Beginnings.

At the start of a new year, we habitually look forward towards the twelve months ahead of us. Much less frequently do we look back. This year, I’m using this New Years Day 2019 to reflect on beginnings. This week I’ll be posting origin stories – stories of beginnings. Enjoy.

Back in the day, somewhere between Prodigy and AOL, two young bored mothers whose youngests had just started kindergarten, found themselves with too much time on their hands and little to keep them entertained. As days passed, I found myself spending endless hours either on the phone with my fellow mom friend Lani or online with her exploring this new online world. We could never do both at the same time as a dial-up connection was needed for any online activity.

It began innocently enough with the amusement limited to bulletin boards about tv show, recipes and child rearing questions.  As the Internet evolved, so did we. We discovered places where we could log in and collaborate on the drawing of ridiculously inappropriate pictures. We discovered chat rooms where we could talk to strangers, male strangers, using anonymous screen names and pseudonyms.  At first we were the very definition of “all talk”. We’d have fun having simultaneous chats with the same man in different chat windows, driving him crazy talking in almost identical threads and then both deriding him identically as his subject matter grew inevitably inappropriate. We’d laugh on the phone later and go back to our kids and our lives, suitably amused and entertained until the next time.

Next times evolved into chatting with someone and enticing them to leave work or their home or wherever they happened to be and have them meet us at the local Shop-Rite parking lot.  They’d wait and we’d drive by and laugh and howl and congratulate each other on teaching the poor SOB a lesson. Looking back, what lesson I don’t know.

Lani and her husband were having issues and her chatting became a diversion from real life. Our fun and games only went so far and even that got boring after awhile.  That is, until that one night at the end of September. Lani called me up. “Can you go out tonight? I want to meet with someone and I don’t want to be axe-murdered.” “Who are you meeting? Do I know this person?” “No, its a guy I’ve been talking to named Anthony.  He’s married. I just want to see what he looks like. I’ve been talking to him for awhile. Come with me!” Always one for adventure and truly caring about the well-being of my friend, I agreed to go.

We got Company B’s and Anthony was already there. Lani somehow knew him immediately and we walked over to him and the friend he had brought along.  I was uncomfortable with this development, as it seemed like a double date and even though my husband of thirteen years had moved out and was playing house with someone else, I knew I was not ready to jump into another relationship.

There was a pool table.  Someone said, “Let’s play” and the four of us looked at each other and I said, “Talls against shorts”.  Lani and her friend were barely 5’5. I was 5’10 and the tall handsome friend was one of the tallest men I had even seen.  I wondered if he was a basketball player. He had a sweet face and seemed a little shy, unlike his friend.  

Playing pool loosened all of us up along with the drinks that were immediately ordered.  We drank and played pool and decided to grab some food. Throughout the game of pool, I found out his name was Jonathan and he lived a block away from me, across the street from that notorious Shop-Rite parking lot.  I found out a lot of things that night. I also found out Jonathan’s phone number and he found out mine. The chemistry was immediate and while the other two flirted over appetizers, we shared details about each other’s lives. He was single. I was not. He was childless. I was not.  He was 26. I was about to turn 30. He seemed like a gentle giant and I was intrigued by him immediately. Lani may have been oblivious to this connection at first but she soon noticed.

She decided to drive Jonathan back to his apartment in the car with me since he was practically our neighbor.  I went to sit in the back seat with Jonathan and Lani insisted to me that I sit up front. As she drove, from the front seat I mentioned how much I wanted to go to 7-11 for a Big Gulp. Aloud, I thought about walking to 7-11 from my house and wondered if anyone would want to take a walk with me.  Jonathan piped up and said he’s be happy to walk with me and that I shouldn’t be walking alone and if Lani could just drop me off at his place, which was closer to 7-11, he’d make sure I got home safely. Lani fell for none of it. In a loud, motherly voice, she commanded, “I’m dropping you off at your place and you off at your place. EVERYONE is going home to their own beds tonight.  And that’s exactly what she did. And so it began.