Dismantling The Bachelor Pad

11 miles may not seem like a huge distance, but when it is 11 miles in the opposite direction of where you want to be, it can seem like a trek across the continent.  So how did I wind up doing it for almost a year?  Because the more I got to know this man my friends introduced me to last December, the more I realized he had some key qualities I simply wasn't finding in the small pond I'd been fishing in all these past years.  Since my "type" wasn't panning out for me, I decided I'd give this different kind of guy a shot-- but knowing my disdain for commuting, I also set a limited time span for us to see how things played out. 

Dating someone who is geographically inconvenient or undesirable can be tricky, but here was my thinking on that matter: you can always change someone's location, but not their foundation.  This kind of became my mantra that calmed me down every time I found myself seething while sitting in massive rush hour traffic on 270 while heading out to his house-- the bachelor pad in the burbs.  Once I got there, I'd joke that I needed an epi-pen to prevent myself from breaking into hives, but the fact is he was my epi-pen, along with his kids who I've grown quite fond of over the past year.

The first time I met his kids, I brought over cupcakes.  That's how I wound up with the nickname "the cupcake lady."  There are far worse names I could've been given, so cupcake lady worked for me!  Soon thereafter, I was given my own toothbrush and an empty drawer for my things.  He bought me a blow dryer, put up pictures of us on our travels, and stocked up on my favorite tea, so that slowly but surely I felt quite comfortable in this home away from home.  Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, he started shopping for rings and began a massive purging process.  Without any input or prompting from me, he started dismantling the bachelor pad he'd built over the last 10 years and began focusing instead on the new home we might build together.

Yesterday, we took the last remnants of his unwanted things to the dumpster, and now the staging of his house is next.  The best lesson I've gleaned from this whole experience is that you have to stay true to yourself, but at the same time give some things time to play out.  A truly secure and happy bachelor isn't going to change his ways and his life overnight because someone demands it to happen-- but if he believes he has found the right person and truly loves you, he will want to join you in life's journey, and he can and will move the heavens and Earth to make things work out when he is ready.