by Hale, Mandy
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I hissed urgently at the nearest flight attendant. “I need to get off the plane!”
The young, blond flight attendant whipped around in confusion to see who was causing the commotion and seemed relieved to find me, in all my skinny, twitching glory (which I guess was preferable to a bona fide terrorist with dynamite strapped to her shoes). She immediately launched into soothing, crisis-averting mode. “Now, ma’am, it’s okay. People fly every single day with no problems at all. Is there anything we can do to make your experience more enjoyable?” Yes, I thought. You can knock me in the head with a blunt object and wake me up only once we arrive in Vegas.
“No, I don’t think so. I think I just need to get off the plane.”
The country music group sitting at the front of the plane in first class was, much to my chagrin, witnessing this entire humiliating episode. Should I actually make it to Vegas and wind up interviewing them on the red carpet, at least maybe we could use this as an icebreaker. “Hey, remember the crazy girl who delayed your flight and scared everyone into thinking they were being hijacked by a washed-up eighties actor having a really bad hair day? That was me! Ha, ha, ha!”
A moment or two passed with me insisting to the flight attendant that I must be allowed to exit the plane before one of the country stars’ wives discreetly made her way up to the front of the cabin and to my side.
“Honey,” she said in her sweet Southern drawl, “I deal with this same thing all the time. I had to make them let me off a flight to LA once. I hate to fly with a passion!” She put her arm around me and winked at me reassuringly. “Come sit by me, and I’ll introduce you to my little friend, Valium. You’ll be cleared for takeoff in no time!”
“Um, ma’am,” the flustered flight attendant interrupted, looking alarmed. “Passengers aren’t allowed to share medication with other passengers. It goes against our security policy.”
Mrs. Star Wife looked a little miffed, but continued to pat me on the back in a very mother hen sort of way, her kindness bringing tears to my eyes. She gazed at the flight attendant imploringly. “Well, isn’t there anything you can do for this young lady? Perhaps offer her a better seat, closer to the front of the plane?”
After a little shuffling around, a passenger at the front of coach agreed to trade seats with me so I could have an aisle and a wall in front of me, rather than being packed in like a sardine toward the back. Okay, here we go, I thought. Take two. You can do this! I glanced over my shoulder at my boss, who by this point was looking more than a little annoyed. Turning back to the front, I closed my eyes and began to say the Lord’s Prayer to myself. I was just entering the zone when I felt the ground start to move beneath me. We were starting to taxi down the runway, and my body was going into major fight-or-flight response mode. Fight won that coin toss as I jumped to my feet once again and pushed my way to the front of the plane.
“Ma’am, you’re going to have to sit down! The plane has started to pull away from the terminal!” the blond flight attendant insisted, her calm exterior starting to crack a bit.
“No! I can’t. I have to be let off this plane. Now,” I asserted. “I can’t do this. I have to get off.”
The flight attendant, perhaps seeing the look on my face and realizing she was either going to have to issue me a straight jacket or find a way to get me off that plane, turned to her little phone and began punching buttons. After a hushed conversation, she turned back to me. “Okay, we’re going to pull back to the gate,” she said. “But you have to be seated in order for us to be able to do so.”
I walked the walk of shame back to my new and improved front-row seat, my face no doubt turning fifty shades of magenta as the flight attendant came over the loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you will remain seated and bear with us for just a moment, we are going to have to return to the gate momentarily.”
A few minutes later, as I was exiting that plane bound for Vegas, I glanced back over my shoulder once more at Mrs. Star Wife. She nodded back at me, her eyes filled with compassion and understanding, tempering the sting of humiliation and embarrassment just a tiny bit. She gave me a reassuring smile that would stick with me over the coming weeks and months as things got more difficult at work based on my inability to complete that flight and take my assigned spot on the red carpet. She, like Ms. Loretta Lynn who came before her, was another guidepost I would meet along my path to becoming the woman I was meant to be. Even in the face of inconvenience, she was patient, kind, and protective of a young girl she had never even met. Her offer of Valium was less about trying to sedate me and more about trying to do anything she could think of to help out a fellow sojourner in need. Her big heart jumped to my defense even as my boss shot daggers at me from the back of the plane—and that was something that I have never forgotten, even all these years later.
After slinking off the plane in a cloud of humiliation, it occurred to me that I had packed everything but the kitchen sink in my luggage, which was now footloose, fancy-free, and Vegas bound. The extent of my wardrobe left behind consisted of the clothes on my back, a few other grungy T-shirts, and one holey pair of jeans. I had no toiletries, no makeup, no shoes, not even any clean underwear. (Let’s just say packing lightly has never been my specialty.)
Over the next three days, while the rest of my coworkers partied with my luggage in Vegas, I went by the airport every morning to check on the status of my bags. Each day the situation seemed more and more hopeless, as now the airport couldn’t even tell me that my luggage had, in fact, made it to Vegas. This only stood to reason. I mean, if the owner of the luggage couldn’t get over her fear and make it there, why should her luggage be held to a higher standard?
