The past, present, and future goals

The following is part of a multi-part series examining my past, present, and future. The columns located in here will be the first "Come Again" columns to be archived in its history due to the significance of what I'm doing. Part 1 will focus on my past and how it shaped me. Part 2 will focus on the present as to where I'm at right now. Part 3 will focus on my future goals, dreams, and ambitions. Be warned that the columns may be quite long.

Part 2 - The Present

The first one

For much of my life growing up, dating had been about as fun as a root canal. Most girls I liked didn't care much for me. The ones that did, well, I was too shy to really do anything about it. The ones that tried to make something happen I had no attraction to. It was a cycle that persisted for years upon years.

Then, in March of 2001, that changed in a whirlwind of events that really changed a lot of things about me. I met a girl named Tabitha, and within a couple of weeks of us meeting, we were dating.

I had a lot of firsts with her. She was the first girl I dated, obviously, but it was her that I first saw a girl without a shirt on. Being 20 and seeing a girls breasts for the first time, well, it was a monumental thing at the time. She was also the first girl I had sex with, which might explain the trouble I had ending what would become a turbulent relationship.

In the beginning though, I felt invigorated by having this woman in my life. I didn't feel like the world was against me because I had her and I didn't care what anyone else thought. When I first met her, I thought she was an attractive girl, but looking back it may have been more because of how important I felt to her that made her attractive to me.

However, there were warning signs that things weren't all peaches and cream. For one, she seemed to lack real motivation at times. There was a long stretch where she wasn't working or doing much of anything except sit in bed and watch tv all day. This was not good.

She also turned out to be someone who didn't face her problems, instead, she ran away from them. It's how she ended up living with me and it ultimately contributed to our break-up. She had a temper as well, but I ignored all the warning signs. Was I naive? Maybe, or maybe I was just so happy to finally have someone that I thought I could deal with everything.

We eventually moved into an apartment together by the end of the year and we also were engaged, and both events may have played a large roll in the relationship failing. Neither of us was really ready for the committment, nor should we have been living together.

Simply put, she didn't have her priorities straight, spending money on things that weren't needed instead of the rent like she was supposed to. This created a huge financial hole for me that took me several months to finally recover from.

By the first part of 2002, I had had enough and ended the relationship with my mom's help. It was at the time the hardest thing I had to do, especially when her family started to accuse me of not caring. That was the worst part, being told I didn't care. It didn't seem to matter to them that I didn't sleep for three nights afterwards or that I didn't even want to leave the house for a while.

None of that mattered.

But I did what I felt I had to do and in the end, things worked out for her as well as me. She got back with someone she had dated before, had a baby, and as far as I know, is happy.

For me, the story moves on.

Time for change

In the spring of 2002 I was back home, living in the basement of our house. It wasn't the greatest arrangement, but it beat what I had been dealing with. I decided though that it was time for some changes in my life. I began to try and get things in order that would make my life more worthwhile, more enjoyable. Maybe I was trying to remove any links to how I was when I was with Tabitha, but regardless of the motive, I was ready.

Most of the spring was spent incorporating those changes and trying to find new friends. One that I made quickly was a girl I worked with, Shelby. She was in a lot of ways what I'd never date, but love to be around. She had the bubbly personality, the engaging attitude, and a love for life. She could get annoying, but what person doesn't? I had fun working with her and a friendship began to form.

It became a routine for us to talk to each other both at work and outside of work. She called me regularly and it seemed like I was becoming a pretty good friend of hers. At work, she wasn't well-liked and that made for some issues, mostly because people didn't understand why I liked to talk to her. Rumors spread quickly that we were dating, rumors that neither of us did much to shoot down.

I didn't know it at the time, but she would prove to be invaluable in the near future.

In the first part of May, 2002, I decided it was time for the biggest change yet. I was going to cut my hair. This may not seem like much now, but back then, I had hair that was a lot longer than it is now. I was proud of it because I took care of it, but I was also getting sick of it. To go anywhere, I needed to have a hat on.

