Run, Lola, Run!!

Once again I sit alone!!  It was my choice......but I'm here to tell you that divorce, regardless of whose idea it is.......sucks!! The pain is just as real on both ends.  This time I meant it.......I refuse to get involved EVER again!!

So double shifts took over my life.  I loved the people I worked with at the hospital......I also loved that besides my regular position in Radiology, my second shift could be anywhere!! ER, Med Surg floor, ICU, or the Burn Center.  I worked from one end to the other of the hospital and on every floor just about!! It was an amazing 12 years I spent there.  Every once in a while though I would have to take a Sunday and just SLEEP!! .......but then I'd be good for another month.......lol  

Along the way, I lost my two best friends.  Kay died from complications with her gastric bypass surgery and Stella died from lung cancer.  For a little bit I didn't want friends!! I had been friends with them for 30 years........thats a very long time and there was very little if anything that we didn't know about each other.  Kay was responsible for me making the shift to a full time job at the hospital instead of wearing my crown as the "part time queen"....that bothered her terribly bad.  On my 48th birthday it kind of occurred to me that ...."wow, I'm getting old!!".....Kay had been nagging me for years to apply but I kept blowing it off.......finally I did.

The three of us worked for years at Sun Maid together.  Then Kay went to work for the county at the hospital in medical billing.   Kay was a single mom raising two daughters and Stella, a single mom raising two sons.  They helped me survive my first divorce and Stella was still here to help me with the second divorce.

While at the hospital I made such good friends!! Whole families enveloped me with there love and kindness......my friend Hillarys family, I became so close to that they seem more like blood than my own blood family!!  Gloria Davis, has been there for me through so much as well.......don't know what I would do without her in my world.......and so many of the girls at the hospital that I still keep in touch with from a distance now.

One Sunday afternoon when I woke up from a very long sleep........I decided to get online while I watched TV.  I had months before joined an online dating site but not to meet someone, more to entertain myself!!  I loved reading profiles and picking out the liars.......some people don't realize that when they lie they might as well have a bright light in the middle of their foreheads!!.........this afternoon I must have read about 65 profiles and in the middle of reading one I get a message at the bottom of my screen that is from this site.  The site sends an email to each person that you read a profile on letting them know that you showed an interest!! Interest hell........just NOSEY!! lol So I quickly opened up this guys profile cause God knows I read too many to keep track of them!! Hmmm.......it says he works in Transportation and he lives in Arroyo Grande, Ca........well for a change I was about to meet someone in the same TIME ZONE !!  But I had no clue where Arroyo Grande was so I clicked on Mapquest to find out and I saw the Pacific Ocean!!!! ........oh hell ........ok, I'm gonna read the email and might even email him back!!! hahaha..........( I have always had a thing for the ocean!! After all I think its in my core being from Hawaii!!)

Well anyone who has met Dan Herron............need I say more??? It was like God tied him in a big red ribbon said "here Lola.......take care of him"..........I DO NOT WANT TO GET INTO ANOTHER RELATIONSHIP !!! Can anyone hear me???? I was soooooooooo done!! But what could it hurt to have an email buddy?? He's quite intelligent and you don't meet too many of them online.....he's very interesting and you sure as hell don't meet too many of them online........and he made me feel like he thought I had a brain also!! That I think was the most attractive point in this mess........I call it a mess because I was struggling inside of myself over this........I could blow off some trucker from the midwest who just wanted to throw bullshit at me.......lol  But Dan was different!!  He's not a bullshitter and he's very comfortable...........I knew he would never ask the dreaded "chatroom question".........."what you wearin baby???"  OMG......back in the chat days, that was so creepy.......still gives me goosebumps to see it in type!!! lol  I guess men don't realize that is not the turn on they think it is........dunno!!

So for several months we emailed back and forth and made phone calls.  We became great friends and learned so much about each other!  He had a VERY full life, his work at CalTrans, three grown daughters in Oakland, he had recently lost his wife of 39 years to Cancer and he had his music!!  He is quite the musician and loves his Ole Time music!!  One night at work, I got online and looked for an affordable motel in Morro Bay.  I had not been to Morro Bay in about five years and it was time.  I knew there would be lots of memories there of my kids growing up but sooner or later I would have to face those.  I told Dan in an email that I was going to go to Morro Bay for three days in about a month and he was delighted!  He asked to take me to dinner.........

That day as I drove to Morro Bay, I wondered what the hell was I doing?? But I did want to meet him! And I wanted to get a couple of days at the coast as well......when I got there, I checked into my room and then wandered down to the Rock........went through a few shops and back to the room to get ready for dinner!!  After work Dan showed up and it was so..........comfortable, is the best way to describe it!! We hugged each other and OMG......I fit in his arms and it made us laugh so hard!!  We had dinner at Dorn's,......geesh I hate resturants with white linen tablecloths!!! lol But the food was great and the view of the ocean and the sunset was amazing!!  The next day he came after work and we BBQ'd at the marina and talked for hours!! Saturday morning he took me to breakfast and then I had to head home for a friends wedding.

We both enjoyed our time together and it took our emails and conversations to a different level.  Then Dan drove over to Fresno for a weekend and found out all about Tully Fog!! ........so we had to make sure after that that the weather was cooperating before he came over! Everything was going so well and then it was my turn to drive to Arroyo Grande...........scary!!  But I did it and spent the weekend at his house! I fell instantly in love with his backyard...........its a mini forest with tons of trees, all different!!  I felt very strange staying in his house....what would his daughters think? what the hell are the neighbors thinking?? It was a little uncomfortable.  All the time he wanted to tell his daughters but I wouldn't let him.........it was just too soon after they lost their mother........I couldn't let him do that.........I think guys don't think about stuff like that!!  My own daughter knew about Dan but I had not let her meet him yet either because I didn't want her in the middle of my emotional well being........lol  I regret that decision today! The weekend that Dan was coming over and going to get to meet her.........she slipped into a coma.........although I know she sees him now daily, I regret that he never got to know what an angel she really was and how she made me complete as a person and how much she taught me about life and how not to waste it. Exactly a year after Dan lost his wife, I lost my youngest daughter to pancreatic cancer.

By now we had known each other long enough that we were quite comfortable with each other.......but a long distance relationship takes its toll sooner or later.  Then Dan introduced me to Amtrak and OMG it was such a lifesaver!!  I got here at the same time I would have arrived if I had driven and I was totally rested from the ride and not cranky...........just hungry!! lol  So I began coming over quite often and sadly returning every Sunday back to Fresno.  I say sadly cause I hated leaving him at the train station but I loved my life in Fresno also.........my friends, my security blanket at the hospital, my little apartment that I could easily afford by myself.......I was okay. But after awhile all that traveling gets old and begins to wear on you........so then we made the decision that I would move over here........OMG , that was so hard to do.........by then I knew I loved Dan and I knew he loved me but we both agreed we didn't want more than that........in fact originally I wanted to move here but into an apartment......I didn't know if I could live with anyone again and I knew I would be comfortable on my own.  It took me two weeks to work up the nerve to give my notice at work and my apartment and then moved over here and it took me three months to find a job!!! OMG I thought I was going to loose my mind! I had never been without a job ever in my life!!  Dan kept reassuring me it was ok and it would happen.......but I was beginning to have second thoughts about the decisions I had made.  Too late now.......but still hindsight is always 20/20 right??