I've Never Been to Vegas, but My Luggage Has: Mishaps and Miracles on the Road to Happily Ever After

by Hale, Mandy

  I looked at him in astonishment. “Wait a minute.” I set down my drink. “Wait a minute. You mean you’re telling me you want to be my husband, but you still don’t want to be my boyfriend?”

  “Mandy, you told me to make the grand gesture. I made the grand gesture! Why is this not enough for you?”

  I sat back in my seat, the realization finally hitting me that after everything we had been through, absolutely nothing between us had changed.

  “Why is this not enough for me? Because I deserve more than someone who’s going to show me a fancy ring. I deserve someone who’s going to actually put it on my finger! Do you know what this feels like? This is the moment that every girl dreams about her entire life. It feels like you just handed me the most beautifully wrapped package in the entire world, and I opened the box, and it’s empty!”

  He just sat there in silence, as though he couldn’t comprehend what I was saying or why I was frustrated.

  “I’m just not sure I understand what we’re supposed to do until March if we’re not committed to each other. I know you’re going to be busy, and we might not get to see each other, and you can’t promise me anything till then—I get it. But am I supposed to go into hibernation? What am I supposed to do if another guy asks me out?”

  Still, he sat there. Never has so much been said without saying a word.

  I tried another approach. “Okay, well, why don’t we just call it a night and figure everything out tomorrow?”

  Finally he seemed to snap out of his haze. “Mandy, I can’t hang out with you tomorrow. I have interviews all day.”

  “On a Saturday?”

  “Well, you know how it is. The news doesn’t stop on the weekends.”

  “Okay. I understand if you can’t spend all day long with me, but you’re telling me you have no time whatsoever to spare for me tomorrow? Not even an hour?” We hadn’t seen each other in a year and a half, and we had just looked at engagement rings together, and he was telling me that twenty-four hours was all he had to give?

  “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Gone was the sweet, open, romantic guy from the night before—even from an hour ago. It was as though that invisible wall had dropped down between us again, and he had frozen me out of his heart and his life like he had done so many times before when things got too intense.

  As we left the rooftop, it began to rain. First little sprinkles and then suddenly big, fat, heavy drops, like the ones that were threatening to fall from my eyes. I didn’t have an umbrella, and I didn’t care. My salon-styled hair that had just hours earlier been so shiny and perfectly curled started to droop around my face—the perfect metaphor for how I was feeling. Mr. E and I didn’t even walk together. Instead, we walked in a single-file line; two people who had been on the same page for perhaps the first time ever, now like two strangers reading completely different books.

  We made our way to Grand Central Station, as Mr. E wanted to show it to me. He knew that since I was such a movie buff, and since so many films had been shot there, I would get a kick out of seeing it. The gesture meant something to me, but the irony of finding ourselves in the place where so many final scenes of movies have played out—the guy always chasing the girl to catch her and tell her his true feelings before she gets on the train and speeds out of his life forever—was almost too much for me to bear.

  It was late, almost midnight by that time, and surprisingly, Grand Central Station was fairly quiet, none of the usual hustle and bustle that you see in the movies. A few people wandered here and there, but we were largely alone. We sat on the empty marble steps and shared a hot chocolate and a divinely rich éclair—a moment that in another life could have been very romantic; but for me, it fell flat. I was starting to realize that as beautiful as our moments together could be, it felt as if it was all a smoke screen. Just like the movies, our love was one-dimensional. There was a lot of glitter but very little gold.

  “You’re never gonna be that guy at the end of the movie who chases me, are you?” I asked him quietly.

  He just sat and stared straight ahead, a sad look on his face, a brick wall surrounding his heart.

  His silence told me all I needed to know. No answer is very much an answer if you’re willing to listen with your heart instead of your ears.

  It was so late and stormy at that point, we just went back to his place for the night, and I lay awake on the couch, never sleeping, silent teardrops falling on my pillow. He stayed up all night too, watching movies in his room. I guess the nice little ninety-minute version of life and romance was easier for him to deal with than the real thing. In the movies, the beginning of the relationship is usually the end of the movie, and he was too scared to ever take a chance and see what happens after the screen fades to black.

