Closing for the night

I’ve never thought that my dreams couldn’t come true …

Part of my discomfort here is that I can’t seem to let go of the idea that I can have what it is I want, and that I am deserving of it because I am willing to work at getting what I dream of. For instance, my first marriage was one where my ex didn’t have to do anything but show up.

I had just got out of the Army and was looking forward to living my life. Coming home was such a great experience as my family was truly happy to see me. I can still see my brother walking down the street as I got out of my cab on the corner, so I could sneak up to the front door. Instead, I was the one surprised at seeing how much he had grown in the 4 years I was away.

Coming into the house, and hearing the squeals of the twins and my Mother’s loud laugh at seeing me, I learned that one of the twins’ , the one in Chicago had just ‘sensed’ that I was coming home and had told my Mother as much. We had been close like that since she came into the world. So it felt good being back with the people that I loved and who loved me back. The time I spent in the service convinced me of the reciprocity of good relationships, and that is a rule for me. Differences can always be mitigated when love is true. Whether it is by duty or family bond, or because you choose to love, once you give it, it is unconditional. But as we all know, in real life it is hard to apply that kind of philosophy.

My first test of that particular thinking came with my first wife <that is how I am going to refer to her, as I fully expect to have another>, who in many ways, was indeed the first girl that I saw when I came home to Detroit. We worked across the street from one another, her doing hair in a salon and me doing store security at a drug store. She’d come in to buy her snacks and talk jive with the employees as she was a regular. I was the new guy, well-built, always with a smile on my face <funny how that was seen … more later>, and I was driving a shiny new 300zx, that I had purchased with my little Army money; I had seen an officer at Ft. Jackson with one, and I wanted one too. The G.I. College fund was going to cover my schooling, and I was starting out at home. So I gave myself a treat. Little did I know how that was seen.

I managed to get a date, and bang-zoom, we were married by a justice of the peace in a Toledo courthouse. Oof. All my ‘plans’ were immediately scuttled. She had a little girl, but I had already dated a woman with a child, so I have never feared children. But she had many other issues, and I am not going to detail them all here. Because nothing I could have eventually discovered could have undo what I had already knew about her.

This isn’t in croniclogical order, but one of the guys I worked with at the drug store was a decent enough chap. I am as I was then, friendly without having friends. So I was trying to change that even then, and invited him to a dinner gathering we were having. My wife had invited some of her friends, and I thought it would be cool and I didn’t want to be the only guy in the hen house.

He rode with me when we got off work. The conversation was rather stilted. Bubbles <cause I have to call her something, don’t I?> is a full figured lady, and of course, she tended to run in groups with other ‘big’ girls. So we get to my house and there they are, mean looking, and ready to open up holes in the defensive line. Later, when I returned after taking my bud home, there were a couple of stragglers just doing the harpy thing with my wife. That they had jokes for my boy was par for the course, but what I wasn’t prepared for were the comments made about ME.

Not only was I shocked at the lack of temerity shown, but by my wife’s <non> action. One of her crew had seen me before the little get together, getting her hair done at the salon. She made a comment that she and my wife had talked about me. She told her that she thought I was cute and she thought that I liked her. But they BOTH agreed that I might have been ‘slow’ I.E. developmentally challenged, because I WAS ALWAYS SMILING ...

Looking back, I know that I should have pulled the plug right then. Because she never discussed that perspective with me before, and that she let someone say that in our house to my face in her prescene, spoke volumes. It showed how little class she and her friends had, and the irony of it was that I went to what is the premiere public high school in Detroit for academic achievers. I scored 1200 on my SAT’s and a 29 on my ACT back in the 80’s when those were exceptional scores for a public school student.

Being callow, I thought that this was a part of marriage, about being able to accept our partner for who they are and loving them anyway. Did wish that I had vetted that beforehand, but hey, I was an Air Assualt soldier, and nationally ranked amateur fighter; I could hang, couldn’t I?

There would be other problems with our relationship. It was doomed to fail, not because we were young and both stupid, but because in my opinion, she didn’t like me. I grade like as being separated from love, and you can love someone but not like them. And you can settle for that and have a unfulfilling relationship. But in loving someone true, you have to like them, so that you can put up with their idiosyncrasies and their personal quirks. That she would eventually grow and be able to understand more about what I offered her and brought to our relationship, of course is without saying.

She would marry eventually, someone with the same first name, which prolly made for an easy transition in the bedroom! But one of the things that my sisters have told me REPEATEDLY is that she never got over me, and that she would be with me again if given a chance … and by her actions when I was in Detroit this summer, with Mookie Dee in tow, made her desires plain by even saying to me in effect that maybe we’ll get back together when we’re 80 …

Not that I am bragging about that. I am a Virgo, and I thought one of the qualities that I am supposed to possess is a pragmatism that would check my ego in the boards. She isn’t the only one that feels that way, with the stray emails that I get from past loves in my life. Not that I am really interested in being pursued …

… but I do like the pursuit …

Mookie is agitated. I would be lying if I did not admit that. She has flew past the fail-safe, and this is very similar to the movie of the same name, where it would require EXETREME diplomacy to avoid a complete meltdown. As it is, there is great damage done, and not sure if it could be repaired. I easily imagine myself like Q-Tip in the ‘El Segundo’ song, thinking that ‘…anywhere would have been better’. And with my sense of self and of adventure still in me, I don’t worry that I won’t catch on, and put my life together again. Don’t want to, but hell, I have done it before. Others have to deal with greater problems than I have. I know I can find my way!