On day four, when the airport representative came rolling out my two gigantic suitcases, I wept with joy and relief, not even caring that my luggage had evidently eloped with two other suitcases while on its brief sabbatical to Las Vegas. And even though what happens in Vegas usually stays in Vegas, my suitcases (and my entire wardrobe) somehow found their way home from Sin City to Music City in one piece.
Most people get on a plane to arrive at a destination. I got on a plane to arrive at the undeniable conclusion that the journey is, in fact, the destination.
Yep. I’ve never been to Vegas—but my luggage has.
I tell this story because it is a metaphor for my entire life.
Over the past thirty-four years, my journey through life has been much like that infamous plane ride to Vegas that puttered its way down the runway but quickly turned back before it could really get off the ground. It has been complete with a cast of colorful characters who have each revealed a new layer of myself to me; some have built me up, some have torn me down, but all have pushed me, challenged me, and molded me into the woman I am today. With as much excitement, anticipation, and fire as a jet hurtling down the runway, the relationships and significant milestones of my life have all been no-holds-barred, full steam ahead—until something came along and threw a wrench in the plan and the plane abruptly stopped midcourse. Sometimes the plane stopped to avoid certain disaster. Sometimes the plane stopped to allow my path to collide with someone else’s who was meant to have an impact on my life. And sometimes the plane stopped to teach me a lesson that I never could have learned had it actually taken flight. Whatever the detour, roadblock, or stop sign, my life always finds a way to come magically full circle in the most beautiful, entertaining, and sometimes downright hilarious ways. And though many of my adventures have found a way to go horribly awry—often taking me places I never intended to go—I have never lost sight of the fact that the journey is the destination.
Does this cause me to lose hope? Absolutely not. Because in all their anticlimactic glory, my foibles, missteps, and wrong turns have pushed me ever closer to my destiny, just as your own fiascos and flaws are meant to point you to your cause. The people, experiences, and lessons I have met along the way have all been guideposts, pointing me in the direction of my own North S
tar. Most people’s stories resemble those of a popular “chick lit” book: Girl meets boy, girl marries boy. Girl has 2.5 kids, buys a minivan, and lives happily ever after. My journey, however, has followed a far less predictable story: stalled chapters, unexpected plot twists, and dozens of rewrites that have left the ending more than a little uncertain. But this much I know: had I never met these people and lived these wild and crazy moments of highs and lows, pleasures and pains, I would have never met myself. Without more than a few bad dates, I would have never met my fate. Am I the perfect heroine of a modern-day fairy tale? No. I’ve stumbled and fallen, made a fool of myself, given in to fear, acted out of insecurity, made bad decisions, battled my control issues, and broken my own glass slippers a million times. But even in the midst of my biggest, most explosive crash landings, I’ve never given up hope for a happy ending.
So this is my story. Imperfect and zany and disjointed as it may be, it is my fairy tale. Maybe I haven’t met my Prince Charming, but I have met dozens of toads who have taught me how to rescue myself, dozens of fairy godmothers who taught me how to believe in myself, and dozens of magical moments that taught me never to give up on myself. And along the way, quite accidentally, through my blog, social media persona, and first book, The Single Woman, I became the voice for hundreds of thousands of women across the world who are also boldly and courageously living out their Once Upon a Time, going on nothing but faith that the road less traveled will eventually lead to Happily Ever After.
Along the way, I also met God. That has been the most significant meeting of all. And though my walk with Him has at times been just as disjointed as the rest of my story, He is the common thread that connects all the dots. Walking with God is not an easy, tidy, no-muss, no-fuss little journey as some would have you believe. It’s messy and often confusing and one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. It’s not the wide path or the easy path; it’s the narrow path—one I have strayed from many times. The really amazing, beautiful, and miraculous thing about walking with God, however, is that even when you stray, He manages to find you. He uses the ugly, dirty things you do while running from Him to draw you back to Himself. He finds the one tiny diamond in the mountains of ashes that we sometimes allow our lives to become, from burning through the wrong people, wrong relationships, and wrong experiences.
Before you throw this book aside and discount it as “just another Christian story,” hang on. I’m not preaching at you, I’m talking with you. My story is not a “faith-based” story; it is a story of faith, one I feel confident you will be able to relate to and learn from, regardless of your particular spiritual beliefs. And if along the way you come to know the God I know and love, we’ll count it as a bonus.
It is my hope that you will see a little glimmer of yourself in my heartbreaks, in my victories, and in my defeats. It is my hope that my story will inspire you to go out and live your own story a little more boldly and fearlessly. May my lessons become your blessings, and my mistakes chart a path for you to realize your miracles. I hope you chuckle along with me as I unapologetically follow my heart wherever it leads—even when it leads to unbelievably awkward, uncomfortable, and hilarious hijinks. And perhaps my many, many falls will help you find the courage to get back up, time and time and time again.
