. He even told me that he wished that when he was a little boy that he had grown up in a loving home with stable parents, and he had wished that for me too. He would go on about a childhood he imagined and hoped for but never existed. He told me how much he loved lizards. It's amazing how things a 54-year old man never uttered since childhood come out when he's dying.

So, in summary, I loved my dad the most, no matter how terrible it sounds. He was always my favorite even in the worst of times. RIP, Dad.

...

In the midst of counseling and attempting an exclusive relationship with Casey Samuel, I still hung around with guys from time-to-time. My only real girlfriends were my roommate and my friend Stephanie from Y.W.A.M., who had just recently moved to Ohio from Minnesota. I never met people who just moved to Ohio because they really wanted to, so the ministry she moved there for must have been pretty amazing.

...


Also in the midst of the madness, one day I made the giant mistake of hanging out with a really eccentric Indian guy that I knew from my old days of working at Steak 'n' Shake and had reconnected with him at Cracker Barrel. I think I was drawn to him for the above reasons (Eccentric, Indian) but looking back it wasn't in a good way. He was raised Hindu but had done a radical conversion to Catholicism since I'd seen him at Steak 'n' Shake sulking in the booths after his drunken carousals at the local bar.

When I had known him at Steak 'n' Shake I was in my evangelical prime. He would come in, the most depressed individual I would see on a daily basis, and I would try to tell him about God. He was pretty closed to the subject, until one day when he brought in a mini-Bible. He looked like a mad-scientist. His hair was a bit long and flared on either side, accentuating that mad-scientist look. He was overweight and wore baggy clothes with hemp necklaces.

Somewhere in between those Steak 'n' Shake times and his conversion to Catholicism, he became obsessed with his diet and had lost all of his excess weight, becoming quite buff. He was also a musician and put out an album under the name Thomas Brim (not even close to his real name) which featured him on the front cover, completely nude, with a fig leaf covering his nether-regions.

Upon our reconnection at Cracker Barrel, we made plans to go out for coffee so that we could debate Catholicism vs. Christianity in a good way (I'm not against Catholicism but he is very convinced that is the only way). I'm going to admit right now that he was much more intelligent than me on his subject, so he probably won the debate.

Our next outing was my giant mistake.

He took me to a Comic Book Store and then to get his hair cut, and while I sat and waited he had me reading a C.S. Lewis book, but not one of the easy ones, one of the ones that modern Englishers would need a dictionary from 1850 to understand. After his hair cut he needed to go back to his house for something, and decided when we were there that he needed to shower and I waited in his room and watched TV. Doesn't sound like a good idea, right? Well, it wasn't. Apparently this man had no shame about his nudity, because instead of getting dressed while in the bathroom, he walked past his room stark naked and into the next room! No shame people! I tried to act like it didn't bother me since I didn't see everything, and then we rode in his car to the mall where my car had been. We were in Forever 21 when he looked at me and said he was "really sorry" and just left. I think he probably went to his church for confession. Weird things happened in Ohio. That was by far one of the strangest days I've ever had and I had to apologize to Casey Samuel for being so foolish as to spend time alone with other males.

...

At some point during class with the mind-gaming professor, the eccentric Indian, working at Cracker Barrel, quitting Cracker Barrel, and attending therapy sessions, I decided that I needed to go back to North Carolina for a long visit. We hadn't spent enough time together to come to any reasonable conclusion about our relationship, so I decided to go back for 10 days, which I deemed long enough to get used to each other. During that trip I'd decide if it was time to end it or time to get hitched. Basically, it was now or never.

Since I had quit Cracker Barrel, I decided that now was the best time for me to go out and look for a new job. I wouldn't graduate college until the Summer quarter, so I knew I'd have to stick it out at another restaurant for a while. So, I picked my favorite place: First Watch.

I actually got an interview (which according the Manager, they don't just interview anyone. I was regretting my decision while sitting in the booth, trying to look this crazed breakfast maniac in the eyes as he asked me questions like, "Why are you passionate about First Watch?" "What is Customer Service to you?" Then I listened while he gave me a huge speech on the honor of working at First Watch.

I ended up getting the job.

...

And of course, what else happens when you're about to decide whether or not to marry someone? Your most recent ex-boyfriend makes one last surprise appearance.

