Chapter 4- Farmer’s Fairytale

My love life had been in a fairly dire state the prior few months.  I was set up with a guy the winter before.  Our best friends were married and I’m pretty sure they thought it was destiny that their two best friends should be together and we could all be couple friends for life.  I mean, I saw it too… that’s not a small part in why I was interested in him in the first place.  We had dated for 6 months, and it ended sorta messy… but I’m not really sure I ever experienced a clean breakup… especially when you’re set up by each other’s best friends.  

We had a lot of common interests, like hunting, hanging out with friends, and country music. But he lived in the city, was going to school to be a pharmacist, and was a year younger than me.  He was still living the college life, with several years of schooling to go, while I was working and sitting in my lonely apartment, ready to figure out my next stage of life.  But that was the problem, we were at MUCH different stages.  And as hard as it was for me to admit at the time, I needed him more than he needed me.

I hadn’t really pictured our life outside of dating.  I honestly couldn’t.  He wanted to live in the city or the suburbs and was obviously an aspiring pharmacist.  The suburbs… I couldn’t even bring myself to picture it.  A place where all the houses look the same, and like my brother always said, “I could get lost in there sober.”  He’s not wrong. 

In the suburbs there wouldn’t be enough room to have cows.  You’d have to have your dog on a leash and put their poop in one of those little baggies as you walked them. You couldn’t run to the car in your undies if you had forgotten something out there. I had never pictured myself living anywhere besides the middle of nowhere in the country.  A quiet and tranquil feeling, with acreage for cattle to graze, woods to bow hunt, wildlife peacefully roaming all around, and all the privacy in the world to run out to the car in your skivvies.  I should’ve known from all of those feelings in my heart, that it would never work for us. 

One night it finally blew up in our faces.  We were supposed to hang out one weekend but he had options and chose the ones that didn’t involve me. In a huff over the phone, I told him I was done being set on the back burner for his friends and the life he had… it was selfish of me, really. We hung up.  I went on a 12-mile bike ride down country roads to cool down.  When I had finally peddled out all of my frustrations and wheeled back into the apartment lot, I immediately regretted it.  I called him back to make things right, but it was too late.  He had enough time to think about it and agreed we should cool it for a bit.  So, I told him I’d give him his space and let him contact me when he was ready.

But… he never did.

I waited two months, and after seeing a picture of him on Facebook with his Ex, I decided to contact him.  I put together a respectful message of closure and wished him the best.  He replied, and I could finally release myself from the agony of waiting and wondering.  It was the exact closure I needed. 

My heart was free… and I was ready to be one of the strong Bad A women I had been watching on Gossip Girl.  Ready to start my own life, buy my own house, and not depend on a man to make me happy.  I was done with that.  I was strong.

I had given too much over the years to men who ended up not being right for me.  I wasn’t making that mistake again. 

I laid in bed scrolling Facebook, my nightly ritual before falling asleep, and hit “accept” on the friend request from Josh Sass.