Heartache, Cookies, and First Dates: A Journey to "Something Good"

It's been four years since I have written in this blog. Because of my pain, I didn't have the strength to put words on paper to write. Before I could write publicly again, I had to process and heal from all that I went through. Although there is still so much I am healing from, I am finally in a place to do this again. Four years ago I had a lot of loss in just a matter of a few months. Failed friendships, a failed dating relationship, failed situations, and a dream that never came to fruition. 

 

In the midst of my struggles, I found purpose in giving to others. I always have and I know it's how God wired me to be. Whether it was cracking jokes to lift a friend's spirits or sending notes of inspiration to people in my life, I poured my heart and soul into making the lives of those around me better. If I was your classmate, I would teach you in a way that the teacher wasn't able to relay, in the way you could understand it. If I was your teammate, I'd finish my sprints, run back and help you finish yours, while vocally encouraging and motivating you and then pushing you over the line to make it in time and helping you stand up after. If I was your player, I would ask you exactly what you wanted and needed and I'd do it, and then do it 100x over, and get my teammates to do it too. I just wanted everyone to feel cared for. To get it. To be the best version of themselves that I knew they could be. I am able to see the strengths in people and bring it out in them.

Before my last year of college basketball, I was having visions and this massive tug on my heart with the message that I was meant for more. I knew I had hit the ceiling of growth where I was at and it was time for me to step into something bigger in order for me to be the best version of my own self. I was expectant, excited and prepared for this next opportunity. All summer, I ran on the track by myself in my neighborhood, speaking words of motivation to myself out loud as I ran. I even signed up for a yoga class that I attended every day. I trained daily with my mentor, Coach Ratliff, and was shooting the best percentage I had in my career with the most confidence I had felt in my life. Which was a lot of confidence if you've ever seen videos of me from when I was in elementary school.

 

In 2019, I started to have a rapid heart rate and this feeling like I was going to get hit by a car, but I was just sitting in my bed. I had this feeling multiple times every day for about two to three months. I felt like I was going crazy. I had just moved from a school that I was deeply rooted in for three years, established in the community as an ambassador for my basketball program. 

 

Every environment has a tone. When you walk into a loving home, you can tell people are loved there. When you walk into a library, you intuitively know to be quiet, as others are. It was very evident pretty early on that the tone of the new environment I was in was not a safe space. The looks on my teammates' faces. The body language. It was suffocating. I felt like I was a balloon full of air that was slowly being released, gasping for air, until I was out of air and couldn't breathe. It was not an environment where you were free to be yourself.

 

I was transparent about my symptoms and shared it with my athletic trainer. She recommended I see a psychiatrist, which I knew meant prescribing medication. I avoided it for two months to see if I could holistically overcome this physiological response to heart ache and loss. Physiological response are our body's automatic reactions to a stimulus, like the example of panic when a car is about to hit you. I journaled, listened to podcasts, read books, watched sermons. I even saw the athletic program's nutritionist. Nothing was helping. 

 

Finally, I saw the psychiatrist and shared what I had been going through in such a short time period. She diagnosed me with anxiety, depressed mood and adjustment disorder, or situational depression. Due to my circumstances, she assured me that it would be more concerning if I was not feeling all of these things with what I was going through. In the following weeks of starting my anti-depressants, I decided it was time to get a golden retriever. 

 

I googled, "cheap golden retrievers near me" and found a posting on Craigslist for golden retrievers for $350. I drove out to a farm in Little Falls, New York, where I picked up this golden retriever that I had found inside of a pin next to a baby calf.

I would be in this suffocating environment and smiling to myself thinking about Zoey and what she may be doing back at my apartment. I knew that I was okay and that life was not as serious and dire as the environment that I was in. In March of 2020, I decided to buy a plane ticket and told my program I needed to go home and would come back for postseason. While I was home, COVID-19 sparked nation wide lockdowns and no one was allowed to travel. 

 

During this time, the numbness set in. I would sleep for half the day. I had a couple of different sweatpants and crew necks that I would alternate wearing. I was in shock about the past year of what I had been through. I asked myself out loud, "What just happened? There is no way that this is really my life." I felt robbed of all the opportunities I was promised and of what I deserved. 

