Sean and I got together by pure dumb luck…a case of mistaken identity, if you will. I was dumb. He was luck. We met in 2007 when I was on the heels of working at The Olive Garden for the very last time. I was in rare form, an absolute mood because I was once again working two jobs, and disgruntled with what I perceived as incompetent management was driving me nuts. At this point, I was in my second apartment. This one was in midtown in a cute little gated apartment complex off Spring Hill Avenue right by Stanton Road and Tuscaloosa Street.
I’d already been disgruntled the first time I worked there, which was between 2003 and the end of 2005. At the end of 2005, I was taking a full load of courses, so I could complete my undergraduate degree. I was working my butt off as a to-go girl, a server, and a busser. At one point, I was able to carry two fully-loaded trays of food or dirty dishes with perfect balance. Albeit, there were times mistakes were made.
I was also clueless about life, men, and all of the things that probably would have served me well. I was raised in a conservative Christian household. For example…I was 22, a week away from my 23rd birthday, by the time I lost a game of “just the tip” along with my virginity with a person I will henceforth refer to as “second boyfriend”. Second boyfriend was avoidant, and about six months in our nearly two-year relationship, he’d move from Mobile to Biloxi to be a professional poker dealer because the movie Waiting came out, and that was his wake-up call to do something that would yield more income…and I suppose be more prestigious?
But in 2005, I was walking out of the swinging doors that led out of the kitchen toward the 400s with a tray laden with beverage glasses when something happened, and one tipped, and like dominoes, they all fell, saturating me in water and tea. I was soaked. Liquid squished inside of my shoes. My mouth dropped open in shock, and I walked back into a packed kitchen and shouted, “I’M SO WET!” Everyone burst out laughing, and they appropriately laughed even harder when I said, “What’s so funny? I don’t get it?” That was my legacy—a clueless and naïve virgin. It was explained to me.
I’d eventually quit in 2005 because both of my parents had been hospitalized for different reasons—my dad would need bypass surgery by the spring of 2006, and my mom had a migraine that was so bad she needed inpatient treatment. My brother was also a full-time student. I bore the load for all of us in early December 2006, staying awake for 36 hours and developing tonsillitis from stress. Our then GM had no empathy and treated my education like an option. When they begged me to come in for a to-go shift because the other to-go girl was so sick she was hurling, I went in. Of course, when the GM who once told my brother “you’re an employee—you don’t have to be happy” criticized me for having “attitude”, I quit. My tonsillitis cleared almost instantly (I still have my tonsils).
The same kind of thing happened in 2006. I got a job at Anorexia and Fitch solely because it promised to move you around. I was ready to motor out of Mobile, so I accepted the terms—a $23,000 salary for a 50-hour 5-day workweek. Except that…I was the only manager who wasn’t with a partner, a parent, or a roommate. Sean would be my first “roommate” in that we’d eventually date, get engaged, and get married. We never officially lived together until we got our first house together when we were engaged shortly before we eloped.
That was when I picked up my second job—back at the Olive Garden on my two off days. I was exhausted. I lost my job at Anorexia and Fitch after three months. I was working seven days a week, and the district manager said I wasn’t smiling enough. Like, Tony, I’m exhausted and grossly underpaid. It wasn’t sustainable. I wasn’t even mad about it because the promise to move me out of town to a different location was yet-still unfulfilled.
Consequently, this is when I realized how disposable we were in corporate America and I decided to work for myself, not some company or corporation that was going to treat me like a number. I know how hard I’d worked at both Olive Garden the first go-around and how much I sacrificed. I was putting myself dead last, and that’s no way to live.
By 2007, I was working at a restaurant called The Bakery, which was closer to my midtown apartment, and I was within mere shifts of quitting The Olive Garden. I was walking out of the kitchen—that same door where the drinks had spilled on me, carrying a tray to a table in the 500s when a new guy held the door for me. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “There you go, darlin’.”
With hardly a backward glance, I tartly quipped, “Nobody touches me,” and prissed off carrying my tray. I’m fairly sure he chortled, and suffice to say—he would prove me wrong.
