“50 First Dates”

Not The Only One!
” 50 First Dates”
Post#102
02 Nov 23
Howdy,
Thank You guys once again for being there and welcome to November, another year racing to the finish. I have confessed to You guys before that I’m a Romcom guy, so a fan of romantic comedies, thanks to my daughter ☺️☺️. It’s been a while and I don’t even want to guess how long ago, but there was a cute movie, by the name of ” 50 First Dates” . It stared Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, and it was about a woman who had experienced a traumatic brain injury and as a result of that, she could only retain long-term memory, such as who her family was, but since the accident, every morning she woke up with a blank slate. The character portrayed by Adam Sandler was challenged with catching her attention everyday for the first time, because for her, it was a first date. There is also something known as a cute – meet. This is where you meet your significant other under some cute situation, which actually becomes part of your story with that person. These days, I think that the majority of people meet online, the organic thing is rare now days but cross your fingers, it could still happen ☺️☺️. If you are successful with the online tag, it will usually lead to some kind of meeting or date, and people have gotten very clever and creative with these. I think one of the more funny things is what I call the ” escape hatch”. This is where you will have a friend check in and if the date is a dude, the phone call will turn into some kind of a family emergency ☺️☺️
. I almost hate admitting at this age, that I’m still learning things about myself and some of them a little bit on the shady side, or something that I would straight up consider to be a negative. When you take a broken person, which we all are, but when you combine it with deep personality flaws, you sometimes feel like the best thing to do , is to be put out to pasture, or become a hermit, which I’ve been close to on more than one occasion☺️☺️. I’ve also been on record as not being an astrology person . I’m not a person who follows the daily horoscope thing, but I do believe and have seen certain traits about people who are born under the same astrological sign. I believe that they all have positives and detractors as well ,but mine are not middle of the road things. They can be dire ,and extremely intense at times. There is this certain polarization which is undeniable. I’m not going to point fingers at anyone else’s astrological sign, but I will say this about mine, you will never find any other sign, who will make you feel the most loved, most loyal and devoted, caring and protected , but the flip side of that is , would be to treat you as if you were never born to wishing you bodily harm….I know sad!!. The intensity is real, I would promise you that it’s worth the price of admission, but think carefully before getting on that ride☺️☺️. It’s personal for me, but I read the things that it says about my sign and I think surely not, but it’s undeniable, and it’s all of us, every one born under this sign, and if you encounter one who denies it, run because they are not in touch with who they are and they will smoke you☺️☺️.
So why the detour?. One of the things about this sign is that we don’t let things go easily. A Libra can have a romantic encounter and be over it the very next week. They are an air sign and they have been known to be a little flighty, or blown with the wind☺️☺️. Ok, I love more intensely and things resonate with me more, it goes with the sensitivity piece of the puzzle. I am also a self proclaimed history buff. While I love history, it’s not always a pleasant thought process when I look over my past failures and mistakes, and another little gem is , I often have a very hard time forgiving myself. Well, let’s connect the dots. I’m pretty sure that I’ve had 50 First Dates, but unlike in the movie, not all with the same woman ☺️☺️.
The history and the holding on part, has me remembering Dates, times , and places of these first 50 Dates. First dates can be awkward, but I’ve had some very memorable ones, and to say that they left an impression, would often be an understatement. I have a few criteria as to what constitutes a great first date .One ,does the time just fly, when you are with this person. Two, do you feel like you could just talk with them for hours. Third, do they leave you wanting more, as in thinking this was the first of what could be a lot more in the future . It’s not absolutely necessary, but a little flirting is always a good sign☺️☺️.
How about a few highlights, and not in any particular order, but spoiler alert, I am saving the best for last☺️☺️. I’m going to start the narrative with a little bit of an anomaly. I flew into Panama city and had a cute- meet, and it basically turned into a lunch date and a little bit of a road trip. This person met all of the criteria for a good first date, but the timing was not right, they had just decided to go back to school to become a Chaplin and didn’t have the time to invest in a relationship, but most definitely an honorable mention☺️.
