Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men could never put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
It has been said that the actual identity of Humpty Dumpty has never been revealed. In the 15th century it was a common term used to describe someone who was obese. Then, also in the later part of the 15th century, it was believe Humpty Dumpty was a great cannon that was used during the English war. In modern terms it has been personified as a clumsy, egg-shaped person that should probably forego sitting on tall walls.
Either way, I've been classified as a Humpty Dumpty...and someone is putting me back together again.
I have never been very lucky in love. I've always had flaws that the other person could not overlook or something had gone terribly awry that ended up shattering my heart into a million pieces. I fell madly in "love" with the typical boy next door when I was in high school. (I'm using love in quotation marks because honestly, I doubt that it was really true love. True love won't need quotation marks.) He appeared to be a good guy, and my parents loved him. He played poker with my dad, helped my mom in the garden, and treated me well. He would always come over a little early to talk to them while I was finishing getting ready to go out. They liked that. It showed he wanted to be a part of our family and not just use me and then leave me.
We dated for a few years and then, after I graduated from high school, he popped the question. I was completely unaware he was anywhere close to doing that, and felt almost trapped into it. There it was, sitting on my dinner plate (I had gotten up from a dinner out to use the restroom and he placed it on my plate while I was gone) and there he was...staring at me from across the table. He didn't do the whole one knee thing (which I was really wanting but wasn't thinking about at the time. Looking back now that should have told me he wasn't really into it.) and he never fully said "will you marry me." He just simply smiled at me and said "what do you say?" I couldn't say no...it was all right there and we had a 45 minute car ride home. So I did what any woman who is faced with a 2 carat precision cut diamond and a man in a suit would say. I said yes.
He was thrilled. I didn't eat dinner. He never noticed. Everything was great, people were happy. I was on top of my metaphorical wall, precariously balanced, waiting to topple over the edge.
We went about our normal lives after the engagement. It was like nothing had changed. I was still moving off to college in the fall and now I was sporting something blindingly brilliant on my left hand. Too bad that same shine wasn't in my heart.
Something had been going on with him, but I couldn't tell what it was. He got angry really easily at the smallest of things. He would throw things. He would punch holes in things. And eventually, he started doing that to me. It was easy to hide the bruises at first. I could always say we were out riding four wheelers and I hit a branch or something. No big deal. However, the night he broke my arm was the worst. There was no way to explain why my bruises fit his hand perfectly. There was no explaining why we were in a house when I "fell" and he tried to grab me to help me. It was the night my mother sat me down and begged me, if he was the one hurting me, to leave.
I couldn't. It had gotten too bad and I was too afraid of losing the one man I had been with for several years when I was about to move 100 miles away. I was too foolish to say no more. Fortunately, just a month later that relationship took a terrible turn. I came home one weekend from college to find him with my best friend, in his bedroom (the one I helped decorate mind you), going at it like two rabbits. I was too shocked to do anything. I laid the ring on the counter and walked calmly out the door. I drove myself home and that's where I piled all his things up, took them down to the woods, and lit them on fire. I remember sitting there, in the chilly September air, watching every bit of the last three years of my life literally go up in smoke. I remember crouching barefoot on the cold earth, hugging myself for not only warmth but to hold myself together, and crying. My mother eventually came out there and sat with me. It was the first time she ever really just held me. We had always had a rocky relationship, but that night something changed between us. We became women who had both been scorned by men. We became sisters. We became one force, united by heartbreak. She sat there with me for hours that night, not saying a word. She just held me and let me cry.
Months went by and things got better. I refused to date anyone for the simple fact that my heart needed time to heal. I had fallen. I was lying there on the floor, cracked, and waiting to be pieced back together again.
I then met A.
A was wonderful. He was everything I needed at that moment in my life, a little over a year after the last heartbreak. He found some super glue and carefully put me back together again. Little did I know he was only doing that so he could shatter me even worse than before.
He was a decent guy. Not the best, but my friends seemed to like him and I enjoyed his company. Looking back now he was a little shallow and too fratty for my liking. He never got my nerdy jokes and rarely drove down from Hoover to see me. I was blind to that at the time though. I had finally fallen in "love" again. I was back on my wall.
Everything was going well, I thought. Then the first push came. I drove to his apartment one night and before I could even get fully through the door he said those words no one ever wants to hear, "we need to talk." I knew right then to just leave, but for some reason, I stayed. He told me he had met up with his ex and he still had feelings for her and did not find it to be fair to be with me while he still loved her, even though we had been together for months at this point. I calmly said that I understood and that I respected him for telling me and not just cheating on me like my last relationship had. I then gathered my things and left. I cried the entire way home and laid in bed for three days. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep. I just laid there and cried and wondered what was so wrong with me that no one could ever love me.
I went on a week long vacation and while I was there A called. He was in tears, and begging me to get back together with him. I said I would see him when I returned home, and to not call me again to let me think about things. As soon as I got off the plane in Birmingham I drove to his place and fell into his arms. Things were okay, he had his mind made up. We were going to be okay!
We got back together and everything was wonderful and very honeymoon-like. We were so much in "love."
Fast forward three weeks.
