Life Happened to Me

As my head registered the fact that the phone was not going to ring, my heart continued to flutter intermittently in hope. It just would not get it would it? The guy was not going to call.

I wondered what I might have done wrong and I realized that I did not have to look far. A guy who had heard accolades and sweet things from a former secondary school mate had had only high hopes about meeting me. When he met me and I opened my mouth what he heard from me was different from what he had expected.

As I flayed myself for opening my mouth too wide I also wondered why I had to justify myself to anyone. Anyone who didn’t think I was good enough for them was really not what I needed around me. Heaven knows, I have had my own fair share of life. Who was it that said that life is what happens to us while we are busy making other plans? It sure happened to me. What I had planned versus some of what I got are so far apart they blow my mind. Yet, I cannot deny them. Less than I would have fancied and as much as they stink up the joint even for my own poor nose there is nothing I can do about it.

The story that had come up about my past in conversation with this expected caller had gone such that I daresay he couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. Yet it is not my place to chase after him. I would sooner hold my breath than do that.

The woes, throes and echoes of my past have rang so loud in my life that it is time I shelved them. Having to bring them up to a new acquaintance or even an old one for that matter is such a priviledge I don’t think I want to share it anymore. Most would just use it as an opportunity to raise you on a pole and take potshots.

As I thought about why I had related the not too pleasant details of an intimate relationship gone awry to a new friend and prospective date, I wondered why I was looking for his approval anyway- I didn’t know him. Did I think he would give me a pat on the back for my mistakes or did I think he would be ready to carry the baggage he had to be sure tagged along with me just by virtue of my having had the kind of past I have had.

Well, I look up and I see that God has written a number on me. I am not to be toyed with. I cannot fill my experiences, missteps and misjudgments in a single volume book how much less in a few conversations. Trying to do that not only appears to me to be an effort to seek approval or some kind of pity but it is at this point having me wonder why at all I tried to.

Why do I need to explain myself, seek approval?

Am I proud of where I have been? I don’t need to answer you on this! Have I been through hell, murk and dirt? Is that really your business? As a condition to date you I have to awaken my past? Roll over and move on. I need to step.

God is working on me. Even in all this- expectation, disappointment, rejection, I still see his Hand- making me stronger, better, gladder and ever ready to take a no but never tiring to take a shot at life, believe, hope, dare to expect. Yes, the other person has a right to say ‘no’. And I have a right to not be defined by where I have been, to move on.

Yes, Twenty years ago, I was spick and span (sans a molestation), a former class mate felt strongly enough about that to recommend me to his friend. Sadly enough though (?) life happened to me. Get used to that or fall off my radar.