That was my first memory of “us”. I quit the OG for the last time shortly after that, but I’d still go hang out with my friend who was dating the bartender. We’d go to the café and sit and drink cocktails and have an uproarious time. Because I’d barely passed a glance at Sean the one day we worked together, I didn’t recognize him when he hustled into the café—always in the weeds.
Instead, I saw a man with short dark hair, olive-toned skin, and a chiseled jawline, and I shouted, “Lucky!” believing this was a guy from my sophomore English class at the University of South Alabama who went by his last name—Lucky. Obviously, he was not, but clearly—I was.
Sean came over and started talking. He was the cutest guy I’d ever seen, and even though I was still long-distance dating second boyfriend—expiration dating, if I’m being honest, I flirted shamelessly.
Sean’s core memory of our origin story was the day in 2007 when I was at the bar at Olive Garden. I was wearing my Hooter’s French Quarter shirt, an ironic purchase from 2003 with my best friend. I had on a pale pink floral cotton miniskirt from American Eagle and was wearing a pair of pink jelly flats with it. He was—predictably, in the weeds, but he took the time to come talk to me. He showed me his military ID. Sean was an Air Force Reservist at Keesler AFB. Being the shameless flirt that I was, I tucked it into the top of my shirt and refused to let him have it back.
Of course, I did eventually give it back to him, but he had to hustle back and forth a few times checking on his tables before I’d give it to him. I know—terrible of me.
Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, Sean had a crush. He’d always come say “hi” when I went in with my girlfriends. I wasn’t paying that much attention. Then in the spring of 2007 while I was at the café one day knocking back screwdrivers like the alcoholic in training that I was, he popped over. I told him I was about to go across the street to the Irish dive bar, Paddy O’Tooles to hang out with friends and invited him to come along.
I spent an hour sitting at the bar talking to my friend Gavin, increasingly convinced Sean wasn’t going to come, but then he did. He wasn’t wearing his Olive Garden uniform—black pants and a white button down and necktie—he’d gone home showered, ironed his jeans, and put on an Express button down.
We sat and talked for a while. I couldn’t tell you what we talked about, but I do know that Sean was floored when I revealed the existence of second boyfriend. Sean couldn’t understand why I didn’t lead with that, but the reality was, even though I thought he was super cute, I wasn’t thinking about him like that at all…yet.
I said, “Oh, it’s okay. I’m not going to marry him,” to which Sean replied, “Then why are you with him?”
“It has to run its course.” And of course, it would. Tired of feeling neglected and exhausted with our arguments, I broke up with my avoidant boyfriend in August of 2007. He made me tremendously anxious, and I just couldn’t keep self-abandoning or chasing him. I was becoming more empowered. Of course, he suddenly started to want to promise me everything—he’d move back to Mobile, he’d do whatever it took, and for only a moment, I acquiesced, but the universe intervened when his former high school girlfriend re-entered his life, and he wanted to give it a shot with her.
I was heartbroken. The rejection hurt, but by the beginning of 2008, I was course correcting. It was the beginning of graduate school. I was going to South for my MA in creative writing. I was no longer working at The Bakery and instead had an assistantship in technical grant writing. In the fall of 2007, I took seven classes to prep for grad school. Initially, I was going to get my master’s in secondary education, but at the bottom of the ninth, as I was walking toward the English Department, I thought about the photography majors in the visual arts building across campus, and I could feel how much I would love a career in the arts. My earliest childhood dream was to write. By this time, I was writing aplenty on MySpace because there was a blog spot for it. I’d already been writing my “ruminations” on living on my own fairly regularly starting in 2006 when I moved out on my own in February of that year. So, I changed my path.
Sean was still in the picture, but only—insofar as I knew—as a friend. I thought he was cute, but I wasn’t “that” into him even though we’d kissed a few times (kissing was my favorite contact sport in my early 20s). I remember once he was with my friends and me at a Mexican restaurant off of Government Street. I was wearing fishnet stockings and a very cute and very sexy outfit—you can blame or thank Carrie Bradshaw and the lore of Sex and the City for this. He paid for my meal as well as my friend’s, so I really didn’t get that this guy liked me. However, I’d recently been kissed by someone who I wanted to crush on, and it was a good kiss, so I decided to experiment by kissing Sean. He was a little nervous because I caught him by surprise.
