A girl can only tolerate so much...

Many moons ago I had this boyfriend, let's call him Miles. He was pretty funny, drove a big ass truck and had these beautiful pits bulls that adored me (the love was returned). Any guy who loved dogs was high on my radar. We dated for probably longer than we should have but he was an auto mechanic and do you know how helpful that is? He laughed at all my fathers jokes so my parents liked him well enough. He had his issues, one big one. One morning about 2 a.m. my baby brother called me to tell me his car had been towed and he was stranded in Waikiki (over an hour away). Of course Miles and I got up and drove to Waikiki to go get him and his car, only to discover when we got there that it would cost around $600 cash to get my brothers car out of jail. Who the hell has $600 cash at 2 a.m.?

Miles walks up to the window and takes this wad of cash out of his pocket and peels off $600 to get my brothers car out. WTF? My brother is thinking Miles is awesome and has all this money to blow and how cool is all that. While I was thankful, I wasn't really happy about the whole situation. You know who has a wad of cash in their pocket all the time? DRUG DEALERS! Yep, Miles was selling pot. I knew his beeper went off at all hours, all the time (I told you this was MANY moons ago) but drugs? Okay, I still didn't really have issues with the whole pot thing because I grew up in Hawaii...marijuana nirvana, but selling?! I really started caring when my brother started looking up to Miles, not cool. That was pretty much the end of the pot selling mechanic, but not before I had him change my brakes. I may have been slow to catch on, but I wasn't stupid. ;-)

The funny thing is I can't even remember Miles last name. Is that odd when you look back on your life and you can't remember the last name of some of your relationships? I mean, I was 30 and am now in my 40's so should I really be forgetting this stuff already? It's not even that I want to remember him but the fact that I no longer have a great memory annoys me. Is memory the first thing to go? Trust me, there are some relationship that aren't worth remembering, this was probably one of them. Maybe this is why we keep journals, we know we will forget stuff that isn't worth remembering anyway.

K

I love you. You love me too...right?

I read an article this morning about the moment every person in a new relationship dreads. When one of you is the first to say "I love you" and you hope they say it back. This woman said it first and he didn't say it back so she is now freaking out. Has this ever happened to you? I have to admit I have only said it first once. But I have been on the receiving end of it when I didn't feel the same. Let's call him O'Henry.

O'Henry was one of the relationships I had just because I had nothing else going on at the time. You know what I mean right? The just passing time guy? He was in the military and was transferred to San Diego from Hawaii after a couple of months of us dating. I figured it would wear itself out as most long distance relationships do in time. Who knew he would turn in to an obsessed stalker? At first I loved all the attention. Phone calls every day and cards and letters all the time. He used to clip out that little newspaper cartoon "Love is..." Remember those? The little chubby couple who always said something cute like "Love is...never having to say you're sorry."

Anyway, he also sent gifts and those always made me scratch my head. He would send a memento of dates we had like a stuffed dolphin for the time we went to Sea Life Park or a carved boat sculpture for the time we went on a dinner cruise. What? Why?

Now I am not a collector of stuff, never was and never will be. I consider stuff like that clutter and just don't like knick knacks. After I got the second box of stuff he called me to talk and that is when he pulled out the big guns and said the words. They totally took me by surprise because I didn't think we were moving in that direction. I mean he was gone, how far could this relationship go? I sort of giggled and told him that he was so sweet. He told me I didn't have to say it back and that in time it would come. I remember a switch going off in my brain and that is when he moved to the junk pile. My way of dealing with the junk pile was to stuff them in a closet and forget them. Who knew O'Henry would become more persistent ie: desperate?

Once I started avoiding him like the plague he would leave long messages on my answering machine and not just one but like seven in a row all within an hour. Psycho. We finally talked and I told him it was over and he seemed to be okay. Time moved on and two years later he sent me a letter out of the blue telling me he still thought about me and to write to him if I felt the same. Needless to say I never wrote. O'Henry wasn't the only relationship where I gave less than I received but again...thanks to my heartbreaking first love, I'm not sure if I ever gave 100% until I met my husband.

I know, I know...how did reading this article turn in to a post about an ex? I don't know, it just reminded me of that particular relationship. Sometimes I think it's good to examine old relationships because it makes me feel even stronger about the one I am currently in. I like to think I learn from past mistakes, isn't that human nature?

K

Remember when young love was stupid?

Tonight while I was going through an old journal , a note fell out of it. It was written on hotel stationary and was not in my handwriting. It was a love note from an ex that said “K has found a spacious room in T’s heart”. This took me way back to the 80’s when I was a student at BYU Hawaii – not every student is Mormon! T was my first real love or so I thought. We both worked at the student activities desk and our job was to answer student’s social questions, basically socialize. He was from Kiribati and therefore, different and exciting to me.

He was attracted to me because I wasn’t Mormon, I was fun and dangerous ‘cause I was one of the girls who drank and wasn’t a virgin. Our relationship started out purely sexual and developed in to something more serious. We had 9 months of making love every night at the beach under the stars, and attending school functions where we got off on trying not to get caught making out in the bathroom.

Things got serious fast when he asked me to marry him and me being foolish and young, said yes. I remember my father saying “What does this boy have to offer you?! He’s not even from this country and has nothing!”. He was right but wasn't that really part of my attraction to him? Did I really think he could marry me since I wasn’t Mormon? The demise of our relationship came as a complete surprise to me when I found a receipt for wedding bands in his wallet and it wasn’t my name being engraved on one of them.

There was so much drama and emotion involved in that breakup and it was not a simple cut and dry. I can now admit it took me a full two years to get over that love. I could no longer listen to Gloria Estefan because we always listened to her when we had sex. I finally took him off my speed dial at work, stopped checking his horoscope in the paper, and stopped wondering how and if the marriage even worked out. She was Mormon.

That relationship really set the tone for all future relationships and for the longest time the biggest lesson I took from T was “screw them before you get screwed”. I’m not proud of that lesson and it eventually ruined most of my future relationships. What a shocker. But the end of that relationship was also the beginning of my second one, with one of his best friends. If it sounds like it was developed out of pure spite, you’d be right about that. But the story of Rebound guy is for another post at a later date when the meaning of “Revenge is a dish best served cold” never rang truer.

K