Getting there....some back story.

As it was for most of us, my first experiences with the opposite sex were not good.

I grew up believing that I would never be loved the way every girl dreams of being loved.

I was the shy, skinny kid all through school. The boys in grade school used to tease me mercilessly, and beat me up on the play ground, and along the route between home and school.

One time, after school, as everyone was rushing into the darkening winter to get home, two of them ganged up on me.
One of them had a long winter scarf.
Each boy took an end, and they ran toward me in the school parking lot, one going one way, one going the other, and they wrapped the scarf around my legs, and pulled them out from under me.

When I came to, on the icy pavement, no one was around.

I spat the blood out of my mouth (I had bitten my cheek), shook my head, and went into the school office to talk to the secretary, who was still at her desk.

I was crying, and had a big bump on the back of my head.

The school secretary asked what had happened, and when I told her who the boys were, she said "Oh, Sweet Steve? He'd never do anything like that!!" She suggested that I had slipped on the ice.

I don't remember what else happened, or if she called my mother to come get me.

But I will NEVER forget the terror of watching those boys run at me, and of being dismissed by the secretary, because the one boy, Steve (who was the one who tormented me the most often and the most brutally), was the son of a local preacher.

Almost all of the boys I knew, clear through Jr. High school, treated me like this.

If it wasn't violence, it was merciless teasing, throwing rotten food, or dog shit, and breaking into my locker to leave me "gifts," and vandalize my things.

There were few exceptions.

By Jr. high, there were no more beatings, at least (thanks to one of those previously mentioned "exceptions," who was the big brother of my best friend in 6th grade. He saw to it that there were no more beatings, when he had a little encounter with Steve and his cronies at the end of 6th grade).

By high school, mostly what happened was that I was ignored.

I wasn't afraid of boys anymore, at least, and had been through some of the most devastating crushes you could imagine.

But boys just never even looked at me. And, if they did, it was to sling an insult. To call me ugly, or to berate my intellect.

(Little did they know that I had an i.q. far surpassing any of theirs!! but I was quiet about it....)

Then there was Scott.

I was a junior, he was a sophomore, and we were both Dead Heads. It was my wearing of a Grateful Dead t-shirt to school, on the day after a concert, that first got his attention.

We started talking in the hallways, or after school, or in the cafeteria. He didn't ignore me. He didn't insult me.

He was my friend.

And, before long, we were walking home from school every day (instead of taking the bus, so we could spend time together), and finding other reasons to see or talk to each other.

He asked me out, and I said no, because I had never been asked out before! I really had NO IDEA that he was asking me OUT ON A DATE when he called and asked me to meet him for coffee!!

Back in the 70's, kids didn't DO coffee! I didn't LIKE coffee then....and I was completely clueless!!

Next thing I knew, he had a girlfriend from his own class. Or one from my class....he was always "with" someone after that.

We continued to hang out, just as we always had, until I graduated.

Anyway, long story short--I fell completely and totally in love with this guy.

I always just assumed that he didn't want me in that way, and we never, ever got it together.

I met someone else while Scott was away at college, and eventually, that someone else asked me to marry him.

Scott and I had not talked for a year or so, but when he saw the engagement announcement in the local paper, he appeared at my workplace, stunned.

He, so he said, had hoped that we would be able to be together when he got home from school. He told me he had thought of no one but me, and had longed to ask me out....and then he saw the announcement.

I said, well, you could have called me some time to let me know you even knew I existed. I thought you only thought of me as a friend.
I told him that I had harbored feelings for him for a long time, but that I didn't think he was interested, because he had dated other girls during the time we were hanging out.

He said he had thought that he only thought of me as a friend, too, until he went away, and had time to think about it.

And then, it was too late.

We continued on as close, dear friends for many, many years. At one point, years later, we both admitted to one another the feelings we still had for each other, but we also talked about how it could never be, because we both believed in the sanctity of marriage, and I was married.

I became friends with his friends, and held his hand at the funeral of one who had become dear to me, too, and died of cancer at 28.

While I carried Scott in my heart, secretly (to the rest of the world), all that time, I knew that there would never be "a time for us."

It was completely futile....but that torch burned, never the less, until Scott was married, too.

I have not heard from him now for many years, and I know that he is happy and settled. He and his wife had two kids, last I heard, and they are doing great for themselves.

I used to lament that it could have been me, but it just wasn't meant to be. Not in this lifetime, anyway, and when he married, I wished him well, and let him go.

It was that easy. The torch just....went out. Poof.

Gone.

The first love, unrealized, ended.

Cut to being married and struggling to survive, in another post.....

Preface

I feel like I have been single my entire life.

Even when I was married, the first time around.

My ex husband had a mistress, so to speak, who was, apparently, much more seductive than myself.

This mistress, I'll call her "Mary Jane" (yes, you know what I mean), took him away, changed his personality, and made our marriage literally go up in smoke.

She's still got her hooks in him, and is continuing to ruin his life, his relationships, and his health.

So the grape vine tells me, anyway.


Then, there was another man.

My ex fiance.

But, he had a mistress, too.

This mistress was human, though, and was married.
With kids.

Apparently, she was also more seductive than myself.

It was that, or my ex fiance was just a man whore. Which he was.

Actually, they were BOTH whores.
Pretty much.
Yeah.

They were perfect for each other in that way.

Anyway, their whoring around with one another broke up two perfectly happy families.

I had fallen in love with my ex fiance's kids, and his mom. I loved his family on the whole.
It was reciprocated, too. They adored me.

I was ready to marry him, and to be a part of that family.

When the cheating became evident, due to my confronting them with it....it was letting go of his family that, in the long run, hurt the most.

Despite his begging me to stay, I left him, and got my own place.

Then came several years of abject solitude. Actually living alone for the first time in my life, and being alone most of the time.

I was used to being alone, but living alone...knowing that there was not going to be anyone else sleeping anywhere else under my roof....that was new.

I dated.

Oh my god....I dated.....(and, perhaps, some of those stories will be told in these pages), but I was still very much alone.

And the loneliness wore on me.
It caused me to start to become bitter, and to feel hopeless.

Until The Universe intervened.....

I will tell more about that in another post.

For now, I just want to say that this blog is going to be the story of where I came from, some of the people I've known, and my life in general....

But mostly, it will be about the process of meeting, falling in love with, and marrying, the man who was meant for me.

It will be about what it is going to take in order for us to be together (we are currently living 800 miles apart).

It will be about the new life we are going to start, eventually...and hopefully, it will continue on to be the story of that life, as it moves forward.

Provided I can find the time, energy, and inspiration to write on a semi-regular basis!

Welcome to Spirits Dance Home.

I hope you'll enjoy it here.

p.s. thanks and accolades to my Radio Paradise friends, who helped me come up with the title (and subtitle) for this blog. Check out the link to the right, and save Radio Paradise to your list of favorites/book marks!