So one night, I cut it off. Almost all of it in fact. I can still remember the reaction the next time I went into work. No one knew what to say or what to do, although most eventually told me that they liked me better with shorter hair. Had I found my look? Not quite. I initially put gel in it because I guess I was going for the preppy look, something that I wish I hadn't done.

The changes were in place though. I looked different, felt different, and was starting to think I was different. Things seemed to be going well. Then it happened.

The night that changed everything

It had been an ordinary night, May 25th, 2002. I had been home, online, and just enjoying a pleasant evening when I started to get hungry. I decided to leave to go get something to eat, not realizing it would be the last time I'd see the house the way it was.

There was nothing remarkable about the food run. It only took 10 minutes, but as I came down Memphis Ave. back towards my street, I felt something inside of me say that something wasn't right. The air was heavy with smoke and it seemed to be coming from our street. As I drove closer, the feeling inside of me became sickening. I knew what was happening.

My worst fears were realized as I pulled in front of the house. Lining the street were fire trucks with firefighters streaming out of them towards one spot on the street: my house. I got out, looked up, and could see the smoke billowing from the roof of our house. For a moment, I even saw flames flickering above the rooftop, confirming my worst nightmare.

The house was on fire.

My first thought was to find out if the animals were okay. I knew no one was home because I was the only one there all night and I had only been gone for 10 minutes. I quickly found out that the dogs were fine and the cats must have been too as neighbors relayed to me what had happened. Someone had seen the smoke, kicked open the door, and saw a stream of cats headed towards the basement. The dogs, who had been in the backyard, were taken to a neighbor's yard.

Anubis was being held by someone and was passed to me. It would be the symbolic moment of the night, me holding Anubis watching everything change in front of my eyes.

The events of that night have been blurred with time, but finding the entries for June of 2002 in My Life will lead you to one entry that describes in detail what happened that night.

It was a moment that changes you, whether you like it or not. The rest of that summer was spent in a hotel room in Westlake, seemingly an eternity from everywhere I liked to go.

We did the best we could to make the summer enjoyable, but there isn't much you can do when in a situation like that. Two trips to Cedar Point helped, as did the occasional trip to Jacobs Field to watch a baseball game, but in the scheme of things, it was a depressing year.

I met a few girls during this summer, but there always seemed to be something that kept things from getting to the point where I wanted to date again. The two I liked the most especially didn't work out. One girl suddenly switched up on me and decided to get with another guy instead while the other just stopped talking to me.

I made one more attempt at going back to school in the fall, but with things going the way they were going, it was near impossible for me to go to school and work at that time. My heart just wasn't in it. My heart really wasn't in anything anymore. So much had happened that had scorned me that I couldn't wait for the year to end. I thought that the end of the year would at least give me a chance to start anew, maybe have better fortunes.

2003 was, in most cases, a much better year. By spring, I had modified my look one more time, cutting my hair a little bit shorter, therefore removing the need for gel. It's a look I still have to this day and one that I intend to keep unless I find something better.

In March, I also found a new reason to keep going on, although I didn't know it at the time.

The second one

For a couple of weeks, I had noticed a girl that had been working up front, but on very rare occasions. I didn't immediately make a connection, but I noticed that she was always ringing on the register that was in the direct sightline of my normal work station, the drop-off station. Maybe I was slow, but I didn't think much that a pretty girl was always looking towards where I was working.

I didn't think much because I had been interested in another girl that worked up front, at least a little bit anyway. It was a touchy situation since I was 22 and this girl wasn't even 17, but she was pretty and she was nice, but I didn't think anything would come of anything and just tried to be nice to her without leading her on.

It was her, Diana, that first hinted that the other girl, who I found out was named Megan, had a thing for me. It was at the most awkward time for Megan too. Diana said she had something to say, then looking back towards where Megan was, told me that Megan thought I was hot. Megan blushed, got all flustered, and even though she said it wasn't true, her reaction had told me otherwise.

It was great timing though because I had just gotten my cell phone and was ready to give the number out to her. Megan beat me to that punch though, giving me her number and telling me I had better call. I did, and by the end of that conversation in April, we were dating.

Maybe it was another situation where I jumped into something sooner than I should've, but something about Megan just jumped out at me. Yes, she was hot. Yes, she was into me. There was something else though. I still have never been able to put into words what it was though.

