TEXAS TIMEOUT

Moving out continues and Sunday I got the rest of my clothes from ”her” that were buried in a back closet. Most of these clothes were seldom worn or even seen in recent years. In this pile of clothes were tee shirts from Texas and could not be worn during my most recently failed marriage. She did not like the “Texas” emblazoned on these shirts and especially Austin Texas. These shirts were given to me by a very cute little bartender living in Austin.

X didn't even like it if that state or city ever came up in conversation.

She was the young lady that I had a long distance relationship with for over a year and as it was pre 9/11 flights were cheap and we made many trips back and forth during that time.

I met Carolyn through the Internet due to our common interest in scuba diving.

I fell in love with Austin TX the first time I flew down there to meet her.

We had been communicating on the Internet and phone for a number of weeks and decided to meet in the real world.

It was a risky first semi-blind date, but we decided to give it a shot.

I walked into the terminal and was not disappointed, I just hoped she wouldn’t be either or it would be an awkward vacation.

She was a cute little doll and a little on the wild side, she was perfect for me.

We went to dinner with her daughter and me and Carolyn kept catching each other’s eye.

We found out later that night that neither of us were disappointed in what we saw in person.

I fell in love with Austin before I fell in love with Carolyn, but we eventually did.

I made several trips down there and she made several up here to Indy.

I had a lot of misconceptions about Texas, I thought it was going to be all desert, tumbled weeds and people with twangy accents, and she thought Indiana was all flat farmland and cornfields.

She was amazed at all the woods and forest and the hills of Brown County. Her friends were some of the coolest people I had ever met and they quickly became my friends. It was the most different kind of relationship I had ever had.

It was great, it was like going on a vacation that was going to have some ready-made romance built into the vacation package. And it was nice to have my own personal bartender too.

She knew everyone who ran every restaurant and we got most of our meals comped  She also knew some big wig who owned a fantastic lake house on Travis lake and we spent many nights there for free.

I have many great memories of my time with Carolyn but my greatest memory of her was one particular night at that lake house.

I was a clear Texas night sky and a very warm very strong wind was blowing across the huge lake. We dragged the mattress off the bed and laid it out on the deck that overlooked the beautiful lake. And the bonus was a full moon shining down directly overhead that made the whole night one that could never be reproduced with anyone in anyplace.

We spent the night out there and in my policy of keeping a PG13 rating for my blog, I will just say you have enough information to make the assumption of how much actual sleeping went on that night on that lake house deck.

Eventually the relationship took a more serious turn and there was discussion of one of us taking the big step and moving.

I just couldn’t be that far away from my kids and the rest of my family, I also had a new house to consider what to do with.

She had a very close family down there and she was a proud Texan through and through. She also couldn’t stand the cold weather.

In the end, this was the only relationship in my life that ended for no other reason but for the 1100 hundred miles that kept us apart.

We decided to part friends and give up our long distance romance.

Some time later I started dating my soon to be wife. After I had been seeing her for a while I got a call from my little Texas sweetie, she said she had been missing me and wanted to come up and see me. Things were far enough along with my now x that I told Carolyn I wanted to give my new relationship a chance and reluntly asked her not to come. She understood and in retrospect I regret that decision. Seems like my decision-making regarding relationships has always been suspect.

I have often wondered how she was doing and if she was happy. I would love to just talk with her again.

I went through my clothes this week deciding what to put in storage and what to put in the tee shirt rotation. I am happy to report that the beloved tee shirts given to me by the sexy little Texan bartender made the cut.

I am no longer in Texas timeout.