I had a cute- meet , first date at a Starbucks. I love coffee, but Starbucks is not really my wheel house, a little expensive for my taste. None the less, we met at a Starbucks at the ocean front in VA. Beach, we walked the board walk, it was on a Saturday morning, the sun was shining and the wind was blowing. I was wondering if I was going to be on time for the date,, because I had attended a concert with my daughter the night before. She was a hygienist, who had three sons ,but we definitely clicked, she was dog sitting for her neighbors, so she had to go let the dogs out, but it could have definitely been something that could have turned into a lunch and dinner.
I’m not going to recount 50 first Dates, but as I said, a few highlights. If you have been with me for a while, then you know that this blog started with an amazing first date which I chronicle earlier. All the way back in 2010, actually on January 1st, I had an incredible first date, which set the tone for the rest of the year. She was a manager with FedEx. Incredibly smart and a real looker. I have been blessed to meet and interact with some very beautiful and intelligent, strong women. I’m not sure what any of them actually saw in me, but I’ve said before that my mom set the tone for strong, independent women, some a little to independent, but we will get to that in a bit☺️☺️. I’m not really a regret kind of guy, but for me this will always be the one that got away ❤️❤️. This first date on the very first day of the year took place at a Cracker Barrel in Hampton. If she was an athlete, they would use the word special to describe her ☺️☺️, extremely talented.
Just a couple more before we get to the best first date ever☺️☺️. I had a first date a little bit of an improv. Once ,when I was visiting my daughter in Florida, I drove up to Alabama to meet a woman for lunch. We met at a First Watch, more of a brunch. Another extremely attractive intelligent woman. I think as you get older, as you meet people, you try to apply some wisdom as you reflect on where you have been in life , and I got the distinct impression that we were both feeling one another out. She was one of the most intriguing women that I’ve ever encountered, because why we were very different from one another, something at our core, we are very much alike. We both have exteriors that don’t complement one another, but just below the surface ,chemistry, which is just so important. If you are not familiar with emotional intelligence, it’s a thing, she over flows with it, both shrewd and sharp.
One more, before the topper. This one is runner up and you will quickly see why. When I was an area sales manager for a Miller brewing house, back in 1990s, I met this blonde bombshell in one of my accounts, who could only be described as a hot mess. Now days , I’m a firm believer that work and play doesn’t go together and what I mean by that is I don’t get involved with people from work, but back then, I was not on that path.☺️ Me not being on that path back then turned out to be one of the biggest blessings of my entire life. This woman had just recently been discharged from the Navy, and as I said was working in one of my accounts. We would see each other occasionally if she was working, when I was there. We exchanged a few pleasantries, but she always seemed to be carrying some kind of a heavy burden ,which I would soon discover was postpartum depression. She had a little girl that wasn’t a year old yet. I suggested that we go out to a football game to see my nephew play. She just really looked like she needed a break and to have some fun. We scheduled to meet up for the game, she told me that she didn’t have a sitter , so I said bring the kid along. It was a Friday night, the 5th of September and it rained. We didn’t want to have the baby out in the weather, so we ended up at a restaurant, it was Cheers, I don’t believe that they are around any more. I think that I spent the majority of the evening trying to get her mind off of her situation, shooting for a smile, finally got one as the baby wanted to play with things on the table. Just taking turns throwing stuff on the floor and wanting us to pick it up. This date, didn’t exactly meet all of the criteria, but the most significant one , because she became the mother of my two children and the little girl, I got to adopt and be her dad, and she has been one of the biggest blessings and joys of my life ☺️☺️. I realize that there are a bunch of missing pieces to that date, but this is the one that was just a little to independent ☺️☺️but stay tuned and maybe some day I will elaborate ☺️.
This is where I say, drum roll please. I’m not saying that it’s suspenseful, but perhaps it is, I mean, I did name dates ,times and places, and what could ever trump some of these delicious women and my two wonderful children?
