It was still very dark outside when the radio alarm went off in its usual noisy way. It need not have bothered, I was not asleep. In fact, I had not slept much that entire night, and it had been late when I turned in. Today was going to be an interesting day. That was an understatement. I was preparing to drive out to a small Western Kansas town to meet someone I had been corresponding with through email.
I was excited, no doubt about that. I raced through a shower, grabbed up a few things and headed out the door. I had fueled up the car the night before, but I still stopped by the Quick trip store for some coffee. Then I headed for the entrance ramp and headed north.
So down the road I went. So much to think about, and I was not totally sure how I felt about the whole thing. Writing to a person was one thing, meeting them was something else. I had been around the internet world long enough to know people can be just about anything they want to in chat rooms and through email. You really didn't know what was real and what was phony. I was taking a chance, but then so was she. I can't imagine how she must have felt. She had a stranger en-route to her house, coming from miles away, and what did she really know about him? I guess we were both in it pretty deep. I would not have blamed her one bit if I arrived and found her to be gone, or even hiding out, having changed her mind.
I am sure we were both asking ourselves the same questions. Why am I doing this, am I nuts? What if they don't like me or think I am ugly....what if I don't like them and think they are ugly? Will we find it as easy to talk in person? Will either of us be disappointed and if so, what is the graceful way out? I drove on through the rain, a mix of emotions. Think about it, we'd been writing love letters back and forth! We had not even been writing each other that long, had never met, spoken on the phone maybe twice, and we were writing love letters? We had gotten to know each other in a very different way. It was not based on physical attraction, because we had no idea what each other looked like. We had only spoken on the phone once or twice, and then very briefly. So what we felt towards each other was based on personalities, and the only clues we had towards that had been through email.
Thoughts rolled through my head. We had written and spoken of our love for each other, each saying they didn't care what the other looked like. Did we really feel that way or was it just a bunch of emotional talk? I wanted to think I was not such a shallow person that I would have gone back on my words if she turned out to be...shall we say....not very attractive. What would I do if I got there and she was some 300 lb nightmare? I had fallen in love with a person through email, basing that feeling on her personality and values. Would I be so shallow to back out on mere appearance?
What about her? She had said the same things about me. She didn't know what I looked like. Was she the sort of person who would back out on appearance? I can't imagine the pain of talking love with someone for weeks on end, and then have them turn you away because you didn't meet their "looks" requirements. It was a hard question and I didn't know if I could examine myself honestly enough to answer it. I am sure she was wrestling with some of the same questions. . I still had several hours before I would be at my destination. Plenty of time left for me to think, dream, anticipate, dread, worry....all of the above.
Had I been true to myself through those emails? Had I been totally honest and not mis-repesented myself? I could not think of any way that I had been less or more than who I really am, but what had she perceived me to be? Would she really be what I perceived her to be?
Now, it may sound like I over-analyze everything. But I had just been through a marriage that grew very painful towards the end. That was mostly behind me now, in fact, I was actually glad and relieved that it was over. I had given everything I had to turn things around, with no success. I didn't realize what a strain I had been under, till after it was over. It became a relief, and it felt like a huge weight had fallen off of me, and I was not going to get in a position to be tormented like that again.
One does walk away with scars though from any sort of painful, hurtful experience. I also knew she would have her scars as well. We both had baggage from our past experiences that did affect the way we felt and looked at things. We all have our own "filter" through which we pass and process everything through. Sometimes our "filter" which is set in place and controlled by our experiences in life, will change or modify those things we pass through it. We weigh everything against what we have "learned" through the things that hurt or helped us. Because of this, people misread each other's words, thoughts and intents. Both of us would have our own preconceived ideas, and we would not even know we had them and were measuring everything by them. Both of us coming from failed marriages, would have different things that we had and were dealing with, and would go into a new relationship with those things having an influence.
It was also true that this situation had gotten a bit out of control. It went very quickly from being "friends" to out and out love letters. It seemed a bit crazy, and yet...it seemed somehow......ok. It was confusing to me and it went against everything I thought I believed. It went against every barrier and protection system I had setup. I felt I was "jumping" into something, and it went against my natural senses of caution...and at the same time something was telling me that this was ok and was right. I struggled to remember just how it went from point a to point b, but it happened so fast.
