Meeting the Farmer

Anna wondered to herself if this was enough in life. Was she really content with being a single mom? Did she really need a man? She was young, intelligent, driven, and just stubborn enough to be completely self-sufficient. Her two boys were enough to leave her feeling fulfilled. Let’s face it she was exhausted by the time the end of the day rolled around. So did she really have it in her to maintain a relationship too? Let’s be honest the feelings of loneliness still seemed to seep into the cracks of the foundation she’d worked so hard to rebuild. “How does one even date these days”, she thought to herself. It had been six years since she had last dated. “Ha! Dated? That was not dating! That was just a hookup gone wrong,” she chastised herself aloud. “And the sex wasn’t even good” she added as she scrubbed another plate.

That drunken night in her early twenties had ended with two beautiful boys, three shattered hearts, and a lot of trust issues. Trust issues she wasn’t sure she would ever overcome. A year and a half is not a lot of time to be alone in real life, but when you’re in the trenches repairing three broken hearts and rebuilding three people’s lives alone it feels more like an eternity. The pain of it all still had a fresh sting. Could she truly handle another heartbreak? Could the boys deal with another man walking out on them? To Anna the thought of opening herself and her kids up to another man made her a little nauseous. Images of nuns in a convent ran through her mind as she went on scrubbing a bowl. “I hate you too” she whispered to the dishes with a little chuckle.

“Good lord Anna pull yourself together. You’re talking to the dishes.” She bluntly told herself. Seriously, when was the last time she had gone out, or even talked to another adult that wasn’t family? Everyone around her was married or in serious relationships with lives she didn’t fit into anymore. Anna couldn’t help but feel like the pariah of her young social circle. The first of her group of friends to become a mother, and now the first to end up being a single mom. Subsequently she was also the first one to be cast out of the friends group. Anna really hadn’t had time to make new friends much less go out. “Face it” she told herself “you are lonely. You need a man. You need sex!”

Here she was thinking about sex again. It was something she had been thinking about more and more lately. Is hornier with age a real thing she wondered. Is it even possible to get tired of a vibrator? Surely not. OK maybe that last part wasn’t entirely true. The rabbit had seen her through a lot of stressful times. Not to mention those two double A batteries had yet to let her down. She couldn’t say that about a man. Those damn batteries never gave her a hug though, or told her everything was going to be fine. Her vibrator couldn’t tell her she looked good while playfully slapping her ass. The rabbit most definitely wasn’t going to be giving her a back rub anytime soon either she scoffed as she cleaned the sink out. “Girl, when was the last time someone touched you?” Anna said to herself.

What did it even feel like to be held, and licked, and sucked on. To have a rough hand gently caress her nipples, or plunge deep inside her. Had Anna already forgotten what it was like to have a grown man make love to her? There’s no way she could not remember what it was like to be good and fucked, and left satatisfied had she? Was she running purely on fantasies, porn, and rabbit sessions? Her thoughts were starting to carry her back into the swallows of loneliness. It’s time to go to bed, she thought. Tomorrow she would talk to her sister about getting back in the dating saddle.

Anna got out of bed and showered her way into a new day. She got the boys ready for school and out the door, and watched her parents both head to work. The three of them had moved back in with her mom and dad recently, and they were all still settling into a new routine. Her separation had not been messy at first, but as life so often goes the shit had finally hit the proverbial fan. Anna’s ex’s mistress had decided he should not have to pay child support. This left her and the boys fighting to scrape by. When the third child support payment was missed she knew she could no longer keep their heads above water alone. She had made the dreaded call to her parents letting them know they would need to move out of their rental. They of course welcomed all three of them with open arms both telling Anna the classic “Everything will be fine. It’ll all work out the way it’s supposed to.”

The thought of having to move back in with her parents felt like rock bottom. As she had closed the door to the blue bungalow one last time Anna felt her heart finally shatter. She and the boys had moved back from the city when her ex wiped out their joint bank account. The sixteen thousand dollars they had saved to buy their first home was gone. In its place twelve whole dollars and a mistress with a new house. He hadn’t even left enough for groceries, much less the rent on their new apartment. Anna’s only saving grace had been the bungalow. She had found it by chance, “A friend of a friend had a brother who had an empty house because, well, small town living” she had recited the story to her older son’s fish as she fed them.

Anna had spent so much time pouring herself into the boys and the house. Never really slowing down to process everything she had been through. She had painted all of the rooms, laid new hardwood flooring in the living room and the bedrooms. The kitchen cabinets had been pastel purple and seafoam green when she moved in. “Barf” she remembered allowed. It took almost a full month to take them apart, sand them down, refinish them white, and put them back together. The first nice weekend of the year she had even rescreened the porch, and put up a trampoline for the boys. She just plugged away project after project, bedtime story after bedtime story.

Now here she stood in her parent’s kitchen eyeing the dirty breakfast dishes. How had her life come to this? How could she be in her twenties and seemingly be going backwards? She cursed herself and then cursed her ex for good measure. She decided she had better just get a cup of coffee and move on with the day. “No use dwelling on things you can’t change” she huffed in the dog’s direction. Speaking of things that couldn’t be changed brought her full circle. Anna decided it was a good time to call her little sister Molly.

If anyone could give her a little gusto for life it was her baby sister. She was also the only person who could tell her to pull her head out of her ass without being offensive. Anna was incredibly grateful for Molly. She had somehow been the person she needed to keep her going. Always supportive, always blunt, always making her laugh, and always letting her cry it out. There was never any judgment or I told you so’s. There was however a lot of digs at Anna’s ex that made her feel a little better every time. Molls was her person through and through. She didn’t know what kind of a mess she would be if it wasn’t for her sister.

“Hey gurl hey!” Molly answered after the fifth ring. Anna chuckled out a “hay!’ The two of them talked about the weekend, and caught up on any local gossip. They talked about the kids, and upcoming things they both had going on. Conversations always came easy between the two of them. Finally Anna decided it was time to open up about dating again. She asked Molly, “Would I be crazy to date again?” Being the supportive sister she is, Molls laughed out a “Do you really think that’s a good idea with your track record? I’m kidding!” She grew a little softer “I think it’s time Nanna. He moved on a long time ago. There is no reason to be waiting to get back out there. You deserve better and so do the boys”. Anna was quiet for a moment. She knew her sister was right. It really was time to move on with the business of life.

“I don’t even know how to date anymore” she hated admitting it aloud. How could she be asking her baby sister for dating advice? Anna always thought it would be the other way around, but her baby sister called her one day and asked her how to get a marriage license. Molly and Cooper eloped to a rock concert shortly after, and were still going strong building their family one baby at a time. “You know online dating is pretty much the only thing people do now, right” Molly questioned. Anna rolled her eyes as she responded, “What happened to tradition?”. Her little sister goaded a little more “Damn Nanna, what are you like 100?”. She both hated and loved that her sister still called her childhood nickname Nanna short for Anna Banana.