The Rise and Fall of Winston, and I don't mean Churchill

And yet there was always Winston, who would keep me up for hours and hours on the phone, who shared EVERYTHING with me, who was starting to talk about how many kids we’d have…

And I moved out of the sorority house and in with my parents. No quicker way to shoot down the dating life I didn’t have (but still thought I maybe wanted).

And there was Winston, who called me, wrote to me, told me he missed me, thought of me, wanted me to move near him….all the things that were happening (and supposed to be happening) in the romance novel of my brain. And Winston and I talked and talked and talked, and I considered myself one of the luckiest somewhat-single girls ever to have found a man that would talk to me for hours on end and share everything – every single girl’s fantasy.

And Winston came to visit and meet my family. In fact, Winston drove 16 hours, and through a tornado no less, to get to me. I thought I was going to burst with happiness. We played golf, tennis, drank coffee, and almost – so close – kissed on the couch. But, like all good things coming to an end, Winston left. And I cried for days.

But, then one day Winston asked me to move to his city and find a job so that we could be together. Everything was working out just as I had planned! So, I gathered my resources and called in favors, and began talking with people about jobs. And Winston was so supportive. And that should have been a million red flags! No one gets to be this happy and no man is this perfect! (I should know!) And the day when I thought my life was going to go just as I had planned, and my fairy tale was about to come true, Winston, over AOL IM, tells me we need to talk.

I’m not dumb, although I might have been then, but I knew the bomb was about to drop, the earth about to shake, the car about to crash (feel free to add in any other bad analogies here)…I shouldn’t be so morbid, after all, Winston wasn’t the mortician! And Winston announces with gusto (or that’s how I imagined it was happening since it was all online) about how he had met someone. Annie. And I would LOVE her.

WHAT THE HELL?! How am I going to love the woman that had stolen my man? Okay, well, he wasn’t exactly my man, I mean, we weren’t dating, but for crying out loud, we had our honeymoon planned!

Annie. And was I terribly upset, he wanted to know. Me, upset? NO! I cried for a week, I couldn’t go back to work (uh yeah, smart boy told me this on my freaking lunch hour at work!), I was devastated. But wait, this isn’t how it works out in the movies, the beautiful girl (yeah, that’s me) always gets the handsome prince (okay, balding a little, but we aren’t getting any younger!).
And in my twisted girl-like world, I held out hope that he would come back to me. Back to me? He wasn’t ever really with me. Or at least I know that now.

And a little over a year later, on Thanksgiving, after almost 8 months of not talking to him and no contact (both of our doing, not just his, although mostly mine), I get a phone message. “you may or may not have heard but Annie and I got married.” Holy *&^%. He did what? And I’m supposed to be thankful for this on Thanksgiving? How about an emotional mess?? And who would I have heard that from? Uh, let’s think here Winston. So much for my happy, fairy tale ending. And the space ship came crashing back to earth.

And, a year later (or maybe it was two...I mean, it WAS fairly traumatic), I had finally recovered, and committed my life to moving on from him. Although I sure wasn’t dating. I mean, how could I?

Yeah, no bitterness here.