  He walked me to the subway the next morning, a distant look in his eyes, his mind already far away from me and onto his next project for work. He explained to me in great detail which stop I needed to get off at and tucked money into my pocket for a cab once I got off the subway that would take me the rest of the way to Whitney’s aunt’s apartment. He gave me a big hug, a quick kiss, and then it was time to say good-bye.

  “So this is it?” I asked, a tear sliding down my cheek. “This is really how we’re ending things? This is breaking my heart.”

  He looked at me, pulled me into one more hug, and held on for a long moment. “I do love you, Mandy. I’m just . . . confused. I need some time to think.” With that, he pulled away, quickly swiped his subway card for me, and gave me a little nudge through the gate.

  “You need the N train. If you don’t see it, ask someone where it is.”

  With that, he disappeared into the crowd, taking my heart with him.

  That was the last time I ever saw him. But as with most “lasts” in my life, I didn’t know it at the time.

  I boarded my first-ever solo subway ride (after I asked someone which one the N train was), replaying the events of the past two days in my head. I couldn’t believe we had come so far, both geographically and emotionally, only to go our separate ways again. How many times could two people lose each other?

  But we hadn’t really lost each other. Technically, he had given me up. And without even so much as a fight! A man who truly wants to commit to a woman doesn’t almost put a ring on her finger. He actually does it! And I deserved more than an almost proposal. I deserved a real one. I suddenly realized that Mr. E’s grand gesture wasn’t so grand after all, and that made me realize that perhaps his big feelings for me were really quite small.

  Somewhere on that N train between Queens and Manhattan, I found my gumption again. A different girl emerged from that subway than the one who had traveled across the Queensboro Bridge just forty-eight hours before. One with a heart that was a little more battered, a little more bruised, but also a little more brave.

  I was dozing in the car on the way back to Tennessee when a thought startled me awake.

  What if I had let fear stop me from going to New York?

  The adventure I had been on for the past few days had taken me far away from everything I knew, but it had brought me home to myself. I was a girl who just a few short years earlier could scarcely even leave my driveway without having a panic attack. And now here I was riding subways, hailing cabs, hopping buses to big cities, and traveling essentially alone, and I was doing it all without an ounce of fear. Had I never followed my heart to the Big Apple, I might not have realized how brave, bold, and independent I can be. I might never have known I can navigate a big city all by myself. And I might never have grasped how vital it is to follow your intuition wherever it guides you, even if it happens to guide you far outside your comfort zone and ultimately far away from the one person you thought you’d always love.

  If my three days in New York taught me anything, it’s that in life, we often go in search of one thing and end up finding something so much better. Something unexpected. Something we never knew we want
ed but now we couldn’t imagine our lives without. Going in search of Mr. E’s heart had led me to my own. A vital piece of me that had been long ago swept away in the chaos surrounding my departure from CMT and the resulting months of anxiety, depression, and fear was finally reclaimed during those three days in New York.

  And then it hit me.

  I had opened myself up to fearless love, and fearless life showed up instead.

  And that was enough for me.

  When I returned home from New York—by the way, I had been awake for forty-two hours straight by the time my head hit the pillow back in Nashville—I didn’t hear from Mr. E for eight days.

  Eight days.

  When I searched the headlines in New York City and determined that he hadn’t fallen off a skyscraper or been plowed over by a rogue taxi, I called him.

  “Are your fingers broken?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Was your voice box damaged?”

  “No.”

  “Were you abducted by aliens? Lost at sea? Entered a monastery and took a vow of silence?”

  “No. No. And no.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that you were choosing, every day, for eight days, not to call me? After you took me to look at engagement rings?”

  “I guess so.”

  Needless to say, I told him in no uncertain terms what I thought of his behavior and hung up the phone. Then, just in case he didn’t get it, I fired off an e-mail, telling him everything I had needed to say to him for the past five years. I held nothing back. Nothing.

