Because of That Dive Bar

Seven years ago I went on my first date. It was a Saturday night, and I sat nervously at the counter in my dad’s kitchen eyeing down the clock. It was a few minutes past the time my date was supposed to pick me up, and my dad and step-mom tried their best to ease my nerves with small talk.

I had spent the better half of the evening curling my hair, calling my friends for much-needed pep talks, and reassuring myself that it would all go fine. I was 16 but didn’t have my driver’s license yet, and so the rest of the night was entirely in my date’s hands. Fast forward a few hours later — he was late.

A startling knock at the front door confirmed that I was not, in fact, being stood up. I slipped my heels back onto my sweaty feet, and with each step I prayed that I could just walk steady and calm my shaking hands. My little sisters followed, hiding shyly behind my step-mom’s legs as I opened the door.

Jimmy stood there - in his button down and tie - holding a bouquet of roses. He shook my dad’s hand as my step-mom went off to find a vase for the flowers, and I stood back hoping that the slightly awkward moment would soon pass.

As it turned out, this wasn’t Jimmy’s first time walking up to someone’s house for a date. He had gotten practice just minutes before knocking on my front door, when he used the same routine (the nice clothes, the flowers) at my neighbor’s. He was late because he went to the wrong house.

The two of us laughed if off as we drove to dinner. We were ridiculously dressed up to go to Friendly’s, which was technically our “date,” but it was really more of a pit stop on the way to a friend’s Great Gatsby-themed Sweet 16 party (hence the formal attire).

If Jimmy’s embarrassing story of the night was showing up to my ten-year-old neighbor's house with roses, mine was enduring the stares at Friendly’s. I guess it’s not every day that the half-empty restaurant served a couple of teenagers who were 1.) so clearly on their a first date, and 2.) completely overdressed to eat chicken fingers.

Nonetheless I slowly let my guard down as the night went on, and we ended up having a really nice time. Before I knew it, it was 11:00 p.m. and Jimmy was dropping me off at my dad’s and asking if I wanted to “make this official.”

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Three years ago today I mustered up the courage to wish Jimmy a happy birthday. It was the first one in a few years that we weren’t spending together — in a relationship — which naturally made it the hardest. But given that it was his twenty-first birthday: it made it the worst.

I asked if he would be going out to the bar with his friends, but he told me he had a lot of studying to do. Part of me hoped to see a Snapchat story or any indication that he was having fun, but I told myself that it’d sting too much; I’d be better off not knowing anyway. I tossed and turned in bed that night thinking about how I had always pictured us spending that kind of life milestone together.

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Nine months ago I grabbed dinner with two of my best friends, who were also back home for the holidays. I had planned to later be sandwiched on the couch between my little sisters, watching The Santa Clause and eating Christmas cookies, but my older brother successfully convinced me to come to trivia night at Retriever Brewing Company instead.

It was the night before Christmas Eve — Christmas Eve Eve — and since I had practically been on my deathbed for Thanksgiving Eve, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision that I was going to treat it as such.

By the time trivia was over, I was the one doing the convincing this time around. I told the group that we should grab some drinks at New Tripoli's beloved dive bar, Leather Corner Post, right across the street.

Nine months ago I saw Jimmy for the first time since I started dating someone new. He was there with the same group of guys that we hung out with in high school, and suddenly I wasn’t totally sure how to act.

I had hugged and caught up with the other guys, but what was I supposed to do with Jimmy? Leave it at a wave, right? It was only a matter of time before my cousin and brother meandered over to him, too (he is impossible to miss, after all), and any beer that I held in my hand couldn’t go down fast enough.

None of it made sense. I had worked hard on myself for two-and-a-half years following our break up, and for the last six months leading up to this moment: I believed I was proud. Proud and moved on.

Yet I went to bed that night with a weird gut feeling — something beyond all the beers and Vegas bombs that were already making my stomach churn. Rather it was the amalgamation of realizing I needed to face the prior doubts I had about my current relationship, and realizing I might never love another person the way I cared about Jimmy Felch.

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It'd be easy to list off all the reasons why I love this man so much. He's outgoing and kind, yet sensitive and patient with me. What's harder to do is articulate what it is that brought us back to each other after three years of heartbreak, confusion, and misunderstanding.

That's the way it sometimes is with exes: you leave it in the past and avoid thinking about the what could've beens. But because of that unbearable knot in my gut all along, I'm now someone whose thoughts of "what could've been" no longer make her sad, but make her feel like the luckiest girl alive for walking into the dive bar that night.

Jimmy: it is the biggest blessing to know you and love you. Happy 24th Birthday!