<Continued from ‘Day
100: The Reboot’>
… It all started on May 1, 2013…
I was sitting home alone is Eritrea, a very small and
isolated country in East Africa, just north of Ethiopia. Access to internet was always a constant
struggle. It would be up for an hour,
down for 24. Up for 15 hours, down for a
week. But on this particular day I was
enjoying an evening of internet access.
And out of nowhere, I received an instant message from Elizabeth… my
former boss from when I worked for the Cultural Affairs Division of Cobb County,
just north of Atlanta. I had left that job
five years earlier to join the Foreign Service.
I was gone, but apparently, not forgotten.
Elizabeth: “Question… are you dating? Do you have time for a date while you are
home? Want one?”
Me: “Sure… with
who?”
Elizabeth: “Well, my thought is Heather. She is a theatre person. Shocker.
Divorced a year ago. Two boys
about your guy’s age. FUNNNNNNN! And cute.
Me: “Yeah, why not?”
So, then Heather received the following message.
Elizabeth: “How would you like to go on a date? I have a good friend who is a theatre
person. Used to work for me. Now works for the Foreign Service. And I heard you would simply like a fun
date. And JohnPaul would be that person. He is in town between May 15 and June 10. Are you interested? He is.”
(For the record, I know exactly what was said because
Heather had a book printed of all of our Facebook messenger conversations. She gave it to me for our one year
anniversary. Paper.)
Heather: “Oh my goodness. I just got heart palpitations just at the
mention of the d word. Sure. I’m game…”
Elizabeth: “Yippeeeeeee!
I am going to message both of you and you can meet by email and set a
date. I know you will have a fun evening
with JohnPaul. Nelah, Vanita, and I love
him!”
(Nelah and Vanita are also colleagues of mine from when I
worked for Cobb County.)
Heather: “Well I love all of you so I trust you! Haha.”
In the book Heather had printed, this all was documented in the
‘Prologue’… and the ‘Prologue’ ended with this final message from Elizabeth to
both of us… in a newly created Facebook Conversation.
Elizabeth: “JohnPaul meet Heather. Heather meet JohnPaul. You are two of my favorite people. So I hope an evening out together (without
me, lol) would be a fun meeting. So JP…
it is now in your court. Have fun! E.”
So, the ball was in my court. And I did the only thing that made sense… I
created a NEW Facebook Conversation sans Elizabeth.
Me: “Well, Elizabeth’s message today was
certainly unexpected and out of the blue.
But it is nice to meet you. I
thought I would start a new thread out from under “moms” watchful eye. Sooooo…. What’s your story?”
Heather: “I was totally surprised as well! But it’s nice to meet you too. Love meeting new people, especially when they
come so highly recommended! Haha. I know Elizabeth and Vanita and Nelah and all
those awesome people through my work with Theatre Project and other shows I’ve
done. Love them! That’s not really my story… but it’s a start…
what about you?”
And so it began. And over
the next few weeks we shared our stories with each other via Facebook Messenger.
We shared stories about our kids. At the time my were 7 and 3, while her kids
were 5 and 3. All boys.
All having birthdays within 19 days of each other.
We talked about how I went form a theatre guy from Atlanta who
had hardly stepped foot outside the United States to a globe-trotting diplomat
that has lived in four foreign counties on four different continents (none of
which located within North America).
We shared our war stories from our previous marriages and
divorces. Heather told me that after her
divorce all she wanted to do was lock herself in her closet with a bottle of
Makers Mark and a tub of cheese balls… a comment that I immediately found hilariously
endearing.
We talked about theatre and how the folks at Cobb Cultural
Affairs wouldn’t let Heather wallow and got her out of that closet… and kept
her busy teaching classes at ‘The Mable
House’, a multipurpose arts facility that I had been the coordinator of
before leaving for the Foreign Service.
The before mentioned Vanita took over for me when I left.
They also got her heavily involved in ‘The Theatre Project’,
which is a program I started while working for Cobb. It is a children’s theatre company and I got
it started with twenty-five kids and an attendance of a few hundred people at
shows. Heather had been one of the
people Elizabeth and Vanita brought in to continue the program after I
left. And by the time we were introduced
she had directed and/or choreographed nine Theatre Project productions. Together, they had grown the program into a
massive success with 80 kids and over a thousand people attending each show. Listening to Heather’s passion warmed me…
made me miss what I had left behind… and at the same time, I was incredibly impressed. We spoke the same language.
Our conversation was easy and unfiltered… and continued
sporadically over the course of May. After
three days of silence and finally receiving a message from Heather apologizing for
her tardiness I responded with, “I spent my whole weekend wondering why you
hadn’t written back! Lol! No… not really.”
Heather: “Whatever, I know it’s the highlight of your
day getting emails from your new pen pal.”
She wasn’t completely wrong.
But it’s not like there was much to do in Eritrea.
On May 10th I boarded a plane destine for
Washington, DC for a week a training classes.
By the time I landed, Heather had sent me her phone number. I didn’t call and our messages became more sporadic. I was busy with classes and overwhelmed by friends
and family I had not seen in years; all the while being completely
jetlagged. And frankly, it’s not like anything
was going to come of this date with Heather. I certainly thought she was cute and I
completely intended to take her out. We
had a ton in common, but I had absolutely no expectations that anything would
come from it. I lived in Africa and was only
coming home for 3 weeks for God’s sake!
One date, a fun evening just like Elizabeth had said, and then move on
with my life. That is what I thought was
going to happen. I couldn’t have been
more wrong.
We picked up our conversation when I arrived in Atlanta on
May 18th and Heather was pretty insistent on nailing down a time to
go out. But she was busy. She was involved in two theatre
productions. She had rehearsal for ‘Godspell’,
which she was in as an actress; and auditions for ‘Legally Blonde’, which she
was choreographing at ‘The Art Place’,
another one of Cobb County’s arts facilities.
In the end, we decided to go out on May 20th, at
9pm, after she had finished with auditions for ‘Legally Blonde’ and that I
would pick her up at ‘The Art Place’. A
location that I had a lot of history with… in fact, the program Heather was
choreographing for was one I had performed with while in high school… and years
later, I was hired to work there by, the before mentioned, Nelah. But more about that later…
<To be continued…>
