The Ring

So I got me a little part time job in a clinic in Vegas. It was about an hour away by bus, that includes a 20 minute break in between. I took two buses.It was perfect for me. I only needed to be there two to three hours per day. I'm not big on serious, full time work. If I work longer hours, I want to do it for a few days, ram all my week's work in a few days and be done with it. You gotta make time for play!

I met a nice lady there. We became friends, she was always in sunglasses indoors. It was quite something. She is a beautiful lady who apparently used to be a groupie back in the day. She hooked up with some celebs. I can't name names. She also has something of Justin Bieber's. No, she wasn't Bieber's groupie! She told me that they were never allowed to take their cellphones into the parties with them in case they took pictures or videos and sold footage of something that's not supposed to be seen by public. I get it, I work on tv shows, I know all about non-disclosures. We planned to hang out outside of work but it just didn't happen. She had three kids, and two jobs, and not that much time for new friends, I guess. She was good fun at work though.

The rest of the people there were very interesting characters. Groupie was my saving grace.

One afternoon, while minding my business, I got an email from one of my sisters asking if I was available to Skype. I was. Just as I was looking on, I heard a knock on the door. Who could it be? I came out, there was no one! They did leave a big box outside for me.  It was my rings!

Now what? I did get a bit excited, I must say! I ripped the packaging open and got to the rings. There were two, the engagement and wedding band. I tried on the engagement, it fit like a glove! The band was a size too big and too thin for my liking. It was also too thin for the engagement. Not that any of that mattered because I had broken up with the groom. I put the rings on and Skyped my sister. She flipped when she saw the rings. I was like yeah but it's over. Too little, too late!

White Gold with Diamond

Charlie had never stopped calling and texting, but I had blocked him. I blocked him on Facebook as well as he would contact me there. He called me once from a number I didn't recognise. When I picked up, he was so shocked, he didn't know what to say. I thought to myself, you called, you knew you were calling me. I didn't know it was you calling because I don't know the number. You should've been more prepared than me that I was going to be on the other side of the phone. He told me that he had been texting me, and asked why I didn't text him back. I felt bad for him and told him to text me again. I unblocked him for a split second. We talked for a bit. He wanted to come see me the following day. I agreed.

The following day, Charlie showed up with a ring on his finger. He had a yellow gold band on his ring finger.

Charlie's Ring and Mine

I didn't even ask about that. What for? I had my ring on when he came, I quickly took it off and put it back into the box. He saw the box on my shelf because he's very nosy, he has very wondering eyes. He is the person who will always find things that you have hid from him. The fact that you have to hide things from him is a red flag, actually. He saw the box, opened the ring and started critiquing it. I told him that I didn't care what he thought of the ring, that's not why he was there plus it was my ring and my choice, he should worry about his fingers, not mine. He told me I should've let him pick a ring for me, he would've done a much better job. I thought to myself, I'm so glad  I broke up with this fool! What person, who, after you broke up with them and blocked them all over the show and you finally give them a chance to see you, acts like such a dick? He just has no sense of: time or place! In which case, with him, it's never the time nor place to do or say anything.

Charllie's watch and my ring

That meeting didn't last long, I knew I made the best decision for myself when I broke up with Charlie. I kept the ring for weeks. I would sometimes wear it and enjoy seeing it sparkle under light. After a while, I took it off and put it as out of sight as possible, One day, I decided that I was really ready to move on for that what could've been chapter of my life. I returned the rings.

I hope that was the last time I had a close call. I have had too many of them to care. My first engagement ring from when I was 21 should still be back in Africa.

I got a nice long email one day from a guy who we will call Jim. Jim was age appropriate, he was in his early 40's, he was looking for a serious relationship. He had a 10 or so year old son that he saw every so often, he lived in a very small mining town in Arizona where the houses were owned by the mine, so the staff only had to pay about $250 for three bedroom houses. Talk about Christmas in June! He and I exchanged a number of emails. He seemed sincere, he would send really long emails and always included pictures of what he was talking about. He sent me a picture of the view from his house, which included that of his Hummer (balling!), one of his new Orange Harley Davidson (flossing!), a number of selfies, some in uniform, he had a nice supervisory position at the mine. He had been working there for about ten years. He told me that he would understand if I didn't want to stay in that small town forever. It's not for everyone, I mean, the population is 500. or so, that's crazy! Everyone knows everyone. I would have been the only person they didn't know. Jim told me that he wanted to work for a few more years at the mine, and then find a job somewhere in California where he would subsequently move to. He also was waiting for his son to finish high school. I guess his son was 14. I remember Jim had four more years to be fully responsible of his son.

We talked about a whole lot before he told me he was about to head to Florida on vacation. He told me he was going to leave in a couple of days but would definitely keep in touch. I was so excited to have come in contact with someone like him. It had been a while since I had met a decent prospect. We exchanged emails daily for about a week before his vacation. I didn't hear back from him the day before his vacation. I decided to shoot him a bon voyage email to which he replied immediately. That turned me kinda off because I had sent him a long ass email responding to an email I had gotten from him and he just never replied to that. We exchanged a few emails after the bon voyage one. I didn't want to be like, so, uh, are you gonna reply to that email? You know that one? I just let it slide and hoped that he would go over our conversations when he had time and find that there was one he hadn't replied to. I can't stand repeating myself. Also, you don't know if someone didn't hear the question or they intentionally ignored it.

I got an email from Jim when he was leaving for the airport. He left around ten the night before and spent the night in a hotel in Arizona, then flew out to Florida the following morning around 3. He said it was easier that way than to try and catch a 3am flight all the way from his town which was 3 hours away from Arizona. He was to email me when he arrived in Florida where he was going to stay for about four days and then go on a cruise, then back to Florida, then back to AZ. I was in such high spirits since meeting him.

This was around the same time, I decided to start reading self help books, my favorite genre when I do read! I was thinking positively, or at least, trying, I wanted things to work out. He had promised to come see me in Vegas, I wanted to believe that he was really going to and it was going to work out great.

Around that time, I was monitoring my thoughts, wanting to see where I could make improvements. I realised that I wasn't as positive a thinker as I thought I was. Majority of my thoughts, even if they started off positive, they would end up in a really weird place. Sometimes I would cover the whole pessimism up with humor but the bottom line, it was negative. I tell you, it was so much work to monitor my own thoughts and try to change course and face the east every time I found myself going South. I know! East is not the opposite of South but who's counting? Counting? But these are directions, not numbers?!?!?!? ;)