new york

chapter 3: new york

i think new york is the closest i will ever come to a real life fairy tale. not the whole of it, but a damn good portion.

new york. i still miss new york. i met him back in the day (probably a wednesday). had to have been 2004ish. summer/fall. newly divorced, baby, kiddo- life was a little crazy back then. i met new york online- back when match.com was all the rage and there were actually people on there not just all assholes looking for a booty call. well, that's a lie. there were plenty of those too (more stories for a later time). 

new york caught my eye pretty quickly online for three things: air force, wranglers, and a big ass truck. YES, i liked all those things back then (hell, no sense lying to ya'll- all three still catch my attention...well, carharts over wranglers these days).

new york was stationed locallyish at the air force base in spokane (i was still living in podunk at the time). when we "met" he was actually on deployment in the middle of no where, sandbox, left of and two degrees hotter than hell. we chatted every day for HOURS online. it made my work days a little more tolerable (what are they going to do? retroactively fire me? SUCK IT CORPORATE WORLD. MISUSE OF CORPORATE TOOLS AT IT'S FINEST). we talked about everything- growing up in small towns, cereal (his favorites were coco puffs and lucky charms if i remember correctly), family vacations, future plans- all of it. we actually played 50 questions over the months- every day we had to have a few new questions for each other.

we talked about meeting when he got home from deployment, going to the drive in movies, having home cooked meals, all the things that he missed being stuck in BFE sandbox.

time finally came when he was being brought back state side. holy crap excitement. he couldn't tell me exactly when until he was back on state soil but i had a rough idea. we got closer to fall and he was able to hint a little more about coming home- finally one day he was back in boston and able to tell me to be at the airport on my birthday.

so. in a made for the movies moment, on my birthday, i was waiting at the end of the terminal, waiting for my soldier to come home from war. he walked straight down the ramp, picked me up and gave me the biggest hug ever.

yes. it really happened.  doesn't get much sappier than that. i'll honestly never forget that moment as long as i have a working piece of my brain left.

somehow we managed to NOT rip each others clothes off in the parking garage, or in the car, or on the short drive back to his base. once we were in the barracks though it was no holds barred. MONTHS of foreplay, a soldier stuck in the sandbox for almost a year, we were both much younger then...needless to say we surfaced at one point for food and a trip to get a dvd player (he HAD to get one.) and then disappeared back inside until a few hours past when i was supposed to leave. i honestly can't remember the sex. i have a vague recollection of it being good- energetic, quick recovery time, he was attentive and took care of things.  can't say it was the best ever, but it definitely beats out the majority.

the next chance he had leave new york drove up to my little podunk apartment and spent a few days with me. i remember watching him sit on the couch with my oldest watching cartoons and eating cereal. simple memories with him. good memories.

deployments, schedules, life prevented anything from getting too serious. we kept in touch over the years. he swore i was his perfect woman and he would marry me one day. he just had too many things to do before he settled down (including a red head, twins, an oriental and a midget. good to have goals).

new york was eventually deployed to england where he still is today. he's made a life out of the air force and is kicking ass. sadly, some british tart plucked him up and he was married recently.

new york. the one that could have been. the one that i still wish had worked out some how. i miss the days of chatting and getting to know him. i still remember more things about him than i ever even knew about any of the *cough*several*cough* that followed.

i'm still a sucker for air force boys. i'm still a sucker for a new york accent. i'm still a sucker for a boy that can two step me around the dance floor and just as quickly whip me into the pretzel and back out again. trucks, bonfires, shotgunning beers, cussing up a storm- 

it will take a damn lot to replace that moment in the airport as one of my top memories.

new york was one of the good ones.