Have you ever watched a dog chasing its tail? It’s hilarious, until the dog actually catches its tail… then, if we’re honest with ourselves, it’s even funnier. The dog will look around in shock wondering who it was that bite him. I can’t help myself every time I see this happen I laugh, not that I don’t have the greatest sympathies for the animal, but we humans do the same thing. We run around in circles and when we finally reach our goal we look around to see who smacked us with it. We simply want what we want, and think getting what we want will make us happy. Sometimes we have to chase our tails many times to get to what we want… each time the trail ends with, at least, a bit of disappointment.
It’s only when we decide to do something different that we are finally able to achieve something different. In my book New Parish, Sarah spent her early twenties chasing here tail, dating guys that were all disappointments. Then she decided to do something different and got a very different outcome…
First couple of pages from New Parish:
“Chapter 1
Bad Date
Sarah slammed the door to her apartment as she entered, then slowly let out a growl, she’d held the anger, embarrassment, and hurt in until she got home. She took a deep breath to calm herself. “Men!” she whisper shouted so her neighbors wouldn’t hear her aggravation.
The evening had been another dating disaster. Sarah always thought, or hoped with each new guy that there might be potential for the future, but each time she’d been completely disappointed. This evening she’d been out with an absolutely handsome guy, who was very sweet. She’d known him for only a few weeks. They’d met when he’d started volunteering at the same children’s center, where Sarah had been volunteering for several years – since she’d moved to Atlanta. When she saw him working and interacting with the kids there, he seemed very nice and obviously loved kids – that was a win-win, to Sarah. So, when he’d asked her out she’d immediately agreed, with a big smile, and great expectations. He wasn’t like the last guy she’d gone out with, all macho and Neanderthal, she’d sworn off that type of man forever. This guy was very nice, and she was naturally very excited to get to know him better.
They met at the restaurant he’d suggested, and things were going really well. The ambience of the restaurant, the conversation, the food – everything that evening was just about perfect, perfect, until a well coiffed young man came to their table and started shouting at her date for cheating on him… The very loud accusations included information that Sarah really didn’t want to know about the guy that she’d wanted to think of as being nice, and exciting, and having potential. The man shouting at her date revealed that he and her date had made commitments, and he took those commitments very seriously. Things went downhill from there. Her date tried to explain to his “friend” that he wasn’t really cheating on him because Sarah, as he pointed out, was a girl. That didn’t float for either his friend or Sarah. Instead of staying in her seat and waiting for the drama to unfold even further, Sarah stood, and gracefully left the restaurant detaching herself from the episode… she never looked back. The embarrassment of that date would live with her for a very long time.
“How am I supposed to know which guys to go out with and which ones to not go out with?” she groaned within herself.
She pulled her long brown hair back into a ponytail and looked at herself in the mirror as she pulled on her pajamas. She scanned her bangs hanging over her forehead while some of the layered strands fell loosely around her face. The events of the evening were flashing through her mind like an old movie, as she thought to herself, “I’m not ugly… why can’t I find a good man? I have curves in all the right places, with ample endowments.” This had been a source of a pride with her as a girl and more especially as she got a little older. Sarah thought it was fun how boys would stutter and stammer at times if she wore a low cut blouse. Her five foot seven, somewhat athletic frame carried her very well, she thought, as she scanned for flaws. She looked at her face to check out what others would see when they looked at her. She had always thought her nose was a bit small but it looked okay, her brown eyes were a little big but they were okay too. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked aloud in frustration.
Sarah’s mind went to something her new friend Mary had said when they were working together at the children’s center. Mary had mentioned her home, a place called New Parish in Arizona. Sarah had known her for a few months. Mary was only going to be there for a while longer, just until she finished her degree in early childhood development with the work study program she was involved in at the children’s center.
Sarah thought about the day she’d been complaining about the poor dating prospects and her dream of being a mom floating away from her, when Mary revealed to her that in the community she came from, the people did plural marriages. So, any girl could get a good man and not have to worry about missing out on being a mom. Mary’s descriptions of her home made it sound like a little piece of heaven, where people lived happy lives, and found their happily ever afters.
Sarah sighed, thinking of the small rural community Mary had described, “Maybe…””
New Parish Available Now!!!
