I'm a 24-year-old business professional living in Atlanta, and I am a virgin.
Yes, a virgin. Admittedly I kept my virginity so long primarily due to the horror stories I witnessed while growing up. You know, the girl that loses her virginity and gets pregnant, or the one that gets the eggplant and goes fruit (yes ladies, eggplant is a fruit). Crazy. But the bigger reason is because the guy that I considered my first love always managed to do something stupid right as I was willing to let down the iron vault to my most prized possession. And this last time was no different.
I have been a "situationship" for nine years. I met my ex in middle school and we began dating when we were 15. We fell in like, then love, and then broke up like dramatic teenagers throughout high school. The odd thing about it is that I always cared very deeply about him. He loved me when I was that awkward natural girl in high school (like when Target barely carried a whole shelf, let alone a whole aisle, of natural hair care products), to when he drove ten plus hours to pick me up after my first year of college when he found out that my mother and my only living parent passed away from double pneumonia.
He was even there when I crossed in my sorority that following fall. He loved me when he enlisted in the army, and would make sure to see me every time he was on leave. He was literally there through every high and low moment of my life, which is why it was so damn hard to leave him alone even though my gut and my faith told me otherwise.
Now, I am not the most religious person, but I have a fairly decent relationship with the Lord. And my relationship is what made me decide to pray for clarity.
You ever pray for that kind of clarity where you hope God will manifest himself to you in a way to say, "You see this, this isn't it"? Well, that was/still is me.
Every single time I allowed this man back into my life I kept thinking to myself that it was because "God wanted us to be together." I falsely thought that when I was praying for clarity, the fact that I made him stay in my life, that it was God showing me the truth. That he was, in fact, the one that I was meant to be with.
This thought process was no different when I finally made the decision that I wanted to lose my virginity, and no less, to this man on a weekend where we had already planned to meet up. You see, I had never been the one to save my virginity for marriage, I more so kept it this long because I was waiting for the right person to come along and for someone who I thought deserved it to have all of me. So it was no surprise that after all of this time, I thought that my first love should be given the ultimate privilege.
Once I mulled over my decision, I told my best girlfriends who were way more experienced and in some way had become his cheerleader. I then told my older sister, who giggled like a little schoolgirl and gave me some tips.
I thought I was ready.
I had the condoms stashed in drawer in my bedroom, made sure that I got my monthly wax within the right amount of days, and just waited for our meeting. In the meantime, New Years was vastly approaching, and on New Years as the clock hit 11:59pm and I happened to be in the bathroom of my sister's friend's apartment, I decided to pray. I prayed for all of the things that many single, career-minded women pray for. But at the end of my prayer, I surprised myself and prayed for clarity AND the ability to act on said clarity in a way that was not just befitting or aligning with what I wanted. At that time I didn't realize it, but my prayer manifested into something I would've never imagined.
A few days later, on the second of January, I get a text from my ex that read:
"I'm married."
As I read this text, I could feel my heart fall down into my feet and I responded by asking 21 questions. Soon thereafter, my ex literally sent a text that says "Girl GTFOH, that was one of my soldiers messing with my phone. Why wouldn't I tell you something like that?" I immediately without another thought gave a sigh of relief, and then questioned why I felt so heartbroken in the first place. I didn't allow myself to answer that last question, as I had already moved on to the fact that we were set to meet the next day.
January 3rd came along, and I got up and went to church with my friend. While there, I made another prayer for clarity asking for the same type of clarity that I've mentioned prior. As I was leaving church, my ex called me, asked for my address, which I sent to him. He then called me to ask about the exit number to one of the Interstates in Atlanta, I told him that I don't go by exit numbers, our line got disconnected and I realized that I got a text message from him. The text message read:
"I lied, I am married, I got married on December 22nd of 2014 to __ I've dated her for a while. I'm sorry I misled you and lied to my wife."
As I read this message out loud to my roommate who noticed the look of shock on my face, I realized a few things that are not so obvious:
- He married this woman a month after breaking up with me.
- He had been sending me a whole bunch of Jodeci kind of groveling emails and text messages the whole time they had been together.
You can understand my utter confusion, disgust, and disappointment. I proceeded to call him, to no avail, as he had been too much of a coward to answer my calls. After downing a bottle of wine by my lonesome and writing a scathing email (that I decided not to send because I don't want to block my blessings by cutting someone else down), I sent him a quick "you are dead to me" three-liner email and continued with my Sunday.
I am still going through my stages of grieving and listening to "Let It Flow" by Toni Braxton on repeat, but I've realized that I am grateful because I literally am all out of tears, which lets me know that I can finally close this chapter. I'm grateful because I can walk away without regret of losing one of the few things I can NEVER have back. I am grateful that I asked God to listen to me, and not only did He listen, but He showed me who dude really was.
Most importantly, I am grateful because I FINALLY listened, not to my heart, but to what God was telling me by putting me in this situation. I also have decided to use this whole situation as a good experience notch on my dating belt because the biggest thing that I realized after the dust settled on my anger, sadness and disappointment, was the fact that if I feel the need to pray for clarity on my relationship with someone, maybe it's not meant to be. And that within itself was all of the clarity that I needed.
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