We talked constantly. There wasn't a day that went by that we didn't talk to each other at least twice. She left me messages on my phone while I was at work all the time. Every night that I was off and she was off, she was at my house with me. Most nights were the same too. We'd play video games or watch a movie and by the end of the night, we were having sex.

I can easily say that she was a lot better at sex than Tabitha, but maybe Megan knew more about what she was doing than Tab knew. Whatever it was, it was great and I didn't think I'd ever be able to get enough. It really seemed like she was going to be the one for me.

Then the bottom fell out.

I don't really know what happened. Maybe it was just her. She had said that in the summer she didn't like to be attached to anyone, but it seemed odd that she could say that she loved me and then as soon as summer rolled around, she could just stop talking to me.

It was maddenly frustrating and led to things to continue to detoriate. The breaking point was near the end of June. By this time, she had been to Virginia once, and unbeknownst to me at the time, had met a guy down there. Couple that with her not wanting to be in Ohio anymore, and you have the beginning of the end right there. Before she went on the second trip, the relationship was over.

I was devastated and didn't want to face her for a while. I still worked with her, so I avoided her at work as much I could. I didn't hate her for what she did, even when I found out the whole story. I was just upset at how things ended, blaming myself for anything I could find.

As time went along, I found myself being able to talk to her again. She made me realize that even though we weren't dating anymore, she still wanted to be my friend. In fact, she thought we could be great friends and made obvious attempts to show this to me, eventually proving to me that she was being honest.

I ultimately ended up helping her pack for her move and spent the last week she was in town with her. It was a bittersweet moment, that last day she was in Ohio. I gave her the CD she asked for plus one that was specially from me. On it were songs that I chose for specific reasons, some funny, some very sentimental. By the time she was done listening to the CD and reading the paper that had the reasons for the songs on it, she was nearly in tears. Then it was time to go.

Breaking up was not nearly as hard as it was to say goodbye to her, knowing it would be a while before I saw her again. Even she admitted it was harder than she thought it would be.

Old friends said she'd stop talking to me once she got in Virginia. Old friends said things about her that weren't nice. Old friends were wrong. It's why they were her old friends. From the moment she was in Virginia, the conversations continued. We still talk on a regular basis to this day, whether it be about her sex life (*eye roll*), her life with her now-husband, or most recently, talk about her pregnancy.

She did what others said she couldn't do and I couldn't be more proud of her.

The bachelor party

With Megan gone, I began to refocus on other things in my life. I had decided that I wasn't going to be able to date anyone for a while, not-so-long as I was still recovering from Megan. I also didn't want to be tied up at the time, deciding it was time to branch out and do new things.

Summer was over, but I felt liberated in a sense. I was free to do the things that I wanted to do and I wasn't going to let anything get in my way. The approach was that I wasn't going to go looking for love. I was going to go out, have fun, and if something happened, so be it. If not, there was always next week.

Okay, so I didn't and still haven't become a party animal. I go out two, maybe three times a month at most and I really don't drink even when I'm out. Back then though, it was about baby steps. I decided to hang out with Sarah from work and see what came out of that. It would be a while before that first encounter occurred, however.

In October, the pressing issue was Mike's bachelor party. I already knew it needed to be at Dave & Buster's. It was the perfect combination. Video games, alcohol, food, and lots of pretty girls.

It ended up being one of the best nights of my life. I remember it well because it was the first time I was out with friends and had a few drinks, opening up considerably and becoming the life of the group. We played all kinds of games, usually not very well, but we had fun. We had dinner and it was during dinner that I received the call that surprised me the most.

Up until this point, I hadn't heard from Megan. I had thought at the time she wasn't going to call me ever. When she did, I was so happy that I forgot I was out with friends. I ended the call after a little bit of time and remember that it really made my night.

The party was a blast, D&B was a blast. Never had I left anywhere feeling so good as I did that night. However, the night was over. Mike's wedding was next.

It's another day that I will never forget.

Up next I'll write about Mike's wedding, hanging out with Sarah, and reflect on the events of the first part of this year.