Day 26. Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?

Of course. Who hasn’t? I know I haven’t experienced the level of depression and misery that a lot of people have, but there have been times I felt like giving up, if not on life in general, then just on certain aspects of it.

The most recent was just this past spring. After taking a couple of years out of the limelight, so to speak, I had been actively seeking a dating relationship for a few months. I had a six month membership on Match.com, and it was about to expire. I’d been on one date. It seemed God just didn’t have that planned for me, and I was okay with that. As I said yesterday, just being a dad is honor enough.

I spotted a beautiful young woman in one of the daily emails they sent me. On paper, she was ideal. But she was younger, prettier, and smarter than I considered myself worthy of (still do, although she does an amazing job of convincing me otherwise). I’m an introvert. No, I’m (or was) a hermit. I considered it “taking a chance” to even click “I’m interested” on her profile. I was happy, but quite surprised, to receive and email that said “Hi, wanna chat?”

“Boy, do I!”

Okay, that’s not what I said, but I emailed her back and we exchanged a few “tell me about yourself” emails. I gave her my real-life email address… and didn’t hear from her again. I figured I’d said something to scare her away, and although I was disappointed, I wasn’t terribly surprised. Being conditioned for rejection is a terrible, life-sucking thing. I never realized that before.

I can’t describe the feeling I had when, out of the blue a couple of weeks later, I get a message on Facebook. “Hey, just wondering if you’re getting my emails, haven’t heard from you.” Long story short, an aggressive spam filter was blocking ALL her emails before I even saw them. I fixed that and we agreed to meet for coffee.

She was even prettier than her pictures! Tall, with beautiful long, dark hair, intelligent, and very confident. Everything I wasn’t. I liked her immediately, but didn’t think I stood much of a chance with her. But she gave me a shot and we agreed to meet a second time; Mexican for lunch and bowling. By the time we had our third date; Subway in the park after work one day, I was hooked! It took some time for me to believe she could possibly be interested in me. But she’s been very patient with me and allowed me to grow out of my shell some, and she appreciates me. She makes me see life from a whole different perspective. She makes me laugh. She got me to take a salsa dancing class, and stops short of falling out of her chair laughing at my extremely cracker hip work. She makes me feel loved.