The One With the Long Hair

So here's the first of many entries regarding an interesting male with whom I've encountered over the years. To protect privacy, I will refer the him as "the one with the long hair". I wrote the following in December of 2007. Enjoy!


“tell me not to care”
“don’t care”.


In that hospital bed laid  the epitome of everything I never wanted for myself, with the linger of alcohol sweating out of his pores. He had long hair. I despise long hair. He was loud, and not just a little loud; a majority of the time he was actually obnoxiously loud.  He was irresponsible. He was neither driven nor focused. He had no plan, no ambition, no money and a car that was breaking down. A far cry from the educated, financially secure, loving man of God that my dad expected for my life. A far cry from what I expected for myself. I far cry from the prince charming I dated previously. Anyone that knows me could have taken one look at him and known from the beginning that it would never work. Who was I kidding?  I knew it would never work. He was a flirt, I HATE flirts. He had a temper, I prefer slow to anger. He didn’t respond to conversation well, he wasn’t gentle and he  was a drunk. Not just a little bit of a drunk, he was an alcoholic. Not the “I-only-drink-in-social-settings” and not even the “I-throw-moderation-out-the-window-occasionally” kind of drunk. No. He genuinely loved alcohol more than he loved himself.  More than he loved life. 


At first glance he was repulsive to me. I found his flirtatious attack on every breathing specimen of a woman disgusting , and I found his amazing ability to make an excuse for everything, irritating. The second day we ever met, he asked me to dinner, which was shortly after I refused his offer for lunch. And as I walked out to my car that day having politely refused his somewhat joking advances, I laughed to myself. I laughed AT myself. I thought to myself how amazing it was that any girl would ever fall for such childish advances. How any girl could even put up with such immaturity and irresponsibility. I laughed because I thought it crazy that any girl could find the patience to be able to stand spending more than five minutes by his side, let alone pursue a relationship with this childish man. In my opinion his was over the top and absolutely ridiculous.  At yet  in that present moment, by his side in the trauma center; not caring was actually the ridiculous part.


How? How had the man, this childish man so captured my heart? I have this defense mechanism that I throw into gear whenever I feel myself letting someone in too close into my vulnerability. I choose to focus on what I don’t like about them. I not only choose to focus on what I don’t like about  them, I practically meditate on it until I’m completely turned off and able to detach myself almost seamlessly. It’s a pattern. It’s almost fool-proof. And it’s become routine. When I began to feel him moving in to close to that compartment in my body known as my heart, I focused heavily on  that long hair. That disgusting , long, brown hair that was so much so more beautiful than any girl that I knew. I focused on it so much so, that it began to make me naseous. And then just as this plan began to work, I found out the truth behind his long hair. It wasn’t some rebellious act proving masculinity, like I initially presumed. No, it was in actuality, his third time growing it out for locks of love. LOCKS OF LOVE! And with that news, the idea of focusing on  how much I despised his long hair, turned into rather beaming with the consideration that he had.
I was able to remain strong. I was able to focus on his drunken habits and loud mouth, until he’d look me in the eyes. He didn’t just look at me, he looked THROUGH me. No matter what was going on, whenever  he took the rare step of making eye contact with anyone, let alone me, the entire world stopped. I do believe that every planet in this galaxy stopped it’s rotation, only to allow the time needed for him to look at me with those crystal blue eyes and know exactly how many beats per minute my heart was racing. And while that all may have been a slight exaggeration, it is an exaggeration of the physical circumstances, but not an exaggeration of my emotional circumstance.


Never once in my life did the thought cross my mind  that one day I would be sitting in a hospital room, making the choice to. Open my heart up to hurt. Essentially, making the decision to hurt myself. Who was I kidding?  I was worth more than he could ever offer. I was worth someone who treated me lovingly 90% of the time, rather than 40% of the time.


Guard your heart. Guard your heart. Guard your heart Mary Catherine. Wait. But why are you holding my hand like that?  My dad holds my hand like that. Security holds my hand like that. The way he held my hand was comparable to how a well written song sounds; it catches your attention and holds your affection.