Soul, Mate (Part1)

I do not believe there is just one person for everyone or A soul-mate if you will.

I believe in life you are given a handful of kindred spirits and we are truly blessed if we recognize them. I am lucky. I have my musical soul-mate Sara. I have the yin to my yang soul-mate Jennifer. And now, I have my life partner soul-mate Chris. You may believe that destiny or fate are why I am with these people. I don’t. I believe there are specific events in our life to happen: A, B, and C. However, we make the choices and beat the path to the next bullet point on the map, if we ever get there.There have been plenty of people much like them to come in and out of my life. I have made major choices in my life including recognizing these people in me. See, I believe you can fall in love with anyone if you spend enough time with them. I also believe that people give up and give in too easily to the floosy sayings of, “you deserve better” or “there are plenty of fish in the sea.” To be quite frank, I had made peace with the fact that I truly did NOT deserve a lifetime mate. Chris and I will hit 2 years of marriage this October, so we have quite the road ahead of us.

When we were first dating

Though you will get to see and read much of that journey on this bloggage space, I have promised a few of my readers the story of how we got here to this place. We didn’t meet in Rome. We didn’t lock eyes from across a room. Our first kiss wasn’t movie magic. The way my husband and I came to be was work, persistence, hope, and neither of us lowering our standards. Perhaps there is something magical in that; maybe not. You decide.

Match.com was my fail safe. I joined it again after my third son was born. I used it not to meet people, but to get that much-needed ego boost that those of us living lonely and jaded require. A wink, a conversation starter, an email; these things made me know I still had it. Made me trick myself into thinking if I really wanted someone I could have anyone (Ha! Wishful thinking!) I saw Chris on there and thought he was a pretty boy. His profile sounded like someone I could get along with but when looking into his pictures, I got worried. Each one he looked extremely different. I was afraid he’d be the guy who looked nothing like what he had posted. I marked him as a favorite but never made any contact. I didn’t like paying for those things, thought they were a huge waste of money, so I would wait for their free trials to roll around to use! Shame on me I know. But, I needed something that would help me boost my confidence and not be so quick to jump between the sheets and I wasn’t ready for a commitment.

It took me about a year after I left Shia’s dad to want to even have any attention from a man. After him I couldn’t trust men let alone my own judgement. I needed to do some things for myself and for my kids. I never wanted to be the girl who had to have a man or needed a daddy for her kids. I needed to build my self back up. After a year on Match I ended up meeting a guy named K.P. who was much the opposite of everyone I dated. He was a big of a religion nut who couldn’t understand why I would have children so easily (HA!) but not marry because of my standards. It ended mutually because we weren’t compatible on too many levels. Then Bam’s dad made a move to try and get me back and in turn I made a move to make it clear that was a NO. I started dating his best friend. That was one quick romance basically revolving around sex. He asked me to marry him, I asked him for more (not to drink so damn much all the damn time) and we ended. I went on dates with several people, all which I found problems with quite quickly. Matt who loved to smoke weed as often as he loved to kiss random girls which was way too often for my tastes. There was Danny with the man boobs that put my own boobs to shame; plus it was weird how he kept mentioning how he wanted a little girl. There was a tall drink of water who knew how women looked at him and only expected one thing. Then I got a notification that I had a free weekend on Match using my mobile. I ended up emailing a dozen guys including Chris. Chris and I pretty much started talking instantly, but I continued to date. I dated the metro obsessed with superheros. I dated the guy who didn’t want to make any commitment or be seen in public by coworkers till he realized I was dating someone else as well. And, I still had lunch once a week as friends with the baby-daddy’s best friend…

Convinced that I would end up in a rural town as a hair dresser raising my boys alone, I liked that idea but I needed occasional dates thrown in because I need like attention too. Commitment was too hard. I didn’t want to put the boys through what I had been through growing up. I also didn’t want to settle despite the constant babble of people telling me my standards were too high. All my years as a McSlutterton and drama had caught up with me.  I could best sum it up to all the bad Karma I brought upon myself. Best to make peace and let it go. I changed my ways and my way of thinking. I was a strong woman working on independence but still needed a little push to keep it up. I was changing my life and our future while having some fun (not too much) on my way.

Chris and I started talking in December 2009. He was in Colorado on a job and I just thought it was a scheme. I didn’t mind much though because it was an even better a boost than Match. I got to talk, flirt, whatever without having to make any commitment. Plus I get a kick out of figuring people out. He text me every morning with a  ”Good morning, beautiful! Have a good day.” He would also end every evening with a text that said, “Hope you had a great day. Can’t wait to talk to you next! Goodnight!” I blew that man off more than people with a warrant avoid talking about cops. I talked to him when I felt down or bored or lonely. I stalked background checked  him online and saw a Facebook post about him meeting someone. I assumed he was dating someone else anyway.  In December I was dating the superhero-obessesed-metro.  And in January I dated a hopeless romantic who liked to play the aloof role. Come February I had only talked to Chris a handful of times on the phone and hadn’t texted him much at all since I was dating the didn’t-know-what-he-had-till-it-was-gone guy. I worked at a cosmetology college at the time and Valentine’s Day is a major competition there. (400+girls all in one place is a definition of hell for some of us.) Happy as I was to not be part of the VDay mix, a HUGE box came in for me. This was completely unexpected and I had no idea who would have sent me anything. Out of the box came this huge bouquet of flowers with a card from Chris. In that moment I knew I had to figure out what was wrong with this guy….

The card with the flowers

Chrystalyn

Look for Part 2 coming SOON!

PS. Sorry I have neglected you all the last week and a half. My family life is VERY busy at the moment and I am trying to keep up! I have plenty to post and I will get to everyone who has given me awards and tags SOON! Love you all! Xo