My Escape

It was a chilly evening, late in fall. The kind of night where you need a jacket to keep warm despite wearing a sweater. The kind of night not cool enough to see your breath, but enough to feel the chill on your nose. The perfect night for boots and hot apple cider. Campfires and s’mores.

I stood in front of the mirror in my room, nervously trying on my pink cashmere sweater. It fit just right against me. I felt confident looking in the mirror, noting all visible effects of the prednisone had dissipated as I had tapered down. Things had been quiet with lupus for some time now. So I decided to bury all evidence of it ever existing. As a 20 something, it was all I could do to hide it. I wasn’t proud of what I had come through. No, it only made me feel more different. Causing me to feel more alone. I only wanted to fit in. And feel accepted. I felt I now carried around the experiences of someone far older, and that made me feel ugly. How could I possibly relate to my piers? I wasn’t going to be entering any sororities, and I certainly wasn’t signing up for any wet t shirt contests. I knew my experiences had left me broken. And so I hid them. As best I could.

The burdens I carried now were for life.

And they wore on me.

Who would understand all that?

Having lost what I considered to be my best friend in my dad, I found my loneliness only grew. All I wanted was love. Real love. I had waited my whole life for it. It felt like it would never come. It secretly hurt me to watch girlfriends settle down with various boyfriends. Year after year passed for the once awkward girl, too skinny and too tall, and with it came the searing question, ‘When will it be my turn?’.

I finished putting on my makeup and quietly tip towed out of the ranch.  At 26, I was well past the age of a curfew. Still, I knew I wasn’t up for any questions.

There was a humming in me that longed to be free from this life of sadness and tragedy.

A need to not take everything so seriously.

I quickly opened the door to my car and got in. I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. The ranch, the place that had once brought me so much comfort, now only reminded me of my pain. There was a heaviness there that haunted me.

And I was all cried out.

I wasn’t waiting around anymore.

I was making my escape.

As I drove down the unpaved driveway, I could hear the overgrown grass brush up against the sides of my car. Crickets were chirping from the bushes. I exhaled, wondering what the night would bring. Somehow, driving had become my safe place. My freedom from a life I despised. Music blasting, often with coffee in hand, I was able to forget. And escape my own thoughts. Even for a while.

And so, I made my way down the night road in the little red Jetta, punching the gas. The faster and farther away, the better, I felt.

Tonight however was different. Tonight I was meeting someone. Someone I had never met.

We were meeting for drinks.

I didn’t know it then. But as I nervously opened the door to my car, I was also unknowingly opening another door. A door that would open a new chapter in my life.

One I had not yet encountered in my 26 years.

I exhaled trying to calm my nerves as I walked in his direction. I told myself to pretend I knew what I was doing. Pretend I had done this before. One glance in his direction revealed his unease. It amused me to see a grown man look nervous. But he was. And that gave me incredible confidence, calming me almost instantly.

And so the night began. We grabbed some cheap Mexican food and drinks at a popular hole in the wall restaurant a few blocks away. He went on to order shots, telling me he was a UFC fighter. I knew he was trying to get me drunk. I knew he was probably very aggressive.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t care.

He seemed like a good enough distraction from my pain.

I drank a few shots, and at the end of the night let him kiss me.

I wasn’t about to tell him he was my first kiss. I didn’t think he was special enough for that.

I drove home that night with a mix of emotions running through me. I was in part relieved that I was not the freak I thought I was. To my own surprise, I had been a hit. I knew I had become increasingly attractive over the past year. I just hadn’t expected anyone to notice. Though I secretly hoped someone would. With this new influx of attention also brought an excitement about what the future may bring. For the first time in my life, finding love didn’t feel like such an impossibility. As I neared the old ranch, I also couldn’t deny feeling cheap and a little used.

I knew he wasn’t sensitive. I knew he probably wasn’t even all that smart.

He called me a few days later, wanting to cook dinner for me at his place.

I declined.

I knew he was too aggressive. I knew my naïve heart could never keep up.

I also knew that for once, it felt good to do things my way.

Having spent years in Christian circles I had grown tired of the idea that life apart from God would result in great heartache. My life with God had resulted in what felt like nothing but heartache! I had always found the world of Christian dating to be rule filled, often enforced by those who had either previously done things their own way or had no dating experience at all. More, just about every single Christian girlfriend I had had abandoned the faith in favor of this guy or that. I didn’t care about the questions. Was he a Christian? Was he attending church regularly? What did he believe about purity? No. The thought of those questions made me cringle a little on the inside.

I just wanted to not feel so alone all the time.

And I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.

I didn’t know why it all had to be such a big deal.

I figured if God had someone for me, he would have brought him to me already.

It terrified me to think he may want me to remain single forever.

I thought about the older missionary I had stayed with in Kenya, a stern woman who had always wanted to marry but “just never found the right one”.

Her words echoed in my mind. More times than I would have liked.

Was that going to be me?

I had watched many friends go on to become engaged and married.

All I knew was that I was all done waiting around.

All done being alone.