guy. You know, that guy. The guy who ends up alone for the rest of his life, because he’s impossible to please. I’ll be the guy who shuts himself up in his immaculate house, barking at kids to stay off his lawn. Who wants to be that guy? Not this guy.
I want to be the guy who not only waves to his neighbors as they drive by his house while he’s working on the yard or washing his car in the driveway but knows them by name and takes time to actually talk to them once in a while. I want to chuckle good-naturedly with male neighbors about the “Honey-Do” list. I want to share baby due dates and deliver hot dishes to neighbors who’ve brought home their new babies. I want to exchange recipes. I want to commiserate about sick kids and humble-brag about Little League victories and track meet wins.
Entry into that club, however, requires a wife and kids. And I’ll never have them if I don’t stop being so… selective.
Scary realization #2: I’m no better than Heidi used to be when she’d nit-pick me to the point of change… from the way I shaved to the brands of food I purchased.
Heidi had definite ideas about what she wanted and expected in a spouse, and she made it her mission the two years we were together to shape me into that guy before we walked down the aisle. And I didn’t mind, for the most part. Despite her Type-A personality, Heidi was ( is , I suppose) a sweet, generous person… as long as the people in her life conform to her ideals.
I considered myself lucky to be worthy of her efforts and was excited to be part of her charmed future. I didn’t give a shit what I’d be wearing in that life (nothing from last season… ever), as long as I had that life. It wasn’t until she snatched the dream away from me that I realized I didn’t even recognize myself anymore.
In an effort to rediscover myself, I stripped my bachelor pad of anything there only because Heidi had made it so. That left me with a closet full of brightly-colored and cartoon-character-patterned scrubs, a few mementos from high school, college, and nursing school (including a beer bong), my laptop, and my entertainment system.
I also pulled down a box of chick flicks that had been hiding and gathering dust in my closet, and I loaded up my Kindle with as many funny, quirky girlie books as it could hold by authors like Jennifer Weiner, Jane Green (old school, not her newer, darker stuff), Marian Keyes, Sophie Kinsella, Hester Browne, and anyone else Amazon recommended to me based on those selections. I went on a rom com bender on the naked mattress in the middle of my Beirut-chic bedroom and reacquainted myself with a guy I’d forgotten existed.
When I emerged from my isolation at the end of that weekend, I felt shaky, like someone who’s come up on a horrendous accident scene, realizing if he’d not had to backtrack to the house to retrieve his jacket or stop for gas along the way, he might have been one of the people in those body bags.
Unlike medical shock, though, this emotional shock was beneficial, healing. It reminded me that I was, indeed, alive, and I had escaped with my personality intact. Mostly. What I could remember of it, anyway. Some things I’d lost weren’t as obvious.
At the time of our breakup, Heidi and I were looking for a house to buy together. None of the ones we viewed had fewer than five bedrooms, five bathrooms, and three living areas, and they all had master suites that looked like they came straight from the pages of Heidi’s favorite magazines about celebrities. The properties were sodded and landscaped to the hilt and would require hours and hours of upkeep on the weekends… or a gardener, which I knew we wouldn’t be able to afford, on top of the massive mortgage we’d be taking on.
A few weeks after Heidi called off the wedding, I threw away all the real estate listing books, dripping tears and snot as I stood staring at them in the paper recycling bin. Was I mourning the idea of the
I want to be the guy who not only waves to his neighbors as they drive by his house while he’s working on the yard or washing his car in the driveway but knows them by name and takes time to actually talk to them once in a while. I want to chuckle good-naturedly with male neighbors about the “Honey-Do” list. I want to share baby due dates and deliver hot dishes to neighbors who’ve brought home their new babies. I want to exchange recipes. I want to commiserate about sick kids and humble-brag about Little League victories and track meet wins.
Entry into that club, however, requires a wife and kids. And I’ll never have them if I don’t stop being so… selective.
Scary realization #2: I’m no better than Heidi used to be when she’d nit-pick me to the point of change… from the way I shaved to the brands of food I purchased.
Heidi had definite ideas about what she wanted and expected in a spouse, and she made it her mission the two years we were together to shape me into that guy before we walked down the aisle. And I didn’t mind, for the most part. Despite her Type-A personality, Heidi was ( is , I suppose) a sweet, generous person… as long as the people in her life conform to her ideals.
I considered myself lucky to be worthy of her efforts and was excited to be part of her charmed future. I didn’t give a shit what I’d be wearing in that life (nothing from last season… ever), as long as I had that life. It wasn’t until she snatched the dream away from me that I realized I didn’t even recognize myself anymore.
In an effort to rediscover myself, I stripped my bachelor pad of anything there only because Heidi had made it so. That left me with a closet full of brightly-colored and cartoon-character-patterned scrubs, a few mementos from high school, college, and nursing school (including a beer bong), my laptop, and my entertainment system.
I also pulled down a box of chick flicks that had been hiding and gathering dust in my closet, and I loaded up my Kindle with as many funny, quirky girlie books as it could hold by authors like Jennifer Weiner, Jane Green (old school, not her newer, darker stuff), Marian Keyes, Sophie Kinsella, Hester Browne, and anyone else Amazon recommended to me based on those selections. I went on a rom com bender on the naked mattress in the middle of my Beirut-chic bedroom and reacquainted myself with a guy I’d forgotten existed.
When I emerged from my isolation at the end of that weekend, I felt shaky, like someone who’s come up on a horrendous accident scene, realizing if he’d not had to backtrack to the house to retrieve his jacket or stop for gas along the way, he might have been one of the people in those body bags.
Unlike medical shock, though, this emotional shock was beneficial, healing. It reminded me that I was, indeed, alive, and I had escaped with my personality intact. Mostly. What I could remember of it, anyway. Some things I’d lost weren’t as obvious.
At the time of our breakup, Heidi and I were looking for a house to buy together. None of the ones we viewed had fewer than five bedrooms, five bathrooms, and three living areas, and they all had master suites that looked like they came straight from the pages of Heidi’s favorite magazines about celebrities. The properties were sodded and landscaped to the hilt and would require hours and hours of upkeep on the weekends… or a gardener, which I knew we wouldn’t be able to afford, on top of the massive mortgage we’d be taking on.
A few weeks after Heidi called off the wedding, I threw away all the real estate listing books, dripping tears and snot as I stood staring at them in the paper recycling bin. Was I mourning the idea of the
Similar Books
