A Brief Romantic History of - - - Me.

Tonight, I've found myself thinking about the past.  Some things I remember fondly, others sadly, and yet others with tears in my eyes.  I suppose everyone has evenings like these, when their thoughts turn inward and toward the past.  And now, as my thoughts have gone inward, they are flowing back out in text format!

For me, tonight, my thoughts seem to be largely populated by my exes....and they're an interesting group.

In the 9th grade I met a man who, for the purposes of this blog, will remain nameless and mostly without description.  He was a good man, much older than myself, whom I considered to be a true friend for the short time I knew him.  There was no romance, nor would it have been appropriate (or legal) if there had been.  What there was, for me, was knowledge that this man would become, in large part, the standard by which I would measure the other men who came into my life.   

Through high school, there was first the wannabe musician, then the boyfriend-by-any-other-name, and finally the fireman-who-couldn't-commit.  The fireman got the boot (haha....fireman....boot!  Ok, back on track, Sarah!) in favor of the Marine who became the husband.  The Marine turned out to be a selfish jerk, and so the husband became the estranged-husband and the fireman-from-the-past became the roommate.  Eventually, the estranged-husband became the ex-husband, and I moved back home to the parents' place.  There were then one or two once-or-twice dinner dates who turned out to be one sandwich short of a picnic.  Next (March '04) came the Chevy guy, and what a guy he was!  Tall, charming, and by far the most handsome of the lot!  Things there went along nicely for a while, but that November as the weather cooled so did the sparks, and by December it was over.  Over the next few months, there were more once-or-twice dinners....Marines, sailors, civilians.  Some were handsome, a few were charming, but in the end they all served as proof of one fact: that evolution CAN go in reverse!  In April of '05 I had a short, intense relationship with a very short guy.....I was full-time stand-in Mommy to a friend's newborn son.  And, right around this time, the Chevy man came back into my life.....and this time it lasted a while.  Over the next couple of years Chevy man and I were happy (I think) as long as we remembered to ignore the fact that our goals and desires were moving us in opposite directions.  By September '07, we had grown apart such that the ties broke, and it was ended for good.  Just after my 24th birthday, the "Pool Shark" made a brief appearance in my life.  It was an exhilarating experience like none I'd ever had before, but it was more of a flash than a flame and ended as quickly as it began.  Then came a series of the ever-popular once-or-twice dinners, producing the same results of previous similar series.  Finally, in April '08, one afternoon with the Fireman ended in the conception of the most wonderful man I've ever met.....my son.

In January 2009 I fell completely and totally in love, perhaps for the first real time in my life, with Kaleb Christopher...my baby, my unplanned gift.

Where romance is concerned, it rarely crosses my mind anymore.  When it does, the thoughts are mostly memories rather than hopes for the future.  In truth, I'm not so sure I actually even miss romantic relationships.  Sure, there are "what ifs" when the memories come back, on nights like tonight.  But, for the most part, the "what ifs" resign themselves to infrequent bouts of nostalgia, and so are not much bother at all to me.  I find that, emotionally, I am quite content these days.  I'm 26 years old, and I'm happily single.  And it feels good!

Yet, in the back of my mind lurks an anonymous quote, one which is sad and romantic and (mercifully) only surfaces on these strange nights when I am awake too late with thoughts of the past:

"The saddest thing in the world is loving someone who used to love you."