I had given up. A long time ago in fact. As of mid-October, I had quit the fight and given up. My two fantasy football teams were barely getting by. I didn’t have TV so I couldn’t even watch the games. I had no idea who was injured, who was off the roster, who was having a great week or who to bench. So I quit. You can’t just leave a league, though, so I just left my roster alone and stopped checking in.

I had some offers for trades that I considered. I mean, if I wasn’t playing the guys, shouldn’t someone else get the points? But I decided that was unfair. If I off-loaded any good players, then wasn’t that creating an unbalanced system? So I just left it alone.

I only kept up on the progress of one of the two teams because friends play on that league and they would send me the occasional email saying “good luck this week!” or “Can’t believe you lost that one!” In general, I got the impression that my team was continuing to tank and that was all fine by me.

It wasn’t until today, however, when I received the final email from the commissioner of the other league that I found out how I fared in the second league. When I logged in to the site, I barely remembered my log in or password. Humoring Flash, I looked up my last team transaction and found the last time I had moved any of my players around was October 16th. And that’s when I saw the Commish’s last posting. Congratulating ME as the Champion of 2008-2009 Fantasy Football. I double checked to make sure I had read it correctly. And then I started laughing so hard I had tears.

Me. I won. The league. Without moving, trading, rearranging or dropping any of my players for the past THREE months. I won.

It’s just further proof that you really don’t need any skill to win these things.

3 leagues in two years. Two Championships. I expect ESPN to be calling any day now.

Earlier in the week I stopped by my local bank to make an appointment with the mortgage guy. I’m not ready to buy a house yet, but I wanted to ask a few questions so I’d be ready when the time came.

We set up an appointment at the branch in the town where I work for the following afternoon. The weather was predicted to be bad and there was a possibility I wouldn’t even be at work the next day so the man let me know that if the weather was bad and I didn’t have to work, I could meet him in the morning at my local branch instead.

We didn’t end up getting the blizzard they predicted and so I met with the man at the branch after school the next day. As he shook my hand and welcomed me into his office he said, “It’s a good thing you didn’t end up meeting me at your branch this morning. We were robbed.”

“What?!” I exclaimed. I couldn’t believe I had missed out on the opportunity to witness a bank robbery.

He went on to tell me all about it. How he had been helping a client at his desk and had come around to their side of the table to show them something and so he actually didn’t see anything happen at all. He only heard it when someone ran and locked the door and yelled. It was then that he realized what had just happened. And so he had calmly told the people he was working with that they would need to make themselves comfortable because the bank had apparently just been robbed and no one would be allowed to leave until the police arrived to question everyone. The teller was shook up but he said, “after some pizza she was fine and went back to work.” It was her second time being held up, it would seem. The first time had been at gun point.

I interjected that if my life ever involved a gun to my head I’d probably change career paths.

In any case, while my meeting with the gentleman went well, I was saddened to think that I missed out on my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be present during a bank robbery. Who knew you got pizza afterwards?

The text message was sweet, unexpectedly complimentary. It’s not that it’s unlike him, it’s just not a commonplace text from him on a Sunday afternoon.

I returned the compliment and asked if all was okay.

He tried to push whatever burden he was holding under the rug and assure me he was fine. But I knew better. We may not have been together for awhile but we had loved each other all those years ago.

I called. He cried. He unloaded his burden and told me his sorrows. A battle. A decision. Choices and options he did not know how to face or choose. I had been there. All those years ago. Faced with a relationship that wasn’t as God intended. Now he is faced with a problem he doesn’t know how to handle within his relationship. Does he stay and love someone through it? Does he leave and risk falling apart? I understood. I knew. I had been there.

But his present choice brings up past pain. Of not being enough then and not feeling good enough now. The weight is heavier when pain is added to pain.

I reassured, as I always do with him. He is good. He is loving. He is caring and thoughtful and generous. I don’t agree with his life, but that doesn’t change who he is at heart.

And so we mended in some ways. We embraced over the phone wires and I let him know he had the strength through God to know what to do. To handle or to leave. To stay or to change.

He’s not one to change. He’s not one to move unless pushed. He’s one to stay and fix if he can.

And I expect that’s what he’ll try to do at least as long as the other person lets him.

But I know where he’s coming from. And I don’t wish that on anyone. Even on the one who forced my choice all those years ago.

This week, I learned that my former high school boyfriend is a grandfather (in a slightly roundabout way) at 38.

I learned that my last boyfriend from PA is now married with a child.

And I learned that if you give a man enough time to show his true colors and he will do just that.

For those of you married folks who are perhaps thinking that the idea of going out to dinner, having an intruguing conversation that doesn’t revolve around your kids or the grocery list sounds like a great perk to being single, let me just suggest that you think again. You might indeed get something good to eat, I’ll grant you that. But you will have to deal with your date drinking at least three beers (he was already drinking when you arrived, so it’s hard to know the total) and smoking two cigarettes while you eat. You will have to cope with a man dropping the “f” word amongst others making you wonder what he says when he’s around people he’s not trying to impress (or wonder if he is just not trying to impress you?) When you tell a funny antecdote about the bath you took earlier, he will say, and I quote “What is it with you girls and baths? Is that where you go to touch yourselves? Is it? It is, isn’t it?” and delight himself thinking the look of disgust and shock on your face is some indication that he’s actually stumbled upon some secret female truth.