Both of these guys messaged me regularly. The other guy—possibly to make me jealous or possibly because it was true—told me he had a crush on someone else who he was talking to in Florida, and I said…nope. I’m not going to compete to take this guy from some other girl. I’d just had that happen when second boyfriend jettisoned me like I was nothing for his ex high school girlfriend who he told me was a beyotch. Clearly, she couldn’t have been that bad.
So, instead, I just decided to focus on myself. It was…going. Sean texted “good morning” to me. I was, coincidentally, in the same boat I would be in at 43—single, focused on my writing, and having a blast with my girlfriends. Same shit, different cast of characters (well, some are still in the picture).
Sean and I truly reconnected in 2008 after the Inca Ball. I’d gone out with one of my single girlfriends to the ball—I was balling single all season that year—we had way too much fun, and such as the custom, I drank way too much. I remember getting ready at my apartment off Spring Hill Avenue drinking those little bottles of sweet champagne they serve at strip clubs (or so I was told), so we were already tipsy by the time the ball started. I had a blast dirty dancing the night away. It was 2 AM when I rolled up to What-a-Burger for a grilled chicken sandwich covered in mustard, which I all but hoovered on the way home. I woke up the next day hung over as fuuuuuuck.
The lights hurt, and I felt nauseous. The only surefire cure was hair of the dog and a chimichanga. For whatever reason, I needed to go to my parent’s house. I would soon be in the process of moving back in because they discourage you from having a job during graduate school, and my assistantship wasn’t going to pay all of it. Even though I also had gig as the fine arts section editor for The Vanguard, South’s newspaper, I still wouldn’t be able to keep living in my beloved apartment. I was going to have to move out. I had mixed feelings about moving back home, but I was grateful that I had the option.
I put on my glasses and some comfy clothes and headed over to their place. My hangover made my head spin. Along the way, I curbed my Scion TC and blew the tire on Cottage Hill Road. Are you kidding me? Sean had messaged me and wanted to get something to eat. He came to pick me up from my parent’s house after the tow truck had taken the car for repair. We went to my favorite Mexican restaurant where I and my fondness for salsa was known.
I looked like holy hell, but I honestly didn’t care because I wasn’t doing the girly thing. I wasn’t picking at my food. I was hungry. I had three Michelob Ultras and ate the entire chimichanga. How charming of me. But I wasn’t trying to be cute or impressive, but…we kept talking.
I made it clear I wasn’t really ready for a relationship even though he wanted for me to be his girlfriend. We’d been hanging out an increasing amount since my last relationship ended in 2007, getting dinner, and he was treating me well. But the idea of a label and the obligations of a relationship landed with my nervous system like an emotional allergy. But equally I wasn’t interested in dating anyone else, so it was just Sean from that point onward…until our birthdays. I’d picked up a job working as a salesgirl at Express in the mall, and because Sean loved Express’s clothes as much as I loved Victoria’s Secret’s, I was planning to buy him three button downs for his birthday that March 28.
That day, he invited me to Lenny’s for lunch off of Azalea Road because he wanted to talk to me about something. I was sure he was going to ask me to be his girlfriend, and I was finally ready to say yes. The line was long, but he said he wanted me to get my food before we talked. I didn’t understand why, but okay. We sat toward the door. I was facing the road, and Sean said, “I think we should break up because I don’t see myself being willing to die for you.”
Ummm…I didn’t realize that was criteria, nor did I think that’s what I was asking from him. “Why did you let me order a sandwich?” I had no appetite whatsoever at this point. The wind had been completely knocked out of me, and I wanted to leave.
