Rocks and Houses

For some terrible reason that I can't mention, I wasn't there yet. I can't mention it, because I didn't know what it was. The best thing I could come up with was, "It didn't turn out that well before." Maybe it's not understood how that thing that happened before screwed me up so much. Maybe it's not understood how it let a whole house of fear be built for me. I didn't like it that way; I didn't. But it just took some time to tear it down. I can't help it. Ruth would say, "This, too, is part of our journey with the Lord." Dad would say, "You're not supposed to have everything figured out; you're only 22."

When I was in high school, I dated a guy for six hours once. It was terrible, really. I mean that he was all wrong for me. We argued nonstop. He wanted to date me for a long, long time. We hung out enough to be called dating, even though I kept denying that title. He kept asking me, asking me, putting the pressure on, putting the pressure on. And finally, I felt like it was okay to say that we were dating. He was really happy. And then, I left his house and immediately felt awful, like it was the dumbest thing I ever did. I just sat in my car and thought, "How do I get out of this?" Then I called it off over MSN. Ha. It's funny now. It wasn't funny then. We weren't friends after that.

I also used to be confident that everything, when I got married, would be just fine. I knew things would come along that were difficult, head-splitting difficult, but "not handsome enough to tempt me". Then all of the sudden, after that thing happened, I decided marriage wasn't for me. At first, I thought it would be like wishing death upon myself to get married. Then, I was just deathly afraid, too many unknowns, too probably terrible, even though I would be, I don't know, neighbors with this person forever just to be close. Travel the world, help each other, be honest with one another, eat together, have parties every night with close friends. I used to try to set him up with my best friends, because it was the surest bet I would see him often. Oh, it's so dumb. You marry the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. I had that whole sentence down except the first two words.

But now something has happened. I'm not sure what, really, but the house of fear is gone. It was all built upon a rock that's over, a rock that used to be my reality. Well, the house fell, because the rock was old, crumbling. It's not my life anymore. That thing that happened won't happen again. There's a new rock now, and maybe someday, we can even live in the same house for good.