 

In May of 2020 I started training and had hope again. I was determined to make something good with all of the heartache I had been through. I trained every day in preparation to play professionally in Europe, like I had always dreamed and envisioned. I had these expectations to go to a professional basketball combine, to hear from agents, coaches and teams, and to be in a country like Spain or Italy by that September.

Because of Covid, coaches and teams in Europe were trying to get away with offering lower compensation, knowing that players would still take it because they still wanted to play. Covid deeply affected economies and the basketball world overseas. I was getting offers to countries in Eastern Europe that I had never heard of. One team gave me 24 hours to decide on their offer and because they gave me the ultimatum, I immediately declined. I just knew I wasn't desperate, so I waited. I must have had about five to eight offers, none of which I felt was worth it. 

 

While I was training, I was selling basketball gear, Uber eats delivering and baby sitting part time so I could make money to buy food. While all of that was happening, I was on a dating app called Hinge and tried to navigate finding my future husband while also pursuing my dreams of becoming a professional basketball player. I had no idea what my professional basketball career was going to look like, how I was going to make money and was still processing the emotional turmoil I experienced. After a rough weekend, feeling the pressure of not getting the offers I wanted, feeling financially stressed and all of these unknowns, I just felt like nothing was going for me and I was really tired of having to constantly persevere.

I was hysterically crying and told my sister and her friends to physically put their hands on me and to pray out loud. I just kept saying over and over, "I need something good to happen in my life. I need something good. I NEED it." 

 

I remember telling them that I was hanging on by a thread and I couldn't handle much more. They all laid their hands on me while I sobbed and they prayed out loud. I would interrupt them with a, "I NEED SOMETHING GOOD!!"

 

The next day I had a long road trip back to Texas and received a text from this guy that I matched with on that dating app, Hinge. I texted him back and let him know that I was not in a place to carry casual conversation and that I had rough weekend and couldn't give him the time, effort and energy that he was looking for. I was just a stranger to him, so I was not expecting him to care or to ask what was going on. He seemed to genuinely care about what I was going through. I asked him if he knew what attachment theory was. After some time, he responded with a full synopsis of the background of attachment theory, who created the attachment theory, what each attachment style was, etc. I actually ended up learning more about it from him. I tried to explain a situation I was going through with a friend by explaining the differences of our attachment styles. 

 

From there I brought up more personality quizzes, which of course I sent him links to take. We ended up having really great in-depth conversations and he was the first guy I had ever met who had put in so much effort into a conversation, especially given that it was our first time communicating. After several hours of texting, he asked me if I wanted to go on a date with him that Friday, which was also a first for me for someone to be as direct and even calling it a date, to then make it an initiative to plan the date.

                        

He made reservations to a restaurant in Dallas called the Henry and sent me a screenshot of the reservation, which also impressed me. The first time I met him in person was a couple days later. Every Tuesday I went to a young adult’s church service called "The Porch" at Watermark church and told him I was going with my sister and asked if he wanted to come. I wanted to take off some of the pressure of our first date being the first time we met and also alone! Dating as a woman is scary, y'all know. 

 

I didn't give him a heads up on the type of church this was. It's a massive non-denominational church. When you arrive, it does not look like a church. Churches like this have worship services that seem more like a concert. When my sister and I walked in, I saw this guy standing there with tan slacks, nice dress shoes, a maroon short sleeve shirt, a gold chain, a couple of gold rings and a Gucci mask. Oh, and fat muscles, like really big arm muscles. I was wearing black jeans, black vans and a blue denim jean jacket. My hair was curled because I had gotten my hair done a couple days prior. We sat by each other in the cold overflow room. That was another thing I failed to tell him; these big churches are FREEZING!

 

I walked up to him and said, "Hey there, are you Floyd?" and he said, “Yes! Are you Brooke?" When my sister introduced herself, she said her name was Brooke as well, so I said, "Wow, you're more nervous than I am." Of course, my sister was wearing Nike volleyball shorts from middle school, black fuzzy flip flops and a T-shirt.