I was lying in bed on a Saturday morning. I was heading out that morning to go home to see my parents for the weekend and was getting some extra sleep before the long drive. My phone rang and it was A. I knew it was unlike him to be awake so early without there being something wrong so I answered. The first words he said shoved me over the wall again. "my ex is pregnant."
"Yeah.....I'm gonna have to call you back."
I hung up. Made some coffee. And let my brain, still foggy from sleep, process what he just said. Apparently, while we were planning on working things out but not technically together yet, he slept with her. I asked him if he had done so before we got back together, and he said no. Therefore, either this is the freaking immaculate conception and they're giving birth to the second coming of Jesus......or he's a lying bastard.
I took a sip of my coffee and decided its the latter.
I called him back and asked him again what was going on. He told me he had slept with her and that she had taken three pregnancy tests and they all came back positive. He then asked me, teary eyed, what we were going to do. I simply stated that "we" aren't going to do anything and that I'm going to live my life and he's going to either marry her or pay child support for the next 18 years. I then hung up, logged onto tmobile to block his number, grabbed my bags, and hit the road.
I've never talked to him since.
She had twins.......and they're ugly.
(Moral of the story here kiddos is: If you cheat on your girlfriend and get someone pregnant, your kids will be ugly and probably be as stupid as their whore of a mother.)
Humpty Dumpty cracked all over again. This time, she was in a million tiny shards. Some pieces were so small, they were just dust, and blew away in the wind. Humpty Dumpty knew she would never in her life ever feel completely whole again.
I went on and dated casually, but nothing serious. I focused on school and work and moving into my new apartment. I focused on graduation parties and dance recitals and nights out by the lake. I focused on re-reading all the Harry Potters for the 9th time. I even focused on math classes. I focused on everything but the fact that two weeks after we broke up they got married, that his wife had tried adding me on facebook several times, and that they looked so stinking happy together. I focused on finding my pieces and some extra strength super glue.
Then, something happened.
It was a normal busy day at work. People were moving out and I was inspecting the vacant apartments. It was the end of July and about 100 degrees outside. I was dying and felt disgusting from everyone's nasty apartments. (seriously, does no one CLEAN anymore?) I was about to do my last apartment for the day and was going over in my head for the 100,000th time what drastic measures I would go to to get a drink and a shower. I entered this last apartment to find someone still in it. The sounds of Back to the Future met me as I walked through the door and a very shocked looking guy laid on the sofa. He sat up as soon as he saw me and I quickly stumbled over an explanation as to way I was barging into his apartment unannounced. He was cute in just a white tshirt and shorts. His body was a great height, not too tall but not too short, and it complimented his lean build. He had dark hair and coffee-brown eyes and a smile that immediately struck me. I stood there in front of this adorable guy, silently cursing myself for looking like a hot mess. He looked like he didn't mind it though. He was the first person to be nice to me that day. He smiled at me as he offered me a drink and a seat, but I declined and started inspecting the two rooms that had been vacated. I could normally get a move out inspection knocked out in three minutes, but on this one, I worked a little slower. I took my time to write everything out, and not just put check marks like I had on the other ones from that day. I went in to inspect the living room and the guy stepped outside. I sneaked glances at him through the kitchen window as he stood there, completely at ease, doing something on his phone. A fleeting thought of kissing him flashed through my head. I could feel myself blushing and immediately finished up the inspection and left. For the next few days I cursed myself for not getting his name or number.
Weeks passed by without any sight of the boy. Then, one day, he entered the office when I was the only one there. He was moving out that weekend and needed someone to do his inspection. I saw this as my chance and ran with it. I promised to do his inspection for him and that he just needed to come back up to the office that weekend and I would be waiting on him. I wasn't on the schedule for that saturday, but I swapped with someone. I also went out and bought a new dress, and took extra time on my hair that morning. I prepared all of his paperwork as soon as I entered the office and waited for him to show up. When he finally did, chills covered my arms. This was my final chance. It was now or never.
I did his move out inspection and joked around with him and his roommates. He was charming, witty, and slightly mean with his comments.....just what I liked. He kept me on my toes, and left me wanting more. I finished his room inspection and he turned in his keys....
Two days later we had our first date and I was on top of the highest wall in the land.
Things were wonderful, but the timing felt off. He had moved back home and I was swamped with work and school. We were both stressed and things just weren't clicking...Humpty Dumpty shook, but didn't fall. We decided to take a break and see where things went from there.
Months later, my birthday rolls around. The boy came to my costume party dressed as team rocket, and I was a pikachu and my other friend was ash. The boy took me to my room, got on his knees, and with the most serious look I've ever seen in his eyes, told me how he felt about me. He was essentially stealing me away, just like our costumes. At that moment I knew, he was it for me. He would never let me fall over that edge. And if something in my life happened that pushed me, he would be at the bottom to catch me.
My life as a Humpty Dumpty has been rough. There have been high walls and there have been hard falls. There have been moments where I swore I would never know what true "love" really is. I would never know what it felt like to be able to say I "loved" someone without using quotation marks. I swore that I would always be in pieces.
I can honestly say right now that I have never felt so whole in my entire life....
and I am wholly in love with him.
That boy put me back together, polished off the cracks, and made me better than ever.
I don't know what I'd do without him.
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