He came back. Now I know...
So at the last minute, after giving Stephen the deadline and waiting all month with only two text messages promising to call but not, I had an eight hour conversation with him. He said everything I wanted and needed to hear, but more importantly, he meant it. He was sincere, he wants to reconcile, and he even mentioned wanting to start a family after Stanford.
I thought I would gush and be cathartic but I was extremely reserved and digestive of everything. I asked him the hard questions, why the silence, what about my bipolar, will you stick around this time, are you serious, what about my faith, our respective parents, me potentially joining the peace corps, graduate studies on the east coast...and he answered all my questions. I also answered his.
After a year apart, to the month, we are now ... back together. I mean, I still love him, but since I had to accept the end of the marriage and gave up hope on reconciliation, I found that I wasn't necessarily in love with him so during the next new phase of our marriage, we will be going back to the root of the relationship, why we fell in love in the first place, and build from that. We are different people now, older, wiser, and he mentioned that this year he will be the same age that his mother was when she had him. He doesn't want to be in his 30s when he has kids cause then he will be 50 when they are 18 and I understand that.
So as a graduation gift, besides iPhones, we are going to have a conceptionmoon - like a honeymoon - I got that from the book What to Expect When Your Wife Is Expanding. Hilarious book, great read for any guy or gal about to welcome a new life into the world.
Now, since Victor assessed my 6 months here as not being nearly as productive, it seems like he doesn't want me to stay on here much longer seeing as I won't be able to return to Stanford in September at the rate I am going. Especially with only one part time job. And, I talked to Kitina Thomas for the first time in months and she is doing even greater things than the last time I talked with her. She started Chosen Magazine (http://www.chosenmag.com/Home.html), has published a book (Tessi's Turn), has a radio show, hosts a Christian TV show which I was briefly her personal assistant for, and just started a consulting firm helping people become speakers and authors....isn't God awesome! So, I could move back to San Antonio, work with Kitina on starting my speaking and writing career, and since my bus pass is up at the end of May and Jazmine Rosario, one of my oldest friends from high school, is getting married June 13 in Texas I have to go back there anyway.
Stephen is still looking for work, and wants to move into his own place. He said I can move in with him if he has the place by the time I go back. I also realize that since going back to Stanford may not be financially realistic, I can manage sending $500 a month to Stanford for the next 17 months and returning in September of 2010. For the conceptionmoon, Stephen had the idea of going to Barbados. When I started growing my locs, I had the idea that I would go to Jamaica or the Caribbean and have a picture taken of me in a bikini coming out of the water with my long locs flying in a ring around my head and drops of water everywhere. I think its such a beautiful image of freedom and confidence and self-love (the positive kind Oprah talks about) and I really want to do that. Stephen said he would snap the picture.
Now, Stephen doesn't want to tell too many people, especially his family and friends, rather he wants us to focus on getting us back together then doing so. He doesn't really care who I tell, as long as I don't let it leak to his camp. So, keep this on the hush k? ^_^
I am waiting for some sort of click, a confirmation, verification, acknowledgment of some sort that will let me know when its okay to embrace this situation and express my happiness to the fullest extent. I can't physically embrace him and consummate the decision to stay together, and not just physically but emotionally or mentally, with him here face to face. That is part of the motivation to go back to San Antonio before Easter. I would also have more time to find work and work with Kitina to get started on speaking engagements which will bring in income. However, if I stay through May I will be able to take advantage of a longer employment duration with Cracker Barrel, the bipolar support group, my therapy sessions with Amy who gives me homework every week and I have built rapport with and can afford to see weekly, and the friends I have made here (Shay, Tricia, Ayanna, Brittany, Tina, the bus operators, etc)
My therapist suggested that I ask Stephen what he thinks about being in charge of finding the apartment for us. He wanted to live on his own for at least once in his life, and when I mentioned I did the last six months I had been in San Antonio in a gang occupied apartment he apologized for putting me into that position but said he wouldn't mind letting that go in order to live together when I go to San Antonio.
So! To Recap:
Stephen and I are once again married and fully committed. He knows about my seeing other people, and the tricks I picked up, and is okay with that. I am going to make plans to move back to San Antonio, I just need to decide if Victor will allow me to stay til the end of May or if I will have to go home as soon as I can. Once back in San Antonio, I will find a job, live with Stephen as soon as he, or I, get into the apartment that his friend James and his girlfriend live in. It was recently built and goes by your income in terms of your rent, and is close to both my mom and his parents. I will work with Kitina to establish my speaking career while beginning the process for writing and publishing books and will send at least $500 a month to Stanford every month. Once I can return to Stanford, we will go back together, I will graduate with my degree in African and African American studies, after our conceptionmoon, we will return to the states, get iPhones with AT&T, buy a car, and I should know by then whether or not I am going to pursue the peace corps, a masters or PhD on the east coast, or simply return to San Antonio (or live whereever) to prepare for the family that we are going to begin. That is what my immediate future looks like.
I kind of feel like my life has turned into a Nicholas Sparks book, with the guy coming through at the last minute, and sweeping me off my feet, so to speak, and I deserve to revel in this moment. This moment requires more than a simply comestible or sprituous celebratory response. Shopping for a new outfit, something I rarely ever do, in fact can count on my hand the number of times I have done so without my mother and an upcoming paschal holiday, might fit the bill. I still have a ways to go to get my body back to a healthier and more flattering weight, but I have absolutely NO dresses. None. In my wardrobe, there are a handful of skirts, one pair of jeans I know I can fit and one I can't fit well but keep solely to have more than one pair in my possession, two pairs of work appropriate pants that I also can't fit but do not want to get rid of in case I am in a pinch and need to squeeze into them, a pair of shorts, and 3 capri pants of various blends (cotton, polyester, and something else). My tops are either t-shirts or blouses, nothing really in between. So I think spending $20-$30 on a dress and a pair of shoes and a set of inexpensive but matching earrings/knecklace/bracelet might suffice. However, if I have to go home, say, this weekend or next, I will need the money I just deposited in my account to cover the bus pass AND I definitely want to bring my bike home with me so I hope that they can throw it under the bus, so to speak, at a reasonable cost. I usually never have an urge to shop, but I am at a loss as to how to respond to this new development in my life.
By the way, I deleted ALL the pics of B and Matt and any other randos floating around in my phone, text messages, numbers, and all. I looked at the list of emails I received as a result of my craigslist ads and there are 197 emails from at least 20 different guys of which I met like 11 and only 2 or 3 of them really made any sort of impact. Clearly, Matt and B did the most in terms of allowing me to figure out a few things about myself and "dating" and such and even though I regret going all the way with 3 different guys, I have asked for forgiveness, repented in my heart and confessed witih my mouth to the only person who really matters (Stephen) in that regard and am ready to embark on guilt free sex with the man I love on the regular soon!
The emails start on 10/23/2008 and go up thru yesterday. I considered posting them all here for posterity...I might since I still have 35 minutes until my money mentor program and I like keeping things for posterity here on this blog and no where else, thus deleting the pics in my phone but posting them here. There are some racy pics of myself I simply deleted outright and didn't save. I could have kept them to remind myself how I looked physically at this time in my life, or to send to Stephen, but the good news is I can always make new ones.
On that note, I will end this post and start another to record the account of my short lived dating life. Today is a new day, a new month, and a new chance to begin again. Stephen and I were honest about everything, down to me shaving my armpit hair and him taking care of his smelly feet, and I want it to be like this always, in love and willing to work together, in truth, come what may.
1 Corinthians 7:9,14
9...it is better to marry than to burn with passion
14...For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy"
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