In my mind I went over and over the conversations we had had by email. I had printed out all of our correspondence before going on my trip to Texas, and had put them in order and read and re-read them. I had speculated so many times on what she would look like, and the sort of person she would be. I am sure she had done the same, looking for clues about me, trying to read between the lines to find out who I really was.
Marriage.....was this really in my future with this person? How could I have already talked about marriage with her? My kids didn't know...they'd have thought me totally nuts if they had known I had already bought her a ring. Maybe I was nuts. I had asked myself hundreds of times...."Are you sure you aren't just doing this because you are lonely?" Well, maybe...but somehow there seemed to be much more to it than that. When I started writing to her, it was through a penpal website. I really was not looking for a girlfriend, but rather a girl friend. Just someone to write to, someone who had been through the same sort of junk and also needed a friend.
I finally reached the turn, now I had less then 50 miles to go. Coming into some little small town, I was in need of gas. I turned into some small ragged looking mom and pop convenience store and filled up and got a soft drink. Little did I know that while I had picked up gas, I had also picked up a nail in my tire.
I finally reached the little town. I reached for the email to see if I could figure out the directions she had given. It was not much of a town, just a tired and worn out little place that had never been anything and never would. You found yourself wondering how it ever came to be and how it had managed to stay alive. Picture the brightest spot in the universe, this place was as far away from that spot as you could get.
The directions I had been given weren't the clearest....I drove about for a bit until I finally figured them out. It was a small enough town that I could have just gone up and down every street if I'd had to, and it still would not have taken long. She lived in an apartment complex. It was a multi-unit complex, a facility for low income families. That didn't matter. Even though I owned my own home, it was nothing to brag about. A small, cheap, rundown brick home in a neighborhood full of homes that all looked the same. So this was no big deal. A place to live is a place to live. You do what you can and what you have to and try to make it home.
I parked in front, which actually turned out to be behind, as you had to walk around the building to get to the front door, and there was no back door I knocked on the door and she answered and invited me in. I had some flowers with me that I had picked up the night before. It seems a little silly now. But I had wanted it to be special, and so far, it had not gone quite the way I expected. Now, in saying that, I might add that I didn't know what to expect, this was the first time I had ever done anything like this. You paint all sorts of images and scenarios of what "could" happen. But for the most part you are going into it blind and even a bit scared, and at times you wonder why in the world you got yourself into something so crazy and unknown. But curiosity eventually gets the better of fear and you press on.
So here we are, 2 people who had been writing love letters back and forth for some time. We occupied our evenings chatting through email. It would have been so much easier if we'd have had access to a chat-room, but I did not have that sort of internet access, and had my own personal reasons for hating chat-rooms. We knew each other and were strangers at the same time. It was almost easier when the person on the other end was a mystery. You had to keep reminding yourself that this was the person on the other end. Somehow, you missed the contact you had developed through e-mail, as this was the only way you had known the person before. It was so different when they were just words on a page. Your own imagination filled in the rest of the blanks and you want on from there. It felt so strange....so different....
But this was no longer imagination, this was real and it was right here and now. She opened the door, we were both nervous, and she invited me in, trying to tell me how sorry she was about the earlier experience. I told her it was ok and resolved to put the entire incident behind me and find try to live in the right now instead.
I had told her on the phone before leaving home, that I was going to kiss her when I walked through the door. That seemed so natural then, I mean, we had been writing love letters back and forth and talking marriage. But what I thought would be so easy and natural then was not so easy now. Then, it was words on a screen and a voice on a phone. It was real and it wasn't. Now I was looking face to face with a total stranger who was not a stranger. Make sense out of that if you can. I decided to kiss her just as I had planned. I think it took her by surprise, as she really didn't kiss me back...and it didn't last long...and I think we both felt a bit uncomfortable when it was over. It was one of those things that I found myself wishing I would not have done...at least right away.