  We didn’t speak again for nearly three months.

  Then, on Christmas Day 2011, a little over five years to the day that I met him, my phone rang. It was him.

  We talked for about forty-five minutes and managed to come to a place of peace with each other. Though I knew in my heart that we would never be together, I also knew, in the history books of our relationship, I wanted the last page to be one of forgiveness and healing, not anger and resentment. In his own weird way, I think Mr. E did love me, and he did try to make the grand gesture. It just wasn’t grand enough.

  That was the last time I spoke to Mr. E. I’m not sure where he is now or what he’s doing. Whatever it is, wherever it is, I wish him nothing but happiness.

  Here’s the thing about that person you think you’ll love, long for, and pine for forever: one day you’ll wake up and you won’t anymore. You just won’t. It might take a week, or it might take a year, or, as in my case, it might take six or seven years and a lot of hard-earned lessons. But one day you will wake up and be free of him. Just like that, the heartache, the tears, and the unrequited love will have vanished, and in its place will be just a memory—one that you’ll even take out every now and again on a rainy day and smile at.

  And as for my Hollywood ending?

  Maybe Prince Charming would find me someday; maybe he wouldn’t. Heck, maybe he got lost somewhere along the way. Or maybe he, like me, had a few more miles to travel before he settled down.

  Those three days in New York taught me that this whole Happily Ever After thing, it happens one moment at a time, one unforgettable adventure at a time. And it might not look the way you thought it would. The person you thought you’d spend forever with might really just be a stop along the way. And maybe when you step back and look at the bigger picture, you’ll see that loving that person, even if he wasn’t your forever, taught you lessons that will last a lifetime. Maybe you’ll even begin to see how that person challenged you, stretched you, inspired you, and made you a better person. And maybe, just maybe, someday you’ll get to write a book and tell him thank you for being a chapter in your story—or even a few chapters—because without his colorful era in your life, however short or long it may have been, you wouldn’t be the woman you are today.

  A few weeks after I returned home from New York, I was contacted by Thomas Nelson Publishers for the first time. We wound up meeting to discuss the potential of me writing the very book you are now holding in your hands, only a couple of weeks after I spoke to Mr. E for the last time. Coincidence? I think not. It took me surrendering the life that wasn’t meant for me to embrace the life that was. Pretty much everything major that has happened in my career happened post-Mr. E. I believe God brings people into our lives to teach us the lessons we most need to learn, and then once we’ve learned the lessons, I think He sits back and watches to see if we will be obedient enough to let those people go or if we will cling to them out of stubbornness, even though their presence in our lives is no longer fruitful. Everything that happens next is a result of how we respond to that test.

  Mr. E helped prepare me for my destiny, but he wasn’t my destiny. I had to sacrifice the lesser for the greater, the short-term for the long run, the smaller piece for the bigger picture.

  And looking back on six years of memories, laughter, heartbreak, tears, kisses, magic, adventure, and romance, I knew I wouldn’t change a thing. Not a bit of it. Including the end.

  Because if the hellos that followed my good-bye to Mr. E have taught me anything, it is this: I had to surrender Mr. E so I could step into everything I was meant to be.

  Chapter 20

  Destination: Me

  Like He always does when I’m feeling lost and beaten down, and I’ve forgotten who I am, God came along and reminded me.

  A few weeks after I returned home from New York, I received a text from my friend Mastin Kipp, whose online help had been so formative in the early days of The Single Woman. “You’re about to get a call that’s going to change your life,” it said.

  Mastin had mentioned to me in passing that he had met with Oprah’s team a few times to discuss the possibility of getting involved in her Oprah’s Lifeclass events, and he told me he had passed along my information to them as “someone to watch.” Still, I had no idea what his cryptic text could mean. How thrilling! And what proof that it truly is darkest before the dawn.

  The call Mastin hinted at in his text came a few days later.