Remember Military Guy? Welp, he was back. Well, at least over the phone. He called me one afternoon while I was in my apartment doing some cleaning, at a most unsuspected moment. I was surprised to see his number on my phone, and thought it suspicious that he was calling me seeing as how he was now married to his baby's mother and I hadn't heard from him in months. I answered.

It started off with curious small talk. As we talked, he started talking about all of the good times we'd had and that we could have them again. He told me that his wife was out of town, and offered to fly me out there for the weekend. He wanted me to relive what was lost, and was offering the idea that maybe it could still work out, maybe he'd made a mistake.

Although it sounds crazy, it wasn't an irrational or emotional conversation. We talked about our relationship and how it had ended badly. He admitted to me that he was in therapy, and we both thought it interesting that we were both in the same place in that regard. He asked me if I still loved him again, and I told him that I probably did and probably would for a long time, but that I was moving on and it was too late for anything to be salvaged between us. I think he agreed.

Despite his wrong actions in Iraq, I actually have no bitterness towards him whatsoever and can see why he did what he did. Truthfully, I think I owe him an apology for never making a commitment and stringing him along according to my ups-and-downs.

I have fond memories of Colorado.

...

Spring was just beginning and I had rediscovered the magic of Chipotle. Not bound by the eating disorder since my therapy sessions, I felt free to go there and order whatever I wanted. I made their guacamole, chips, and burrito bowl a ritual.

The outage started at the end of February, and was over by the beginning of April. In short, the outage is the annual event of shutting down one of two Nuclear Reactor to do maintenance and all of the Nuclear Plant employees work overtime of about 72 hours/week, meaning that I would not be seeing him in March. His job that year was Firewatch, the worst job of the outage. The Firewatch Crew stands within 20 feet of the job in the Reactor Building, armed with a fire extinguisher, just in case a fire starts. The worst part of this job is that Firewatchers only go into the Reactor Building if there is work to be done, and typically there wasn't. They spent 12 hours a day waiting for something to happen in a small room, shoved in like silent cattle.

...

We still talked on the phone, but to compensate for the lack of visits he sent me a package that I received just before going to my History 101 class, which I had put off until my Senior Year of college. Inside of the box were magnets with words that meant something special to us that I could arrange into different phrases. There was also a CD inside and I brought it with me for my ride to class. The first song started, one I'd never heard before. The words went like this:

Love is all around you now
so take a hold
Hidden in our words
It sometimes ain't enough
Don't suffocate day after day
It's building up
Cause when you're feeling weak
You know I'm strong enough

Just one more day
One more day

Oh, let the world crash
Love can take it
Oh, let the world come crashing down
Oh, let the world crash
Love can take it
Love can take a little
Love can give a little more

Love is indestructible
So take a hold
Sometimes hard to find
A reason good enough
I'll stand beside you
Never leave through it all
And faith will bring a way
To the impossible

It was the first warm night of Spring (in Ohio that means like, 45 degrees), and as I took in the words I found myself having butterflies in my stomach and feeling the peace of God coming over me and I felt exhilarated. The gardenias hadn't quite been enough, but there was a revelation in that song in the line, "Love is indestructible, so take a hold. Sometimes hard to find a reason good enough." I knew I would be idiot to not marry that man as soon as possible, and I think I actually said those exact words out loud to myself as I drove to class.
...

So, in conclusion, I went to North Carolina after his outage was over. I already knew I was going to marry him, and he knew that he was going to marry me. It was a wonderful 10 days.

He proposed to me on a tennis court with just the two of us (I have been a tennis player since childhood though never quite fit the stereotype)on April 11th 2007.

After our engagement we went back to what would soon be our double-wide and talked for about 30 minutes about having a wedding in August. I envisioned myself slaving at yet another restaurant and having the crazed breakfast maniac looming over me, and I quickly changed my mind and suggested we have the wedding in 2 and a 1/2 weeks on April 28th. He agreed most adamantly and everything got very exciting all of a sudden.

I figured my mom would be okay with it; she would just be concerned that she wouldn't be able to meet her lofty weight-loss goal in time. Everyone that we called was on board with the shotgun wedding. Seeing as how we'd known each other for such a short amount of time, I figured we'd have a handful of naysayers.

So, on April 28th, 2007, I married my Alter Ego, and we began our journey.

...