Fools and the Fooled

How do you know the difference between being a fool and being fooled? As I stood alone in front of a bar, I wondered why I didn't ask myself this question sooner, because it might have saved me from having to walk a half mile or so alone in the dark at 2:30 in the morning, not to mention a raging hangover....and more than a few shed tears.   The really bad part was that I had no idea when i started walking, I was going to feel like a bigger fool before the night was over.

So let's back up, as obviously the story doesn't begin at the closing of a bar, not even at how I was convinced that walking there in the first place was a good idea.... It started off much sooner.  I had been planning on spending this weekend w Josh for a while now, but nearly backed out due to my husband and I kind of splitting up this week.  Monday I told him I wanted to separate, Tuesday he cried all day begging me for a second chance. After a long evening discussing his "promise" that he would do anything to make it work,  I told him I needed time to think about it.  Wednesday he was an asshole that I went to dinner w a girl friend when he didn't come straight home from work  and didn't have the common courtesy  to text me... So I left.  Thursday was my favorite with a very long lecture from my father, summarizing all the reasons in which I am to blame and somehow deserved 19 of misery and that I would be a fool for not giving my husband a chance, and that my future would be even more miserable as a poor single mother and I don't have what it takes to survive on my own.  Add to all this, that after last weekend, it seemed evident that the fling w Josh had been flung into "just friends" after his man whore escapades at the bar last weekend. Which was fine, as he's a great friend.... But it was an experience I didn't want to repeat. 

So Friday when Josh told me to "come over now, I miss you", I jumped at the chance for one last getaway while I sorted my feelings out.  I wanted to see if he was worth not giving him up, to give my husband a chance.  My husband of course was a complete jackass when i told him i was leaving for the weekend, not wanting to give me space and time to think about things, and showing me that he is most likely incapable of change, so a short second chance might be a great way to show him how it is HE who can't make this work, or the space he needed to discover that I'm worth him making a change for.  At the very least it would be made evident that he doesn't have that hold over me, that I am serious about moving on, with or without him.

Josh and I had a great night watching a movie and talking, and all of our Saturday was filled with amazing friendship.  We talked about my plan of giving my husband a three week chance, so I could know deep in my soul that I tried everything.  It seemed that "just friends" was confirmed and I could easily step away from Josh during that time frame and not have to lie to my husband anymore about where I was going so i could meet Josh.... Because "friends" don't need to actually see each other alot to stay friends.  So I was stunned when Josh planted a passionate kiss on my lips before we started walking to the bar.    Back into the land of confusion I went, and back into worry about a repeat man whore night.   Although Josh and I have no commitment, my husband did leave me shred of self respect, which as you will read later how this oozes irony, Josh has been instrumental in helping me to grow that self respect.  So when the alcohol started to get the better of him, rather than stand in his way of having a good time, I would have left.... Had I only not been a fool to walk there in the first place.... And if I'd have known I was going to walk back alone in the end.... I would have done it then and there and not waited until I had no other choice.  But I didn't.... So of course the story continues.  I did have a blast making new friends.... Gotta give a shout out to Lisa whom I was ALMOST drunk enough to let her be my first bisexual experience, and Mark n Nicole a great couple vacationing from Australia.  But, Josh one upped me in the new friends department.  At the end of the night as we walked out of the bar this one woman confronted me asking if Josh was my man.  I told her no, but I'd had enough and snapped.  I'd had enough, hit my limit of tolerance, and told her if she wanted to "tap that" not to let me stand in the way.  I told Josh I'd wait around the corner.  

Bringing us back to the front of that bar, me standing there pondering the notion of my foolishness.  I heard them talking for a while, as I was talking to another woman, while she waited for a ride, whom he was hitting on last weekend. As their voices faded into the back of the parking lot.... I smoked a cigarette.  A good 20 min had passed, I could no longer hear their voices, so I went looking for him, and he was no where to be found. Then and there,  I decided I was most certainly a fool.  I reached for my phone to call him, but it was dead.  I knocked on the bar door and had his friend text him that I was walking back to his house.  I figured I had just enough respect for my self not to stand there like the biggest fool on the planet.  Luckily I made it safely to his house alone and found the spare key in the mail box so I could let myself in and get my things and my car keys and plug my phone in.

I sat in my car for a bit to sober up and calm down before deciding where I was going to go from there, when my phone rang, from Josh.  Yada yada yada.... I find myself pulling up to her car at burger king to get him, and endure one last self inflicted stab to my dignity.  As they sat there and laughed and joked, taking an occasional jab at me, I contained my boiling blood long enough for him to get in my car and get us back to his house.  Because as a friend.... There were a few things that just needed to be said..... Something along the lines of FUCK YOU.  Though that is not how it went as we talked, we expressed our feelings in the best way two drunken fools could do.  And in the end, I was crying my eyes out.  I stayed the night regardless because I really was in no shape to be driving around, it was already 4am and lets face it.....a warm bed beats the back seat of a small car on any day of the week......so on that issue....I am no fool and garnered a full 2 hours sleep!

In the morning light, things were such that we could talk about it a bit better, he appologised, I was able to get my feelings off my chest, and I was able to leave feeling a bit better.  As I drove home, one burning question kept nagging at me.  He always says how amazing I am....

If I am so fucking amazing....why the HELL did I walk home alone at 2:30 in the morning?

I remembered a drunken moment in the bar, talking to Nicole, while he was talking to Mark....we were both explaining how we had met.  I heard him say, as he has said before...."She is the most amazing person I have met since I got to California".....I then said to Nicole......"He has much to learn.....and he is going to really miss me and kick himself when I am gone...he will regret this mistake".....
I just had no idea that mistake was only minutes away.  When we first met, he had some notion that any lesson I could teach him, from a cougar to a cub, would be sexual.  And while that may be true in a sense....I think the lesson he ultimately learns, will be of the heart.  I'm no little girl, I am a woman, none like he has ever met before.  One like few others have met before. I am gentle and loving, soulful and spiritual, but what lies within.....a sleeping, fire breathing dragon......he woke her up and she is now ready to kick some serious ass.

Again.....
If I am so fucking amazing....why the HELL did I walk home alone at 2:30 in the morning?

My phone rang about a half hour from his house, I was almost home.  It was Josh delivering a sincere apology with undertones of regret.  I still was unable to really say what he needed to hear, what I really needed to say.  Things that I was afraid to say to him. But I did manage to say them the next morning, after I got home, and layed it all on the line for my husband and my kid.  They got the brunt of my final straw with Josh....they got Custards Last Stand.  I figured 20ys of being nice got me no where.....lets see how they like "Bitch"....I told them I will not be pushed around by them any more.  Because honestly.....I've been standing in front of a bar for 20ys......It's time to walk the fuck home.....alone.....It's up to them if they want to join ME.....I'm not waiting around for any one, ever again.  So my talk with Josh this morning was good and I was able to ask him that question...."If I am so fucking amazing, why did I walk home alone"  his reply....."I'm a dick"....that you are.

So how do you know the difference between being a fool and being fooled?

I was fooled into being the one to stand alone waiting for a jack ass.  "The fooled" is the one begging someone to respect them.  "The fooled" is the one who had to walk home alone.  But the FOOL is the one who let an amazing brilliant woman slip through his hands.  I'm one in a million boys, if you get the once in a lifetime chance to catch a shooting star...I suggest you hold on tight. 

Peace OUT.
~S~