Now where was I?

Hmmm, where was I before I lost my mind and took a brief hiatus from doing what I really love to do?

Oh yes, the rest of the story....... 

He emailed me while I was in Maryland.  After a few pleasantries he wrote, “I know you’re probably enjoying yourself; However, if you get lonely and would be up for a visitor I’d like to come down and take you to dinner…”

I laughed, thinking that usually people don’t drive 7 hours to take someone to dinner, unless they’re hoping for a little something special for dessert.  (Call me crazy….) I politely declined. 

We exchanged a few more emails over the course of the month, and I promised to let him know when I got back to town. 

And so I did.

He extended another dinner invitation, but this one involved going to an incredibly beautiful resort a couple hours away and I just thought that was strange. I was uncomfortable traveling that far with someone I didn’t know THAT well, didn’t want anyone spending an excessive amount of money and felt that we could have just as nice a dinner right here in town.

We set the dinner date for the following week which was by now the end of September.  I managed to get there an HOUR behind schedule because I read the time wrong on the text. (I was still saving every nickel and didn’t want to fork out money to the eye doctor.)  So basically I looked good for the first HOUR before the date. 

After driving around town for a while I returned to the restaurant.  I walked into the bar and saw him at the bar with another couple.  He seemed pretty happy to see me, and we hugged and made our way to our booth.  We enjoyed a wonderful dinner, and managed to run into people that I knew and people HE knew.   We laughed and laughed as we shared many stories from our youth, our middle and our present.  I looked at him at one point and to my complete surprise found myself realizing that I hadn’t had this much fun in a long, long time.  In fact, a REALLY long time. 

We were finished with our meal and were having an after dinner cocktail when we both received text messages from our group of friends at the club.  They were all around the outdoor fire pit and wanted to know how the date was going.   We laughed and decided to head over and tell them ourselves. 

I had jokingly replied to my friend that we had just left the wedding chapel and were on our way to celebrate our nuptials.  That was probably a huge mistake because when we made our way to the fire pit we were pelted with welcoming laughter and a huge amount of rice!  We sat in the chairs and joined in the laughter and conversation that felt so easy, comfortable and fun. 

When we walked to our cars at the end of the night to say goodbye, I was so incredibly surprised. 

I was surprised that I was so happy. 

I was surprised that I had enjoyed myself SO MUCH. 

And I was surprised that the date I had put off for so long, had been the one that I had been waiting for all along. 

(Little did I know about all the crazy adventures that lay ahead......beware of what you ask for...because sometimes the Powers That Be will answer.)