It is my hope that you will begin to see that every sentence, every chapter of your own story is all leading up to the bigger book, the bigger picture. Even though my story is still being told, I can look back at my journey so far and see how a heartbreak led to a breakthrough, which led to a new beginning, which then led to another piece of my destiny falling into place. I hope that after reading this book you will be able to look back at your own life with new eyes and see how every thread is connected to a bigger tapestry. It all matters. Nothing, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, happens to you without serving a greater purpose. Call it synchronicity or fate or, as I call it, divine order; every moment of your life pushes you toward your greater calling. I know this to be true because I’ve lived it. For my entire life leading up to the moment when I began to step into my greater calling, God dropped little clues, hints, and breadcrumbs along the way. Sometimes He did it to draw me back to the path I needed to be on. Sometimes He did it to detour me away from a path I didn’t need to be on. And sometimes He did it for no other reason, I am convinced, than to make me laugh. But whatever His reason for intervening at integral moments along the way, this is what I have learned from cowriting my story with Him: every character, every chapter, every page, and every word has meaning.
You will find loss and love and laughter and tears on these pages. You will find a much-flawed princess who has hurt people, broken hearts, made shockingly bad decisions, fallen in love with the wrong guys, and been a victim of her own bad judgment. You will find an imperfect person who has let God down as many or more times as I have pleased Him. But even taking all that into account, I wouldn’t have missed any of it for the world. Because all these experiences, these people, and these divine appointments helped create me. These circumstances didn’t define me; they helped refine me. The ashes of the girl I used to be turned me into the diamond of the woman I am today.
And that’s how, once upon a time, not so long ago and far away, a single woman became The Single Woman.
Chapter 2
Love Is in the Air
Even before I became The Single Woman, I lived up to my future moniker all the way up until I was a senior in high school. I didn’t have my first real love until I was eighteen. I had carried my shyness right into my teenage years, and though I was always on the fringes of the “popular crowd,” sat at the right table in the cafeteria, and was included in most of the parties, football games, and pep rallies, I still never quite felt like a card-carrying member of the cool kids’ club.
Though I had a few minor crushes and a few dates here and there, I largely felt invisible to the opposite sex in high school. I can remember feeling like I never quite fit in with anyone. Now I can look back on it and see that I never quite fit in because I was never meant to. I never knew how to be a follower, and I never succumbed to the temptations of cigarettes or alcohol or drugs in high school like so many teenagers do. I was far from perfect, but I think I felt God tugging on my heart, even then, to live my life by a different standard than most. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I can look back at those days now and see that I was being prepared for a different sort of journey than the majority of my counterparts. At the time, though, more often than not, it just felt lonely.
After three years of high school passed by without a single steady boyfriend, one day during senior year I happened to spot a boy I had never noticed before working in the bookstore in the lunchroom. While I was standing in the candy aisle, trying to decide between the Reese’s and the Snickers, I looked up and caught the boy staring at me. He smiled. I smiled. I continued to casually browse. The minute he got busy with his cash register and line of customers, I elbowed my best friend, Sherry, sharply in the ribs.
“Who’s that guy?” I asked her, trying to discreetly nod his way without calling attention to myself.
Sherry looked up from her rack of magazines. “Who?” she asked, following my gaze. “Oh, that’s Matt. Matt Wilson. Why?” She paused and then exclaimed, “Oh my gosh! You like him! Do you want me to say something to him? His best friend, Brad, is in my economics class. I could get him to say something to Matt!”
“No! Don’t say anything. I don’t like him. I just thought he was, you know, kinda cute. That’s all.”
Little did I know Matt had been eyeballing me for some time too. It turns out we had biology together junior year, and he was the guy two rows back whom I always bummed notebook paper from—though I had no recollection of this. And although Sherry swore she never said anything to Brad to say to Matt, from that day on, I started to notice Matt walking past my locker regularly. Then it became a routine, every day, like clockwork. I would dart to my locker immediately after second period an
d swipe on some powder and lip gloss, just in time for Matt’s approach. After a week or two, his sideways glance and half grin became a “hey.” I would return his “hey” with a “hey” of my own, but after a solid month, we were still just “heying” and hadn’t made any progress.
Until the homecoming dance rolled around.
Most years I just went with my friends, but in fall 1996, something major happened. Matt asked me to be his date to homecoming!
Sherry and I went into a frenzy of preparations for the big night. She and her boyfriend, David, would be doubling with me and Matt to the dance. I can still recall the new outfit I purchased just for the occasion: a lavender angora sweater and matching plaid skirt (It was the Cher Horowitz, Clueless era after all.) I went with my mom to buy a boutonniere for Matt and picked the biggest, healthiest-looking rose I could find. It had a ton of baby’s breath around it, and when I picked it up, it felt like it weighed at least a pound. Little did I know that it would wind up taking up half of Matt’s chest and being more of an albatross than a decorative addition to his outfit. I also didn’t realize that my supersoft angora sweater would shed throughout the evening, and as we danced, purple fuzz would wind up all over Matt’s entire person until he resembled Barney the dinosaur.