A Girl in Waiting....

By popular demand, this is the story of the girl I found...

Sometimes things happen and it seems like the wrong time, wrong place and you think it will never work out...but somehow it does.

Back in 2004, I was in the process of moving back to Iowa from Cheyenne, Wyoming, due to my grandmother's failing health. I was coming out of an unfulfilled relationship with a woman 12 years older than me....(I will be 41 in another week...yikes!) and she was 49 when we met online. I was with her for almost 3 years and though I really thought I loved her, I knew all along there was something missing. She never wanted to live together....I was a visitor to her, we'd go out to eat, watch movies and spend the night at her house. I wanted more than that...she tried to be sort of a mother figure to me....something I've had too much of with women....telling me how I should do this or that. Either accept me for who/what I am and get over yourself. When you are with someone and find yourself wishing for that perfect person for you...it's time to leave. So, knowing I was moving back to Iowa to care for my grandmother, I began going through Planetout.com and read through several ads and left my own and answering a few. I answered alot of ads and no one wrote back. I left for Iowa in November for a week to look for a job and attend an interview. I came back and someone had written me back. Now, of course, it is unclear to me whether she answered my ad or I answered hers. She lived in a town 2 hours away from where I would be living, Marshalltown, Iowa. So we started writing each other emails in the time before I moved. She was 4 years younger than me, which I enjoyed knowing. She grew up on a farm in Illinois and had gone through many deaths in her family and also had worked in the same field as I was in....with developmentally disabled adults. Her name was Cindy.

So I moved to Marshalltown and we kept emailing. Then we started chatting on yahoo messenger and I never laughed so hard. It felt good, really good. Getting to know each other through letters and chatting was such a good thing. And though it seems this is how I've met most of the gfs I've had, this time seemed different. We went through Thanksgiving and Christmas writing each other and then started calling each other. We started talking about meeting in person. I couldn't wait, but lordy it was scary...but I just couldn't help jumping in. There was so much ease of which we talked, it was like I hadn't talked to anyone before.
Well, since I was not working yet, in January, Cindy decided to book a room at a hotel in Marshalltown, to come and meet me. She got double beds, just in case...she thought of everything in case one or the other happened. I knew once I saw her, that would be it for me.

I am, by nature, a shy person in many situations...especially meeting women. My last gf I met in a hotel room also and spent hours not wanting to make any moves. The minute she opened the door, all of that melted away. We sat on the bed, talking and I made the first move. Something which I have NEVER done before. We laugh about it now as I try to tell her how shy I am and she laughs..."whatever!" We spent that weekend together and it seemed so natural and there was no question that I loved her and people would think we were crazy but it was that fast and all encompassing. I'd really never met anyone like her, just so simple, no pretenses....I think it's that farm air....fresh! LOL I wanted someone I could be silly with and didn't care that sometimes I am emotional and accepted me for me, flaws and all.

So we were together then. Problem was that I'd made this committment to my grandmother, so we'd have to see each other when we could. I finally found a job and would drive to go see Cindy when I was off, every couple weeks. I began feeling pressure from my family, they complained when I wasn't working, that my grandmother was paying my expenses and when I was working, I was working too many hours, blah blah blah. Plus I wanted to be with Cindy so much, for good...it was stressful on my heart being pulled from so many directions. All the talking behind my back, I didn't sign on for that. But my family is famous...or infamous, for not talking to anyone...better to talk behind your back than to your face. My grandmother knew she was declining in the time I was there. She understood this. I was doing this for a transition period, when it was my father, aunt and uncle that should be figuring out what to do, but they wouldn't talk about it, and I just did it. Instead, they threw up their hands...gee, Julie solved everything. Of course, they thought I'd stay forever. I wasn't counting on meeting Cindy, that's for sure. How could the master plan be for me to finally meet the perfect person at this particular time in my life. Like dangling the carrot and then say....oh just kidding! Cindy was only in Keokuk to look after her mother, as she promised her father before he died. She'd lost her father, a brother and a sister in the past 10 years.

So, I did some homework, made several long phone calls, searching for another option for my grandmother, because even if I stayed, I had to work and her health was declining. I finally found the perfect organization/agency that did home health care, doing the things I did...grocery shopping, picking up meds, housechores, cooking. I talked to my aunt first when we went out for lunch. My aunt is the one I've been closest to, because, kind of like me, she was the black sheep. She drank sometimes too much...at the most inopportune times, of course. She agreed with everything I said and said she would help me talk to my grandmother. We had this plan to talk after I got off of work sunday evening. When I arrived, my aunt was drunk and says, "Go ahead, Julie, tell her..." I was pissed...this was not how I wanted to do this. But she forced my hand. My grandmother was good about it and had assumed I'd be leaving. I talked to her about this place and she didn't want a stranger coming in. Well, Cindy and I were leaving for Wyoming that week. I knew the airwaves were hot and heavy with conversations about what an ass I was for coming and then leaving. If they had taken responsibility in the first place, I wouldn't have been there. The flip side is though...I would never have met Cindy had I not been moving back...so I had to be grateful. When Cindy and I came back from Wyoming, my idiot rich uncle had talked my grandmother into selling her trailer(which was a really nice trailer) and moving to assisted living that she can't really afford. This is what happened, and I've been the bad one ever since. Though my father didn't talk to me from the spring until I initiated things in December. How sad that is. In the interim, he and my stepmother discovered it was my uncle to did the nastiness. So my grandmother is in assisted living for a mere $3000+/month. Once the money runs out, she'll have to go to a nursing home because they don't take title 19. This place is the ritz of places. My grandmother knows why I left and she told me, "Don't feel bad...I know that I've gone down hill in the 6 months you've been here. You gave me those 6 months in my house, I might not have had." How that broke my heart...but I knew she knew. And my aunt too. My grandmother really likes Cindy and she told Cindy "You better take good care of her!" LOL

So in June of 2005, I moved in with Cindy and it's been wonderful. I hadn't lived with anyone since the gf in Rock Springs, WY. It was an interesting adjustment, especially because it was so hard to find a job here. Cindy helped me so much, never judged me, never questioned me, though sometimes, she probably should! Today I am more in love with that girl than ever....there's never been anyone I've felt so at home with. Her mom even loves me! Though Cindy is not out to her family, her mother accepts me as Cindy's friend and probably thinks I am staying here temporarily....somewhere inside, I think maybe she knows, not the extent. Who knows. So we've been together a 1 1/2 years now, and living together almost a year and I can't wait for the next day with her. Cindy is an MRI tech with a traveling mri truck and the stories she tells! She's so cute!

I loved it when my daugher, Brittany met her. "Well mom, you finally found yourself a younger woman!" LMAO