After the service, Floyd walked me to my car and I said that it was nice to meet him and I said something along the lines of, "You look really good by the way" and he said, "Oh my gosh, you're gorgeous!!!" and he just kept saying that. You know how extra he is..

 

On our date that Friday I parked at his apartment complex, where he met me outside and took an Uber to the restaurant. He held every door. When we ordered our food, he suggested the short rib. I didn't know what that was at the time, so I thought it was baby back BBQ ribs and I just thought this guy is crazy to ever think that I would ever order barbecue ribs on a first date. Well, when his short rib came out and he let me try it, it was the best thing I had ever had in my life. I now order that every time we go, by the way. That was the day I learned Floyd knows the best food to get on every menu!!

 

We talked for hours and then afterwards he took me to a Speakeasy, which I had never heard of before. During the prohibition, alcohol was illegal and there were these underground bars and you would have to have a secret password or code to get in. This bar that Floyd took me to had a telephone booth and you had to enter numbers in the dial. Once you did, this wall opened up and you got to go in. We spoke for hours. I've only seen Floyd cry a handful of times in my life and that night was one of them. He was telling me about his late grandma, Lucy. He told me he was surprised that he was sharing so much with me so quickly and our date was around 7 hours long not that surprising to those who have ever talked with me. 

 

I let Floyd know that I needed to get back home shocking that it was me to set a boundary on time. He asked me if I could come back to his apartment because he made some cookie dough for me and wanted to bake it fresh for me. I thought this guy must think I am crazy to go back to his apartment. He was a stranger but I also knew that based off of the context of the type of conversation we had, he is a smart and genuine guy, but I told him, "Just letting you know that my family and my mom have my location and they know where I'm at and where I'm going so if you attempt anything, you will go to jail, you will not make it free." He understood, so I sat on his couch while he baked me his homemade cookies.

I drove home and listened to this song called, "Good Morning" by Ralph Castelli and I just listened to it over and over on repeat. It was a song that came on while we were at the Speakeasy. I cried on my drive home listening to it because I couldn't believe how well this guy treated me and he didn't even know me.

It's now been nearly three years since our first date, which was November 27th, 2020, and I always think back to that story of when I demanded a good thing to happen in my life from God. These last three years, I have always held on to the fact that I have this gift and I had such little hope and faith, but just enough to still go to God and say, "I need something good in my life" and the next day, receiving a text from Floyd, who would become my husband.

 

That gift is what I've always leaned on as my "something good." I have so many things I'm thankful for in my life, but having my soul mate, the person I'm in love with, my husband, the person who knows me in ways that no one has ever known me, and no one ever will know but him, is my good thing.

 

Floyd is my good thing - a source of love, understanding, and unwavering support. I know that no matter what I go through, stress, heartache, mistreatment by others, different trials to overcome, times where I'm down or having feelings of anxiousness, I still have my good thing. 

 

Last month I was reading out of Luke chapter 17. The disciples told Jesus, "Give us more faith" and He said, “You don’t need more faith. There is no ‘more’ or ‘less’ in faith. If you have a bare kernel of faith, say the size of a poppy seed, you could say to this sycamore tree, ‘Go jump in the lake,’ and it would do it." 

 

Reading this, I remembered that night when my sister and her friends laid their hands on me. I think my faith was less than that poppy seed, mustard seed, whatever you want to compare it to. My thread was THIN. Yet, that was all it took to give me the best thing to ever happen to me. 

 

Life's journey is unpredictable, filled with twists and turns that challenge our faith. Through heartache and loss, I've learned that holding onto that kernel of faith and trust in Jesus, is what guides us through the storm. It may not always arrive in the package we expect, or especially in the route we wanted it to, but if we remain open to the possibilities, it can lead us to the most unexpected places - places where love, redemption, and our "good things" await.

And if you're lucky, maybe even handmade cookies baked by your dream man on your first date.

To follow Brooke and Floyd's story, subscribe to their YouTube channel at

https://www.youtube.com/@brookeandfloyd, follow their Instagram at @brookeandfloyd or check out their bio site.