Virginia is for Rebound Relationships and Crohn's Remission

For years my family said my dad was a heart attack waiting to happen: he was in the chemical corps working with Agent Orange in Vietnam, he was a coal miner for 30+ years, he was a former smoker and drinker. In the fall of 2003 it finally happened, and unfortunately for my dad his youngest daughter (me) was free to come home and badger him. After working nearly every day for decades, my dad didn't quite know what to do with himself. After three years of being busy in law school neither did I, so we were quite the pair.

I spent a few weeks in WV driving my dad nuts because I wouldn't let him eat whatever he wanted. My sister asked me to come visit her in Norfolk, Virginia, and I'm pretty sure Dad was happy to see me go.

My sister and brother-in-law (with whom I'd grown up so he was like a brother long before he married my sister) were a great distraction for how lost I felt. They didn't have internet at their townhouse, so I would visit my sister at work (she is an elementary school librarian) and hang out in her office in the library to check e-mail.

After I'd been there a week or so one of my sister's colleagues told me she knew of a friend of a friend who was looking for a paralegal/clerk. She connected me with him, a sole practitioner who was a patent attorney. He hired me quickly, and I started learning how to manage him (which was the real job). I didn't know much about patent law, and it was fascinating to learn. It was also the most random job I've ever had. I met with clients and potential clients, did billing, went with my boss to buy office furniture and ate a lot of ethnic food I'd never tried during many lunches. 

The new year came and I was working in Virginia, not sure what my future would look like. I decided to rent a condo with my sister and brother-in-law in Chic's Beach, an area of Virginia Beach that we loved. My sister and I flew to Texas where I moved some of my stuff officially to Virginia. My ex would be back in March, but the year apart had not been kind to our already failing relationship. 

With my sister in our condo at Chic's Beach

I loved living in Virginia. I was much more at home than I'd ever been in Texas. In March I flew to Texas because my ex was returning from his deployment. We spent the entire night talking, and we made the decision to split up. It was an inevitable decision in my mind, and I flew back to Virginia the next morning. It felt fast because it was, but I didn't trust myself to stay longer. I knew ending our relationship was the right decision, and I was afraid I'd change my mind if I stayed longer. Leaving was hard, but staying would have ultimately been devastating. 

I returned to Virginia, registered for the Virginia bar exam, and kept living my life there. I started dating which was weird. I'd been with my ex since I was 17, so I'd never dated as an adult. I briefly dated a deejay from my favorite radio station. I had a friend with benefits that I'd met in college. Then there was a guy I met at a bar in Texas who also promptly deployed to Iraq. He was from Michigan but didn't have his own place there. He returned from Iraq and asked to come visit me. That's how I quickly found myself in another serious relationship.

In the summer of 2004 I was working part-time and taking a bar review course in advance of the summer bar exam. I was getting restless working for the patent attorney, and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I scoured the newspaper (the physical newspaper back then) for job announcements. I applied for a job working as the Mayor's Executive Assistant. I knew nothing about local government or what I was getting into, but I got the job. I had to take the bar exam first and head to Michigan for my boyfriend's sister's wedding, but then I was starting a job working for the Mayor of Norfolk.

My first trip to Michigan was weird. Visiting for a reason like one's boyfriend's sister's wedding feels serious, and I was not sure I was ready to be that serious. But here I was. It was fine, but I was thrilled to head back to Norfolk and start my new job.

The boyfriend hung around because he didn't have a job. He was in the National Guard, but he'd dropped out of college for several deployments. As part of my new job I was required to move into the City of Norfolk, so I wouldn't be living at our condo for long. I found an apartment in Ghent that I loved in a historic building. I was sad to leave my sister, but she really hated my boyfriend, and that was becoming an issue while we lived together. 

In retrospect I was not ready to jump right into another relationship, particularly one with a live-in boyfriend. I would go to work at city hall and come home, and he was there. He wasn't working, so he was bored and resentful. One evening I went to dinner with the patent attorney for whom I had worked, and when I got home I felt like I was dealing with a petulant child. I was ready to be a young professional, and I felt like I had an angry teenager at home.

I bought suits and cute jackets (I favored tweed and open-toed sling back heels). I remember taking my boyfriend to an evening event and telling him he needed to dress up. It was akin to telling my child now that he had to wear nice clothes. He fought me tooth and nail. We went to dinner at a nice restaurant one weekend and I suggested he not wear a t-shirt and baseball cap. He accused me of trying to "change" him. That fall he decided to enroll in a military course in Pensacola, Florida, and I was relieved that he had focus. I also felt like I had the best of both worlds: a boyfriend but also someone who was never around. It was awesome.

I had my own health insurance for the first time in my life, and I found a new GI doctor who prescribed Remicade. My infusions in Texas were in the doctor's office, but in Norfolk the doctor infused in an infusion center. The infusion center treated lots of patients, including those receiving chemotherapy. It was an intense experience. 

This was in the days before smart phones, and I did not have cell service in the infusion center. On the day of my first infusion I let the Mayor's secretary know where I'd be, but the message hadn't been passed on. When I left the hospital my phone had lots of texts and calls from the Mayor. I called him back and he was furious that I had been out of touch. I explained the situation to him, and from that point on he was supportive, But it was a surprise to have to deal with someone not understanding my illness.

As the calendar turned from 2004 to 2005, I had my Crohn's under control for the first time in 7 years. Remicade was working. I had a job I loved, my own apartment in a fabulous neighborhood, and a boyfriend who adored me (red flags notwithstanding).