My number one first best date of all times ,is when I met Jesus Christ. This is the date that I will always remember. It’s one of those time and place moments that you remember every detail and it’s forever carved into your heart and mind. It’s like the day of 9-11 happened ,everyone remembers when and where they were when they first got the news. It’s transformative, without the planes crashing into towers. That’s probably not the best illustration, because of all of the death and destruction that occurred on that day, but we all remember. Maybe for some it would be man first walking on the moon, but that just seems like so long ago and a lot of people weren’t around for that, another generation ago. Regardless of the time and place, it’s life changing.
If I’m being completely honest, I’ve had two such first dates with Jesus and I remember them both. The first one was when I was seventeen, which I have talked about before and the other took place some thirteen years later. It was on a Thursday evening with a man by the name of Michael Stevenson . He was a little bit of a facilitator, as he helped me to return home . I had been living in the wilderness of life, not caring if I lived or died. I believe the lie that it just didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do. I was living life to the fullest, taking risk and being the most none caring person in the world. I ran with a really rough crowd ,and people who use to make other people disappear. I will let You decide if that was figurative or not.☺️ Have you ever just been so miserable, trying to drown out past hurts in life? . I have read the telling in the Bible about the woman at the well, and I’ve been that woman or the woman who washed Jesus feet with her tears, I’ve been there as well and so many other accounts of broken and hurting people who have just felt overwhelmed by sin, shame and regret. We all know that we aren’t exactly who we should be in life and often we try to disguise our brokenness behind masquerades of success and accomplishments , or money and possessions, oh ,and I’ve been there as well and come to finds out that those things are fine, but they will never satisfy the constant yearning of a soul that was created to have fellowship with God. More bad news for those who think that more, will satisfy, it just doesn’t, and it doesn’t matter what the more is, be it money, more pleasure, or even if it’s you eating yourself into a food comma ☺️☺️. We all love short cuts in life, the bill boards says earn your four year degree in 2.5 years, hmm interesting, or maybe it’s that get rich quick real estate seminar. If you really want to know the trick and the truth, you need to know what’s coming around the corner for you. No one wakes up and says oh, I see a devastating divorce coming or some health problem that will drain all of your savings in six months time. Life is funny like that, yea ha ha ! The wilderness of life is me doing my thing, now whether that is you doing the best that you can, or you doing what you think is the right thing to do, it still all comes down to us doing it our way. A few post ago, I talked about a yoke and what that means. Some of us may be yoked to an addiction and some of us may be yoked to the desk of being a workaholic and we may think that one is better than the other, but it’s not and both bring their dire consequences with it, as they say, same company, just a different divisions ☺️☺️.I have lived much of my life being full of myself and probably in some of the worst ways imaginable , and it reminds me of someone else, who lived a very similar life and his name was Saul. He had a first date with Jesus on a road to Damascus, it turned out to be life changing and transformative. My Thursday night date back when I was thirty, didn’t leave me blind and on the side of the road, but there was a absolute flood gate of tears, from me doing things my way and doing whatever felt good or freeing, which it wasn’t. It was the yoke of sin that I had been carrying every since I walked away when I was seventeen. You can live life like a depraved person, but if you are a child of God’s, it won’t be fun for you and God will not leave you there, or allow you to continue on that path. Jesus satisfies the soul and comforts the weary. I don’t know what You may be walking through, but I can assure you that Jesus meets all of the criteria for an awesome first date , and for every day after that. You will never again walk alone through life with mass uncertainty about where and which direction you are going in life! . I’m a bit long again, but I want to leave you with these questions. Have you had that date, where you met the Savior of the world? Have you told Him that you want to accept His free gift of Salvation and have you thanked Him for taking your place and punishment for all of Your failings in life, and we all have them regardless of your walk in life.
Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
Sandy The Southerner

Reply
,
Reply All
or
Forward

Send

Share on Facebook

Save