Once Upon a Lifetime Ago

 
Sometimes you make decisions that change your life.  Sometimes those decisions are made for you.  Either way you are forever changed.

When we met, I was friends with his sister.  She was not thrilled that I was dating her brother and it was a rough start.  It didn't get much easier when he moved almost 600 miles away.  To say we had a long distance relationship in high school was ridiculous but we tried.  I will never forget standing in my kitchen when he told me he loved me for the first time.  Eventually the distance won out.  But that is not the end of this story.

I stayed in loose contact with his sister and called her (she moved with him and his mother 600 miles away also) for her birthday just after I had gone to college in the fall.  I was surprised when he answered the phone.  He was eager to talk and we did for over an hour.  It turns out he was moving back in about a month and he had been thinking about me and now that we had spoken, maybe he could come out and see me.   I agreed and we continued talking on the phone until he moved.

Seeing him again after so long felt right.  It was as if no time had passed.  We were deeply in love and he even thought about proposing that Christmas but backed away and admitted to having cold feet.  I said it was fine that I was only in my first year of college and my parents would not let me marry until I graduated anyway so we had plenty of time.  He ended up proposing on February 11, 1994 which was Valentine's Day weekend.  He gave me a small pear (tear drop) diamond as I had wanted that cut.  The way he did it however will be forever etched in my mind.

He worked retail and lived with his mother and grandmother so he didn't have a car of his own.  We ended up going to a well known ski resort that on weekends and nights also had clubs and other activities available.  His mother drove but went off to do her own thing as she was single.  We walked all other the place inside and out where we could since we were both underage and not allowed in the clubs.  After a few hours he said to me, I lost the car keys, help me look.  We were outside in the snow and I panicked.  We were an hour from home and his mother would be furious.  I was down on my hands and knees in the snow for about two minutes when he said I found them and I turned around to see him holding the ring out (not on one knee).  He asked me if I would marry him.  My first response?  Do you have the keys?!  After he said yes I of course said yes and was very happy.  My parents, my father in particular was not.

I lived in a small town growing up and had a recognizable last name.  The vision of my father's son in law was a paramedic, police officer, or the ultimate would be a firefighter like him.  Needless to say, my fiance was none of these things with no hope of the possibility.  After the semester was over I transferred to a college closer to home and thought that maybe that would settle things down between us.  Unfortunately I was wrong.  We fought a lot.  It was dumb stuff the root of which was mainly that we were too different and our families really didn't get along.  We had some real big ones too.  I would get pretty mad and throw the ring back at him but he would give it back and we would make up.

Things started to change that fall.  I went to the new college and the fighting only got worse.  Things at home for him were never good to begin with but seemed to only be getting worse.  I was home on fall break when it happened.  All that day I had been helping my dad clean my grandmother's room.  Later that night I was in a lot of pain so much so I ended up lying on the bathroom floor.  It took me a little while to figure out what was happening but when I did the only person I told was him.  I was lying there on the floor crying and begging him to come and get me.  He had to go through the usual red tape at home.  When he finally arrived, I did not receive the support or compassion I needed, I was met with cold indifference.  It is not as if I had had time to process this either.  For whatever reason I didn't realize I was late and I had only found out as I was losing the pregnancy.  I tried to talk to him but it seemed as if he thought I was lying or hiding something or I don't know what.  I think he was mad at me.  Mad at me for not being able to carry his child.  I don't know.  All I know is that day changed everything.  It was 6 days before my 20th birthday.  After that he was distant and cold.  Even his sister who had by then accepted our relationship told him he needed to straighten up and treat me better.  It would never happen.  He continued to be cold and uncaring and we continued on another two months.  Christmas Day I was angry and threw the ring at him as I had done so many times before but this time he kept it.  It would never be returned to me.  I had to spend that whole day with his family knowing that we were no longer together and that more than likely it was the end.  He strung me along with promises of talking about it but I found out shortly after that he had been seeing someone else.

It took me a long time to deal with the pain and anguish that that relationship caused but it made me appreciate every relationship more after that.  It has certainly made me appreciate my husband more.  No matter how painful the experience, if you look hard enough, there is always something positive you have gained.  I can say that it did take a long time for me to see it but I have a love of Tom Clancy novels, blue cheese dressing and a few others things I keep to myself.  I am forever changed by that experience but it is part of what makes me, me.