Imagine after eight years of marriage you hit that wall. The wall of no return, no return to yourself. You see a lifetime interfering with your dreams. Do or die. So you pack and you leave. Of course you have doubts but not enough to opt for slow death.
You go your way, live your life, have adventures. You wake when you want, you never battle over inanities. You never have to negotiate with in-laws & in between these moments of clarity, at times, you wonder if you made the right decision.
You date, you fool around, you fall in love, out of love. You re-prioritize and your dreams thrive.
Your chapters fill up, more pictures, more paragraphs. Brighter dreams.
Occasionally, very occasionally, you look back and wonder if you made the right decision.
A score of years has passed and for whatever reason it becomes necessary to make contact with that partner from so long ago, from that marriage.
You need something mundane, a document.
You have no contact information so you fire up the research machine and you Google and you navigate through friends, and friends of friends and eventually you get in touch, and you present your request.
So simple, just a copy of a document, please.
And an unholy Tsunami of rage and hostility and 20 years of pent-up anger towards you is unleashed. You remain calm, you stay polite, you stay on message. Just looking for a copy of that document.
But the barrage goes on, gathering steam, knocking you over with savage malice.
Suddenly, you realize there is another way to get the document, some online government site. It will be a bureaucratic quagmire. You smile! You hear contralto cherubs singing. Well worth finding out you didn’t make a mistake after all. Flying solo in vivid technicolor.
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Dearest Monty, More of a salute to the present and the future, than the past. I loved my adventures and experiences, but when it was time to go, there was no other choice for me. I am so grateful I packed and set off, my life, instead of being predictable has been an ongoing series of daydreams. Loving life!
A salutary tale – Brilliantly expressed! I expect nothing less from you my dearest friend. xxx
Mike I love how you write, it’s so fluid and easy-going. Even when the subject matter is fraught. And why else would we write unless the subject matter was fraught, we are motivated by our emotions. Sometimes highs, sometimes lows, our emotions motivate the muse. I really like your stories and I see them as a natural complement to mine. We are like an ESP writing team ✌️
Twenty years ago? Twenty years had past since I had last seen my sister. What was on her mind, still, was the record player and records she gave me when she got married. When I ran away from home at age twenty one our mother returned the records to my sister Patsy. Patsy took me by surprise with her question twenty years later: how did I ruin those records so. I only mention it because I was just thinking of her question, again, before looking up your blog today. I can’t remember how I answered her, probably with: Cuz I listened to them over and over again, Pat. I know, I know, night and day difference is my story to your story of the raging record holder ex-husband. Damn, he didn’t even change enough to give you a kind word? Yea, you did the right thing spending a dime on that phone call. You hit the jackpot!