He apologized, and he walked me to my car. Spontaneously, I decided that if this guy was going to break up with me, I was going to give him something to remember. I grabbed the lapels of his button and pulled him in for the mother of all goodbye kisses to which he responded. I intensified the kiss, and it was so passionate that a woman in the parking lot across from us shouted, “Get a room!” at which point we broke apart. I wiped my lip and sat down in my car and then said, “Your pants are unzipped.”
It really helped take the sting out of getting dumped by a guy I was—in hindsight—taking for granted, liked me a lot. Still you can’t be ready for something you’re not ready for. I went to work that night, grateful that at least I knew before I dropped upwards of $100 on shirts for not-my-almost-boyfriend.
That night after work, I went to my friend’s place where another couple was there, and—as was the custom for the millennials at the time, drank my feelings. We went to T.G.I. Fridays and had some more. I was sufficiently hammered when I left, and even though one of the people I was with worked in law enforcement, he didn’t say anything to deter me from driving home. I remember the drive home and knowing I was in no condition to be driving. I pulled into my parent’s driveway but then thought better of it like any drunken moron, and so I backed out of the driveway, knocking off my right-side view mirror in the process. This would…by the way, be a recurring theme for me…losing my side mirror. Hindsight is 2020, but I frequently didn’t have a mirror. My depth perception was…special. It was a running joke at Joe Bullard where a friend I used to play Texas Hold ‘Em worked. It was either that or tires. Bless my heart.
I spent the day before my birthday recovering from my failed mission to annihilate my hurt feelings at being rejected. I had plans to go to a hookah bar, The Purple Café, with my girlies to celebrate my birthday, though, I was smarting from my piss-poor choices the night before and feeling massive guilt that I’d let my parents see me drunk—I was living at home again by this point, so I didn’t drink. I was wounded and tender. While we were sitting around smoking and talking—it was a far less festive time than I’d anticipated because of my recent rejection and dumbfuckery, Sean sent me a text—I bet you look beautiful tonight. That was all I needed to work with. Just an opening to a door. But what to do?
Of course news travels quickly. I went to Olive Garden the day after my actual birthday—March 30, with one of my besties—the one who was dating D, the bartender, and he and I had a conversation about Sean. D and I had almost dated before I got with second boyfriend during my “kissing is my favorite contact sport” era. I’d just turned 25-years-old. Sean was working full time as a machinist—also his reserve job at the 403rd at Keesler and was still serving a couple of nights a week.
I had class at the University on April Fool’s Day and went to Picklefish with one of my classmates the day “the plan” was to be enacted. I’d persuaded one of the managers at Olive Garden with whom I was good friends to play a little April Fool’s Day joke on Sean the following day. Because of that text while I was with my girls on my birthday, I knew he still liked me. The plan was simple—since Sean was such a polite southerner who affectionately called everyone darlin’, or sweetheart, or baby in the most inoffensive way possible, I told G to pull him into the office to tell him that he was being terminated for sexual harassment, that someone had complained about him.
While I was with my friend after class, I got a message from G—he did it, and I “should have seen the look on Sean’s face” when he told him. He said he told him the truth when Sean started to get genuinely upset. He said Sean chuckled when he realized it was a prank and took it good naturedly…but that prompted Sean to contact me, and after that, barring one moment in 2009 when around Joe Cain Day we’d separated briefly, we were more officially together, though, we weren’t the kind of together that was always together. I’d spend my weekends going to the beach with my girl A (together we were AA…and we probably should have been in AA), and even though I’d invite Sean, he’d opt to do things with his friends on weekends. I was a little annoyed, but at the same time, in hindsight, I’m really glad that we took our time and had a nice six-month trial run on dating before we became Sean and Amy.
Thus, it wouldn’t be until the end of May 2008 that we’d officially become a couple. I’d tell him I loved him first and for the first time standing under the ceiling fan in his townhouse off Airport Blvd while peel and bake cookies burned in the oven.
But the reality was that once it was Sean, it was only Sean. That part was easy. When and how and all of the parts where we grew up together and kept choosing each other despite our (okay, mostly my) hiccups, would perpetually remain TBD, but somehow, we made it onto the plane and the flight into the future took off. Needless to say, I got lucky.