Getting Out of There

...I found my purse and went for the phone first, seeing all these missed calls and messages from my mom. Since I was supposed to have been home fairly early the night before I had early plans to meet her and a family friend with our dogs at the dog park. Immediately my brain starts racing because blowing off plans is uncharacteristic of me and I felt terrible that my mom was worried. I called her and made up a story of having a migraine (which I get often) and not being able to leave the house. Since I already had a verbal exchange with my 'date' it was time for me to face him again and get out of there as quickly as possible. As I said before I was embarrassed for having what I thought was consensual sex with him and feeling violently ill. All I wanted to do was get home and into my own bed and sleep the pain away. He said he had a shift at the hospital (the details behind his career will be explained in later posts) and had to get up and out too.

My car was parked in a nearby garage so he got dressed and walked me out of his apartment building. He lived in Philadelphia and I just a few miles over the bridge in South Jersey so I had at least a 20 minute drive ahead of me. On the corner I saw a little convenience store and said I needed to grab something for the ride (water, a snack) which I did. He then walked me to my car we said goodbye and I was on my way home. It was the brightest sunniest day and without my sunglasses this only increased the pain in my head. I drove as fast as I could without jeopardizing my driving record and finally arrived home. My poor lonely dog greeted me excitedly but thankfully had the intuition to know I wasn't feeling well and followed me into my darkened bedroom for the remainder of the weekend. It was late Saturday morning and I didn't emerge until Sunday. 

When I woke up Sunday semi-recovered I couldn't get out of my head what had happened and why I couldn't remember anything. I replayed the night over and over but the puzzle was missing way too many pieces for my liking. Little did I know it would all come together only a year and a half would have to go by first. I was 37 at the time and been single most of my adult life which means I had a fair amount of dating experiences good and bad but never anything like that one. I decided since there was nothing I could do to change the events of that night I would mentally take responsibility for my own actions forget about what happened (what there was I could remember) and move on. So that's what I did...