Cider + a Table for One

Twenty million thoughts in my head and nowhere for them to go.

Losing the potential presence of "him" in my life wasn't hard at all, but hearing words like "I tried but I didn't feel it with you" and "there just wasn't anything there for me" are cruel words for a woman to hear. Well, for anyone, for that matter, I'd wager. As I walked down those downtowns little streets next to him, I really wasn't sad over the fact that his presence wouldn't deepen in my life. Because truth? I hadn't been "feeling" it either. But what was breaking me was that this was the second time in the space of 2 months that I had heard these words coming from the man at my side.

However they worded it, however they cushioned it with compliments and self-blame, all I could really hear was:

You're not good enough.

Hard, hard words. Hard enough to hear once. But twice? Try shattering. Devastating.

I've felt very fragile since then. Small. Deficient. Self-conscious. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, an "unwanted creature."

And embarrassed. Even though neither of these two men had meant it that way, I was embarrassed that in their analyzing of me as a potential mate, I'd been found lacking something.

And I don't even really know what that something is. Can everyone see it, but just not me?

I know that it simply meant that we just weren't meant for each other. With this second guy, that's hardly a jump to accept, as I was kind of seeing it all along (the first guy? well, that's another story...). I know that all this was simply an "elimination" of the wrong guy. No big deal, right? Sigh. If only my heart could feel what my head knows.

There's no happy ending to this micro-story other than the hot caramel cider I'm sipping on as I watch my small-town, rainy-day pass by me through the spray-on-snow covered windows of my favorite vintage café. Just the warm cider in my belly at a table for one.

However I may not stand up to the measuring stick that others may hold me up to, despite it all...I do have a simple confidence in my heart that I am still loved, cherished and deemed worthy by Jesus.