Confessions of a Casual Perfectionist: Day 19

It’s NaBloPoMo Day 19!

Today’s confession: My daughter told everyone I had a boyfriend named David.  Our imaginary relationship lasted for over a year, and I missed him when he left me.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for years, and now I finally have a chance.

Almost two years ago, my husband was doing a lot more traveling for work than he normally did. So, it’s only natural that I got lonely and found a boyfriend. Kidding! I did get kind of lonely, but I didn’t find a boyfriend.

My daughter found one for me.
The catch? He wasn’t real.  Honest!

One day, when my husband was home, Claire told him that Momma had a boyfriend.

“Really?” he said with a smile. “What’s his name?”

“David,” she said matter-of-factly.  This was news to me!

“Oh, really?” he said with a bigger grin. “What does he look like?”

“He’s a tall black man. He wears khaki pants, and he’s really nice.”

“Really!?” he said. “What kind of hair does he have?”

“Oh, he doesn’t have hair, Daddy. He’s bald.”

Thank goodness my husband isn’t the jealous type.

Oddly enough, I’ve always had a thing for bald men.

“When do you see David?” he asked.

“Oh, he comes over every day!” she said. “Momma has a boyfriend named David!”

We all had a good chuckle…and I thought that was the end to the story.

Until she started telling everyone this. Everyone.

She was barely two years old! She’d say this to strangers and friends alike. I’d blush and deny it. I’d laugh a nervous laugh. “Kids!” I’d say. The more I tried to deny it, the guiltier I sounded.  Most people didn’t realize that Claire was as verbal and imaginative as she was. She had to be getting this from somewhere, right?

They shouldn’t have been so surprised. She’s always been very verbal (putting together sentences by the time she was 17-months old), so that wasn’t the shocking part. The shocking part was the fact that she was consistent in her description of David. Every. Single. Time.

“Momma has a boyfriend, and his name is David.” (At this point, Claire wasn’t familiar with any Davids, so we’re not sure where she got the name.)

“David is a tall black man.” (her words)

“He wears khaki pants.” (I had friends amazed she knew what khaki was, but what can I say? If Claire said David wore khaki pants, he wore khaki pants.)

One of my friends who lived on the East Coast wondered if it was someone she’d seen, like a mailman or a UPS guy or some other delivery person that would come to the house. None of our delivery people match that description.

We didn’t let her watch much TV before she was two, and the shows she may have caught in passing didn’t have any characters that matched David’s description.

I was at a loss…so I decided to embrace it.

We all pretended that David was my boyfriend, and, imaginary or not, our relationship lasted for over a year!

David became a daily topic of discussion. My husband would call me to tell me when he’d be home early “so that David will have a chance to leave before I get there,” he’d say. “I mean, talk about awkward!”

“Let me know if you’re going to be late,” I’d tell him before he left for work. “If you are, maybe David can pick something up for us to eat on his way home.”

My sister would send me random texts about David, asking me what he got me for Valentine’s Day, etc.

David and I were an item for over a year, and then one day he stopped visiting…just like that. Claire said she hadn’t seen him, and that was it.

It was over: no calls, no messages, no nothing. Jerk.

Part of me kept telling myself that something must have happened, because that just wasn’t the David that we’d all come to know and love. The other part of me wondered what I’d done to upset him.

Imaginary or not, my feelings were real!  Or not.  It took a while, but I got over it.

So, David…wherever you are, I hope you had as much fun as I did. It was fun while it lasted.