I had been talking to Melinda for five days. I met her on Nerve the night of the married-chick-without-a-ring- in-yoga day. She was really smart, very funny, a brilliant writer, had a cute southern accent, a dirty mind and was 25 years old. She seemed close to perfect. Now I'm going to dispel a big myth right now for all of the bitter women out there whose self hatred blinds their senses and has them angry at me instead of God, who made life like he did. So listen loud and clear please, once and for all. Read the following sentence a few times. Meditate on it. Let it resonate. It will help you get over your misplaced rage and move on with your life and help you to stop fighting the wrong enemy and start forgiving whatever you haven't forgiven in yourself which has you so self hating in the first place.
I don't want babies for 5 years at least. Maybe 7 or 8 or 10 years from now.
I've known my entire life that my 50s would be about children and that hasn't changed. So, it was nothing to do with body type or mid life crisis. It simply is
I DON'T WANT BABIES FOR AT LEAST 5 YEARS!
It's nothing personal. I LOVE everything about women as they get older. Women over 45 are divine. They've dropped all their shit and really sink into their bodies and beings but.... BUT unfortunately, babies are done.
Therefore, 36 is my cut off. Maybe 37ish but I simply know deep in my soul that I want my own children at least first before I think about adopting and I don't want them for at least 5 years.
I don't get mad when women like black guys, or young guys or buff guys, it's their preference. God bless them. STOP GETTING MAD AT ME AND THE REST OF US 45 YEAR OLD MEN WHOSE CUT OFF IS 36 OKAY?!!! FOR WHATEVER REASON, YOU DECIDED NOT TO HAVE KIDS YET AND THAT'S FINE, BUT WE DON'T HAVE TO HAVE THEM YET, OKAY?! WE LOVE YOU BUT IT'S AN ISSUE!!!
Look in the mirror and question yourself and your motives and choices and intentions. It will yield a far more healthy and productive harvest then the superficial obvious misdirected anger you hurl at us.
So anyway, she was 25 and an old soul which was great.
Also, while we're on the subject, I want to get to know the woman I'm going to marry, live the rest of my life and have babies with and that's going to take more than a couple of years. I want at least three or four Christmases together. I want to have the kind of fun and freedom that you can only have without kids for a while and to make damn sure, as sure as you can ever know, that the union is going to last.
So anyway, she was 25. Perfect. We could hang and get to know each other, have fun and relax and have kids in 6 years. That puts her at 31, 33 and 35 and we bang out 3. Adopt a couple more a few years later and all's good.
So I was very hopeful. We had exchanged pictures. She said she didn't have a camera so I Fed-exed her a couple of my films which she wanted to see, and a disposable Kodak camera and told her to fill it up and Fed-ex it back to me in the SAS FED EX LETTER I enclosed. I had seen a couple pics on Nerve and could tell she was really pretty but I'm visual and like to see as much as I can. All clean of course, but many angles and expressions. I told her to burn half the roll on her and half on things that were important to her.
She was excited about the mission but her busy day got in the way and she still hadn't sent the camera back and it had been two days... so I called Best Buy in Charleston, bought her a digital Camera, sweet talked the manager, Tara, into letting Melinda pick it up even though I had used my CC to buy it and store policy was that whoever picked up the item must have the CC with them, and Melinda was taking pics within the hour and emailing them to me.
She was lovely. Completely my type. I was begging to fly down there basically after the first night on the phone but she had a shooting party to attend (gotta love a hot chick who shoots guns) and wanted me to wait 10 days. 10 FUCKING DAYS?!!! I split the difference and agreed to 6. I booked the only plane that flies into Charleston, a 50 seater, for Wednesday. The little planes scare me even more than the big planes but I had no choice unless I wanted to drive for 15 hours.
I got my lucky rock, my rosary, and my crystal and went to the airport. I was really really excited. I had a feeling Melinda could really be game over. My only concern was she played her emotions closer to the vest than I did but she said she really liked me and would open up if we sparked when I got there. It was really important to her that she find me hot and that that intangible chemistry was there. It was for me as well but I had a feeling it would be so I wasn't as worried about it.
I inched towards the security station at La Guardia. I was trying to smuggle my CK One in my toiletry bag but just in case they vetoed it I had gotten a small clear 3 oz plastic bottle at the drugstore to transfer it into. The lady did veto it. She told me she'd accept the plastic bottle but it had to be in a zip lock baggy. They didn't have any there and she thought my only chance was to go downstairs and buy something that came IN a zip lock baggy, empty out its contents and use the baggy.
I just don't like taking no for an answer. I always ALWAYS feel there's a way around no.
Three minutes later I found a lovely Pakistani worker about to take his lunch break at the in-terminal Taco Bell. And what did he have for lunch? A nice peanut butter sandwich in a zip lock baggy which he was all too happy to give me to house my cologne bottle.
I made it through security with everything except my Tom's From Maine toothpaste which was too big and got confiscated.
I boarded the baby plane and felt I was going to be okay. It was a little bumpy but we made it safely to Charleston in only 84 minutes. I was an hour early and had told Melinda to meet me at my hotel for a quick hug and hello before I went to a yoga class I had scheduled down there. I knew I had to at least smell her and touch her for 15 minutes or I wouldn't have made it through the whole class and I really wanted to hit one down there because one of my teachers from Jivamukti had moved there and opened a center and I wanted to support him and also it would chill me out and put me in the best place for the first official date, which we had already worked out was really date number 6 in emotional dates but the first real one actually being in the same place.
I don't even kiss on the first date with a girl I like. If I don't like her I'll fuck her in the bathroom at the restaurant but if I think we have a future then I won't even kiss good night. Certainly no sex until date number 3 but I already knew I liked Melinda and we might have a future yet we had talked more on the phone than I would have with someone I had been out on many dates with so that's how we arrived at the 6 number... all bets were off.
I dumped my stuff in my room and paced nervously, awaiting her arrival. I splashed a little too much CK One on and sat on the edge of the bed and closed my eyes for a moment, taking a few deep breathes. I prayed to God to help it all work out for the best and then suddenly I heard a gentle southern knock on the door.
I opened it and there was...
To be continued...
Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 1:43 PM