Just like Jerry Maguire…

And I’m not talking about the foreign concept of, “You complete me; You had me at hello” nonsense that I finally realized doesn’t exist. I tend to throw it in park at “Great at friendships, terrible at relationships.” That’s more where I zone. I guess that explains why I still remain good friends with most of my exes and speak to them on a regular basis. All, but 2; my first love, who I was in a relationship with for 12 years, and (as far as I’m concerned) my last love that I’m still pining over, (silently, of course, unless I get a little heavy handed on making my whiskey and ginger ale and my mannish pride goes right out the window). None of the others have even mattered. I mean, they did at the time but when it was over I simply took my ass to the next seat 🤷🏻‍♀️.

My first love was a little different. We were young when we started out and every single ‘first’ we had in life was with each other. I was late 20’s when we split for good. Although I don’t think of him in this light anymore, there was never one time that I didn’t feel a jolt of electricity move through my body when he touched me. For a first love, we had something special. There were countless ups and downs during our 12 year relationship, but I can honestly say I always knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he loved me. But he also wanted kids, and that was something that I couldn’t give him. No matter how clean the house was or how I well I mastered Spanish rice, that was never going to supersede his desire for a family. So, I looked him in his eyes one day and said, “your happiness comes above all else, so like a beautiful butterfly I’m going to let you fly away and make beautiful butterfly babies elsewhere.” Nah, I’m totally kidding. What it was, was a flying jump kick across the room right in the nards. Not one of my proudest moments, but sometimes there are no words. My final jolt of electricity came in October 2005 and it was only because he accidentally brushed up against me as he was moving his things out of my house. He is currently married to the woman he left me for and has a beautiful family. And quite frankly, I’m happy for him. That was the first time in my life that I had to come to grips with the harsh truth that I wasn’t enough. Everything in me, that was me, wasn’t enough. And sometimes it be like dat.

I can’t recall if it was the moment the door slammed when he left, or the moment the door slammed when my best friend, Chewbacca (aka Amy), barreled through it to force me to get out of bed and bathe (after going ghost for days) that changed me. But either way, I was changed. I’ve always strived to do my best in everything, but I became insane with it. Failure is definitely not an option. I became one of those people who would learn things, just to learn things. In my mind all these skills that I learned would make me irreplaceable to a man. And in the almost decade after him, it worked out. I didn’t say well, but it worked. The men I would typically date were more than happy to allow me to do EVERYTHING while they played Madden and smoked weed all day. It was a win-win; They didn’t have to do much and in return, I knew they would never leave. But, like clockwork, around the 2 year mark I would become frustrated, because deep down I wasn’t really about that life, and just be done. I mean done. And that was it. My best friend, Chewbacca, referred to it as my “2 year itch.” She would tell people if they could make it to two years, they were good. And they laughed about it while we were lit, playing dominoes. But it was no joke when the calendar crept up to the 2 year mark and I had been strategically planning how to get their things out of my house for the previous month.

In 2011, with the help of the good Lord, and good friends I turned my life around and started trying to figure out all the “why’s” in life-after I began to go to church and pull the plug on my alcohol consumption. (I was sober for 7 years-yes, was) I guess I’ve been seeking the answers since. I am an avid reader and my passion is anything to do with psychology and self-help. Psychology, because I’m fascinated with learning the way the mind works. Why life events cause some people (like myself) to go off the rails, and some people adapt and overcome. And self-help…well, please refer back to the second paragraph where I Matrixed it right into ol boys nards😬. (Sorry bro)

I knew there was something inside me that made me seek out the same exact type of men and I hated myself for it. During that period of my life, I hated myself for a lot of things. And so I began to try to soften myself up a little. Not like all damsel in distress, because that can NEVER be me, but I tried a different approach to things. I made a conscious decision to go into my next dating experience allowing a man to be a man. It usually worked for an outing or two, but the second there is any hesitation, my assertive (some would say aggressive) side kicks in and takes over. Let me explain what I mean by that…I went out with a guy once and we met outside at Starbucks. We were sitting at a table for two and the conversation was flowing nicely. He was facing the ramp where people would walk up to go inside the building, and my back was to whoever was walking up. People were coming in and out and I wasn’t paying much attention to it until I heard a loud noise. I turned around and a tiny lady in her mid-sixties was pushing what I assumed to be her mother, in a wheelchair, up the ramp. He and I both noticed because we stopped talking for a few seconds. My instinct is to immediately hop up and open the door for them. But, I thought “Holly, you are in a skirt and high-heels and we already discussed how we were going to allow a man to be a man.” But with every squeaky turn of the wheel on the wheelchair my chest began hurting. Because ol’ boy wasn’t moving and they started inching closer and closer to the door. When they got to the narrow platform and I saw the lady struggle with trying to move around the wheelchair to grab the door, I put my hand on ol’ boy’s leg gently and whispered in his ear “Are you seriously not going to get up and open that door?” He got up and opened it after that, but that’s the hesitation I mentioned. When there is hesitation, I go back to running the show. I have no problem running the show, but I truly want a man to run things and let me sit down and just smile and nod. (Insert eye roll from all the feminists) For the record, I’m not sure who was more offended, me or ol’ boy, but needless to say…Starbucks was a one and done!!!

My family is very small, but the men are men! My grandfather, who went to meet Jesus in 2011, was the best man in the world and also the hardest working man that I knew. A very close second to that is my uncle. I will put money on the fact that my uncle can outwork your uncle. That’s what I’m used to, and it’s so very disheartening when I make the money, maintain the vehicles, maintain the lawn, cook the dinner, do the laundry and manage to somehow maintain a clean home. But it begs the question, what came first? The chicken or the egg. Did I just assume the man role initially? Or was it because I had a line of men who wouldn’t so I had no choice? Not sure at this point.

Now that you’re up to speed on the basics, I will leave you at the point where I met my ex. To not use his name, I will refer to him from here on out as “Grenade.” Grenade is an appropriate name because like a grenade, you don’t have to get too close. You chunk it from a distance where you stay far enough away to where you don’t experience any of the devastation. You throw it, walk away, and it destroys everything. Which is exactly what happened.