  I was sitting at my desk at work one morning when the phone rang. It was a Chicago area code, which set my pulse racing. Chicago . . . Harpo . . . Oprah. Taking a deep breath, I answered.

  It was a member of Oprah’s team, Maya, inviting me to be an official member of Oprah’s VIP press corps as she traveled to St. Louis and New York to film her show Oprah’s Lifeclass live on location. Only eight bloggers from across the world were being invited to participate. I was one of them.

  All I could see in my mind as Maya explained the VIP press corps to me and what it entailed was my eleven-year-old self rushing home every day and fighting my sister over the remote to watch my inspiration, Oprah, on TV. I saw a flash of myself fresh out of college, refusing to give up my dream of working in local news in Nashville, because that’s where Oprah got her start. Then I saw myself, just a few weeks earlier, with hope in my heart, scrawling across my vision board: “I will meet Oprah.”

  “Mandy, are you there?” the voice on the other line said.

  “Yes! Yes, I’m here,” I replied, shaking away the memories. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just in shock!”

  Maya laughed. “So do you want to participate? Can we officially add you to the list of our VIP bloggers?”

  “Count me in.”

  A few weeks later I struck out for St. Louis Alli and Jennifer in tow.

  Being invited to this event put me in a league of people that was far beyond what I ever imagined for myself as a small-town girl from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I had given God complete control of The Single Woman, prayed that He would be the one to take it to the next level, and asked for opportunities for my message to shine from a public platform; I just never dreamed one of the public platforms He would thrust me onto would be Oprah’s! I could scarcely comprehend the sheer magnitude of the gift of being there in that moment, with those people, to play my small role in adding a little inspiration to the world and helping make it a better place.

  I was a bundle of nerve
s and jitters as I left my friends for the day and strolled into the rather opulent and impressive Peabody Opera House in downtown St. Louis to meet the Oprah Winfrey Network team and my fellow bloggers.

  I was the first one there, as the other bloggers were all delayed at the airport. That’s always a bit of an overwhelming thing, to be tossed into unfamiliar waters without the comfort of fellow swimmers treading water beside you. I felt anxious, overwhelmed, and vastly out of my comfort zone. Vulnerable, unsure, inadequate even. I mean, this was Oprah. The most iconic and inspiring figure of our time, and the woman I had sworn I was going to meet since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, as my mom would say.

  A few steps into the venue, though, I was greeted by a quote on a big, colorful placard: “The whole point of being alive is to evolve into the whole person you were intended to be.”* It’s one of my favorite Oprah quotes. It instantly calmed my nerves. Then, the very still, small voice of God spoke to the very depths of my heart: I’ve got you. Trust Me. And just like that, I let go of my fears and my anxiety and allowed myself to fall into the safety net of His embrace. It was in that moment that I realized what the wonderful folks at OWN must have seen in me, and in the words that poured forth from my heart onto my blog: I was a work in progress. I had not “arrived.” I was still in the midst of the journey, and as messy, battle-scarred, and imperfect as my journey might be, it was enough for Oprah. Even greater than that, it was enough for God.

  And that made it enough for me.

  About an hour later, the rest of the team arrived, chattering loudly and excitedly, everyone introducing themselves to one another all at once. I was thrilled to finally meet Mastin face-toface and to get to give him a huge hug of gratitude for everything he had done to help further my message, and even to help bring me there to Oprah’s Lifeclass.

  Everyone there was fun, creative, and eclectic, and the energy was wonderful. There was a mom blogger, a couple of entertainment bloggers, and three inspirational bloggers, myself included. The great thing about the VIP blogging program was that we were all there to blog and tweet about our individual Oprah’s Lifeclass experiences from our own perspectives. That’s what made it so genius. Obviously a mom blogger would have a very different vantage point from a TV blogger, and so on. We would all glean our own lessons and wisdom from the experience and pass it on in our own unique ways. Between all of us, we had a total following of somewhere around three million people across the globe. It was a brilliantly inventive and groundbreaking method of sharing Oprah’s Lifeclass message with the world.