I am in love with a woman who has never had much of an adult relationship. There’s no call for it. She is beautiful. Historically Texan, like me. I seem to be drawn to unavailable women. Solo moms.
I guess my relationship to my mom has a lot to do with this. Maybe even my relationship to my real mom, my older sister. When I was born she was ten and believed I was a living breathing doll for her and her friends. I became their mascot. Their teasing partner. Their example of a good and honest man. They were in 10th grade (sophomores) I was in kindergarten. I aspire to women like that.
Of course, my physical desire runs ten years in opposite direction. I don’t know what that’s about either.
One time I had a woman who was both ten years young and an unavailable solo mom. Just like today, as I court unsuccessfully, the love of my life from first grade. Blonde. Uncatchable runner on the playground, smelling of peppermint and soap. Courting is not the right word. Investigating. I’ll get to her in a second.
I really learned my lesson (obviously not) with this hippie mom. Her watery eyes still cause my imagination to wander. Something about her. But it took about four months for us to actually “date.” We played in a mixed doubles tennis group on Friday nights. At my point of introduction to this group I was recovering from the recent death of my brother and my sex positive girlfriend. She wasn’t dead. She just reinforced her unavailability by bolting at month six.
“I just bolt,” she said.
“Don’t you think you’d like to learn how to love?” I asked a few months after she exited my bedroom.
“Not really.”
On the tennis court this hippie solo mom was funny, warm, and aggressive. Maybe that’s what I like in a woman, funny, warm and aggressive. I had to repeat it there. Might be my new mantra.
She brought her eight-year-old boy to FNT. He would zone out on his laptop, watching videos or playing Roblox. He was a well-behaved blonde kid. He never fussed. I did notice his mom would leave the court to take him to the restroom. I didn’t see that as a red flag at the time. It was.
Over the course of the run of Friday nights on the tennis court I came to know and love her. First for her humor and tennis. Later for her loving compassion for her son and then me. Something about her radiant love that lit all of my senses. (Hmm. This is a clue.)
On the evening of our first date the city experienced a biblical deluge. We were inside an unfamiliar Mexican food restaurant drinking our second margarita and admiring with the staff, “At least we are safe and inside.” I don’t think it was a sign or anything, but the phrase “auspicious beginning” did come to my lips. We laughed. I swooned. Of course, I was out of my mind on alcohol by this time. I screen-grabbed her picture so it would show her smiling face anytime I’d call her. I drove us back to her place. I had to be gone before her son woke up.
I never caught my breath after that. She delighted me with her determination. Her devotion to her son was slightly alarming, but my expanding heart was no interested in caution signs.
There was a part of it that I could not square, however. She yelled at him.
“I started therapy to try and get a grip on it,” she said at one point.
It didn’t work. I tried to make adjustments. I created a swear jar until it became evidence of the shame. She couldn’t stop yelling at him. There was this behavior that I began pushing back against early on when I began staying the night and joining the pre-school breakfast routine.
They would yell from distant rooms. Her son would yell, “Mom!” He’d sit in his room on his bed and yell for her. From moving about the house I knew she was in the kitchen with the music on and making his lunch. He would just keep yelling.
“Maybe you should go find her,” I said to him, leaning my head in his room. He frowned. “Mom!”
He knew he had the authority.
She would do the same thing, yelling his name from the kitchen. And that might be a clue into the overall yelling problem.
In my three close encounters with my first-grade crush, I noticed her independence, fierce energy protecting and supporting her single child, a daughter. I was a gentleman. The first time I orchestrated a rendezvous it was at her home near San Antonio. Somehow, she allowed me to sleep at her house on the way to a job interview in San Antonio. I don’t remember much about our night. Her daughter was away. I think we got Mexican food. That was a Texas staple. I don’t recall if there were margaritas involved.
I was reminded of another join when she and her daughter came to my house for swimming and an afternoon of summer together. I tried to get them to stay for a movie, but mom was determined to drive back to San Antonio that night. A few days ago she asked her daughter if she remembered me.
“That guy with the room behind the bookcase?”
Yep. That was me. The Gnome House.
Our last run-in was about seven years ago. Or as I think about it, three relationships ago. I was in between, living at my mom’s again after a blowout breakup with an alcoholic. Funny, when I was invited to Wimberly to visit her that I stopped at liquor store along the way and bought a small bottle of Casa Migos blanco tequila. Her daughter was away again, a senior in high school, I think. We sat on her tiny porch and sipped our glasses. I brought limes, but we never used them.
The tequila had a peppery flavor that enticed us both. I wasn’t really a drinker. I knew about tequila from margaritas. Interesting to me, that all of these encounters involved tequila. Hmm.
The most memorable thing about the evening was my anticipation and approach on the drive to Wimberly. I discovered a new band The New Pornographers blasting with the windows down in my new BMW M-sport wagon. I was pretty proud of myself at that moment, despite living in my mom’s house. I could sense my path out and up. This woman was perhaps a step on the ladder. We had a few sipping glasses of the newly discovered elixir and I slept in her daughter’s bed. I was interested in going to breakfast the next morning. She declined. There was a lot she needed to do that Saturday morning.
About a week later we were making plans to gather again in Wimberly but there were complications. We were mid-text when she went dark for several hours. Turns out she was getting a massage, but she didn’t tell me. I was trying to arrange my departure to miss the significant Friday afternoon rush hour. I lost my compass. When she rejoined our conversation it was six pm. The traffic issue was in full bloom if I left at that time, but I was frustrated. At some point we just blew it off.
Silence for a number of years. My path led through a sex kitten, to the solo mom, to a loving and delightful school teacher to now. Solo. Single again. Professing my relief at having all my time back, yet digging back into a conversation with my crush.
The last thing she DM’d me a few days ago along with her number was this warning.
I’m writing this on Saturday morning. I don’t think this short story is something I should share. But I will try and be transparent in my goals. I suppose. I’d need to know what they are. For two independent parents with kids struggling to launch and living 50 – 60 miles apart, what’s the play?
occasional margaritas?
kisses?
companionship?
I’m not clear on this. I do know I married and had kids with the last woman from high school I dated. I’m not interested in dating. I must want something from her.
