Currently, I am in a relationship, a long distance one. He lives in New York and I live in Kentucky. We met online back in late 2003 and in 2004 we met for the first time. Looking back over the course of these last couple of years, I am not sure where we are going ... He did tell me to get a passport which I did do ... perhaps he and I will go to Spain this year ... perhaps not ... Outside of my optimism and love for him, creeps this ominous cloud of doubt, fear, and pessimism, and I guess I need a place to sort it all out in my head.
Below is a transcript I wrote of our first meeting.
"Today we touch for the very first time
I'm yours now in body as well as in mind
You've touched me before this
let there be no doubt
But to finally hold you is what it is all about"
Chapter I ~ The Meeting
It was all about to go from internet chat to reality any moment ... so many feelings, thoughts ... the waiting and the planning ... the wondering if it would happen ... even a tinge of fear ... thinking of everything we've shared and talked about...the endless conversations that went on for hours ... the phone calls... the emotions of it all ...
Taking a deep breath, I opened the door of the hotel and headed towards the front desk clerk. I had been waiting months for this day to come, yet now I was shaking with apprehension. He had called and I knew he was waiting for my arrival. As I reached the desk and started speaking to the girl behind the counter, I heard a familiar voice from behind me. I wondered if he could hear my heart leaping out of my chest with a bounding thump at the sound of his voice. I turned to catch sight of the voice and the man behind it, and there he was, laying the newspaper aside, and rising up to greet me.
It was a beautiful sunny June afternoon 2004. Trying to concentrate all day at work had been a challenge. All I could think about was him... me... us. I was still in a marriage, had separated, and I had filed for divorce. In my heart the one-year marriage was over long before it really even began. My life was moving on, and for the first time in a long time that felt good. I was ready for this new relationship whatever it turned out to be, lovers, friends, it didn't matter. At one point we had canceled our plans to meet because of my situation. He was married too but living separately, independently. For all intents and purposes, who knew where we would end up? Making love, running for cover, a dinner and a dump, or continue to enter the layers of one another's lives and grow into something truly beautiful.
All I knew was that I wanted to find out. For every hour that passed, he was drawing nearer, driving to meet me. I worked with a girl who had met her now live-in online, and moved several states to be with him here. I thought at the time she was telling the story, that it was just crazy to think that you could "find love" on the Internet. I knew nothing of the Internet much less the chatrooms, and I didn't even own a home computer back then. As a matter of fact, my sister gave me the first home PC I ever had (almost 4 years ago) and into the world of the internet I ventured. I didn't know what I was doing half the time. I stumbled into the chatrooms by pure accident, while stumbling through the yahoo messenger. Sis and I enjoyed talking to one another online as it sure saved money on phone bills.
The Land of the Chatrooms ... what an experience. It was amazing to me that I could travel into any state and "pick" on people ... lol ... as their on screen names would spark a comment from me. It was amusing to me what people used as their handles in a chatroom... like pullmyhairandspankmyass!! (well, that about says it all, doesn't it?). Most of the times I came across what I thought to be "normal people" like me .... but then there were the strange ... and then the really perverted strange. I guess in the Land of the Chats,you could call me Ms. Naive, but I would become a fast learner. Number one question, is, "hey baby, what are you wearing?" lol...it still makes me laugh. What I really didn't understand was cybersex. How do people get off on that ? Somehow it just takes the romance out of it for me. You do what with a cam? I didn't know much about that either ... until ~ Well, it seemed people were willing to show it off to anybody that would look. I kept thinking if these people spend half as much time off line looking for a date, as they did online, chances are their life would be more fulfilling.
While browsing through a chatroom one day, I saw a screen name that caught my interest so I threw out some bantering comment like "hey baby, can you put out my fire?" My worst fear was realized, that I too, had become a chatroom junkie! Funny how, looking back, I never was looking for love, just fun and friendship, and it was all a big adventure! I never realized how much my life would change or that I would develop such a special bond with this man; but here I was ... in this hotel lobby ... meeting a stranger. He wasn't really a stranger was he? My heart knew him as no stranger, but I guess in physicality we were both strangers to one another.
As I turned and walked over to him, all the nervousness and apprehension I had felt faded when he and I embraced at long last and I gazed into those dark chocolate brown eyes of his. For the first time in a long time I felt alive ... really alive ... @2005
Where are we going to? Time will tell.