On the bright side, it cost me less than $25 to find out this date was not a match for me and I had a delicous meal included in that bundled price, too. The continued efforts of the ex-boyfriend to try to prove in some manner that he is in fact a great catch for me have only worked against him, proving instead my point that we were not a good match from the start (and perhaps a much worse match than I even realized at that time.) I have realized why I never regretted breaking things off with my high school boyfriend and even though it was terribly frustrating at the time that my last boyfriend couldn’t commit, I am glad to hear how happy he is and how blessed his life has become.

I didn’t go looking for this last date, it sort of found me all on its own. As I type this, my sister is trying to figure out a way to glean critical relationship status off a man she knows and thinks is a great catch for me. I’ll admit, my enthusiasm at the prospect is greatly lacking. Not because he’s not a great guy (I wouldn’t even begin to know) but because this process is so exhausting. Maybe all of this is God’s way of reminding me how amazing my life is without anyone having to add to it. I don’t know for certain. All I do know is this morning, I am quite happy to be single.

I am IM’ing with my brother.

Checking a message on Facebook from my sister.

Reading an email from a friend.

Getting a text from a friend.

Talking to my dad on the phone.

While Flash stands next to me asking if I’ve seen his flash drive.

I CAN’T KEEP UP!!!!

I had a few minutes today with little to do so I went across the hall to watch one of my favorite teachers teach her math lesson. I love these little moments. They allow me to sit and soak in the skills of veteran teachers and to hopefully glean some bits of wisdom and method I might use eventually in my own classroom.

Today, she was teaching a lesson on subtracting two digit numbers. Specifically, she was teaching them how to regroup, or “borrow” as we learned it. She put a problem on the board: (it won’t let me line the numbers up correctly, but you get the idea)

` 52
– 47
_____

And was talking the class through the problem using metaphors and cues to help them visualize the problem. She had already walked them through a few problems, showing them how to borrow from the tens column if the ones number wasn’t large enough to subtract from. Now she was giving the class an opportunity to show her they had absorbed her lesson by telling it back to her.

“If I have 2 gum drops. Can I give Robby 7 of them?”

“No!” came the mostly unanimous answer from her class of second graders.

“You’re right. I can’t take away 7 from 2. I’m going to need to borrow,” she said, pointing to the problem on the board. “Now, who can tell me, where am I going to borrow from? Sam?”

Sam looked up at his teacher confidently and replied, “Definitely from someone you know!”

Where you realize Mr. Can’t Commit really can. Just not to you, apparently.

I have been attending the church TB introduced us to since August. Other than a couple Sundays when we visited other churches, and a couple when I was travelling to take or fetch Flash from OH, I have been there every Sunday.

Last week, in adult Sunday School class, I was one of the first to arrive and I sat and talked with D for awhile about his new job and their relocation efforts. Another regular attender arrived, with her baby in her arms and stopped in the middle of the room. She looked at me and then looked at D and promptly said, “D? Will you mind holding the baby for minute?” D, despite being a father, had that puzzled look on his face that said, “Me? You want ME to hold your baby?” Always eager for a little baby time, I jumped in and offered to hold her.

The woman turned to me and declared, “But I don’t know you.”

And then she held the baby out to D, who took her and sat for the few minutes the woman was gone entertaining the baby on his lap. He looked at me once with an apologetic look, but I waved it off like it was no big deal. I know mom’s can be particular about who holds their baby and all even if I was sitting in a Sunday School classroom.

A few more people had joined the class by the time the woman returned, only a few short minutes later. She thanked D for holding her and sat down across the room where she usually sits. It was then that she addressed me. “I’m J,” she said.

I’ve known this since one of the first days I attended that church. I had been introduced to her then and had spoken with her briefly. I had even been present during a couple conversations TB had had with this woman. And, if that had not been enough, I have been in this particular class for most of the past few months. so I said, “I know” in the most polite way I could under these circumstances. And then I added, “I’m Amy” with a knowing nudge to try to suggest everyone else in the room already knows that I wasn’t sure why she didn’t.

To which she replied, “Give me a couple of weeks and I’ll know you much better!”

I had to stifle a chuckle as I noticed D’s wife looking at J with a puzzled look. It’s not even that I sit in class silently pressed up against a wall unnoticeable. I participate. I ask questions. I talk wtih people around me. I wanted to somehow explain, but I just left it alone and we moved on. I wasn’t going to make a fuss over it.

But this morning I did get a little follow-up chuckle when J approached the nursery window to hand over one of her small children. Imagine her surprise when she realized I was the one in charge of the nursery today!

I promise you, I didn’t say a word. The look on her face said it all.