The Coalition of Sierra J. Rubenstein

AWW I: April to June

We enjoyed our time together following our last fight. One of the things I strides to do was broaden Sierra's world. What I mean is that I wanted her to go beyond the confines of Baltimore and explore the surrounding areas and states. I like traveling and for my girlfriend to be so sheltered in her life, I felt that I should bring Sierra more opportunities in her life. One of the first things me and my family did was take Sierra up to the Harley Davidson factory in Pennsylvania. Sierra has never really gone beyond the York area in southern PA. She had a great time touring how they made everything and we jokingly started talking about one day she would be driving me around on her Harley. Sierra especially enjoyed the end of our trip when we drove two towns over to get some candy at Wolfgang's. They made all the candy by hand and it was wonderful. We did visit Wolfgang's a few more times over the course of the next years, but the factory ended up closing down for good. We then took her to Hershey Park for the first time. Her and rollercoasters do not mix. I wished she loved coasters so she could ride with me, but it was funny watching her scream her head off. Like I said, these few months were good. We got to really know one another and always made plans to go out or even just crash at my place. There was a certain feeling that developed between us that mirrored a sense of existentialism and a cynical ideal. That is why I named our relationship period Against the Whole World. That is what we believed. We had too many people trying their hand at breaking us up. Most importantly was Danny. He was not happy about us and he was not wrong for feeling the way he did. Sierra finally had the talk with Danny to finally tell him it was over. It was not pretty, but the job was done. I did kinda lie about things were good these few months. I did have an issue with Sierra. I was holding a little resentment for Sierra lying to me and waiting so long to break up with Danny. I was dealing with a moral dilemma: I pride myself in being this nice and quiet guy that does not try to ruffle any feathers. I do not have any real enemies that hate me, but when I realized that I was the other half to a cheater...I had a hard time forgiving myself. I felt like I ruined my good guy reputation in a way. So I was withholding some intimacy from Sierra. Some people have told me that it is not a big deal, but I just could not get over how wrong it was. I am not saying that me withholding was the leading cause for why we waited to have sex. Oh no, of course I was nervous.
    This was the time frame our relationship became intimate. I was nervous as hell. I thought I would not be good in bed, what if I was premature, what if I could not finish, what if it was so bad she just walks out laughing at me? I was stressing over this milestone in my life. I did not have to worry about if Sierra was ready. She made it clear. She was begging me at one point to have sex. Our third month together was the time I lost my virginity to Sierra. I'm not going to talk about our weird fooling around before our first time together, but I would like to share my very first time. It was incredibly embarrassing for me and awkward. Honestly, that is how I feel like it should be done. No one is going to be great the first time and it might always be magically romantic, but learning how funny it was because how uncomfortable I felt just makes it a happy memory. You know that it is not going well when the first thing I ask after our clothes were off if she wanted us to cover up with a blanket. In my defense, my room can be very cold. So I thought I should ask. Does not make anything sexy when your coming at your girlfriend like a nude vampire with a blanket for a cape saying, "bleh, bleh, here comes my dick". I did not say that, but I threw off the blanket. Of course I struggled to get it in and keep it in. Issues of slipping out became common place for me, but I will digress. Some time passed when Sierra finally asked me, "Is every thing alright? We have been going longer than I'm use to and want to know if you finished".
I realized I made another mistake. I took a condom from Anne Arundel Community College, who offers free condoms for students. I never used a condom and never knew what size I was. That day, I found out I grabbed a small. Boy, I struggled to put it on. That should have been a red flag to me if it was to small to put on. I replied back, "I can't feel my dick. It's numb".
I was so embarrassed to make such a mistake, but I learned from that experience. We had a good laugh about the whole thing and the fact that she did not care and stayed with me just made me like her even more. However, something unusual happened a month later after our first time. Sierra kept trying to get me to propose to her. This was weird to me that she was the one saying this kind of stuff. At one point, I think Sierra even proposed to me. I did not see it as something serious. Her reasoning for us to get married was because she was madly in love with me for being the best man she has ever been with. We have been together for about four months at this point. I was not expecting Sierra to jump to marriage so early. Neither of us were old enough to drink and I had no house if my own. I can not date someone for less than a half year and feel like I want to marry them, hell, I did not understand if I even loved Sierra back yet. How I see things, the bare minimum I must date someone before we get married has to be a year. I want to be able to experience all the seasons and holidays with my significant other to get an understanding how they are all points of the year and their family. I want to have my degree and a career before I get married and start a family. I want to be mature enough and able to be a stable provider for the one's I love. Sierra really did not understand that point of view when I kept telling her because Sierra would bring up me marrying her as often as she could. She loved to say we were practically married already.
    Now June had some issues. I was finding out that Sierra was a smoker who as so dabbled with weed and various waxes. I found out when I use to visit her on her breaks from hair school. I would finish my morning shift at work, go to class, and swing by just to spend even a little bit of time with Sierra. I sat her down in my car to talk about it. I shared with her that I could taste the cigarettes when I kissed her and it made me feel sick to my stomach. I never made a scene about it because I thought it was the overwhelming second hand from her father. I explained how I felt about smoking and told her that it made me sick. I have a bit of a nauseous reaction to cigarettes like my dad. I continued on by telling her that I do not know why you started in the first place. If this relationship prolonged to us marrying, I did want want to see her die at a young age. Of course she was upset when I kinda gave her the option of either having me or continue smoking, but I believed she was happy over me talking about us going long term. She promised me that she would start quitting for me. The next two months had a lot of her anger and mood swings projected onto everyone around her, but she would end up quitting after a few slip ups that I caught. We never worked out the weed situation until it became a problem late, but I was taking it one step at a time.