Whoa! Didja get the numbers off that truck?!?

April 13, 2003 - 11:04 p.m.

Realities

One of the therapeutic benefits of Diaryland is writing, for me. Many years ago I kept a journal. It was something my �marriage counselor� recommended as a way of sorting out my thoughts and resolving the demons in my head. Of all of the advice and benefit I got from that session that was the one that worked the best. I still have it and it�s an embarrassment to read now. It sure did the trick then.

Now I have this Diaryland thing. It�s quite different; and I have to edit what I say because I have so many people peeking over my shoulder, looking at what I write. I have a lot to write about in this one.

I�m in transition now. I talked with Newt about this yesterday because she�s the one who knows me better than anyone else on earth. She always gives good advice. This transition is the culmination of 23 years of accumulated experience. Sherman, set the wayback machine for 1980�

I wrote about this awhile ago: my first marriage. I knew the girl for all of six months. When Newt confronted me about the wisdom of my decision, my flip reply was that �If it didn�t work out, we�d just get a divorce.� Ha ha ha. Well, it didn�t and we did. I oversimplify, it was a devastating experience for me and I romped right into a rebound with Doreen. We were both hurting divorce �victims�. The sex was great. Great unprotected sex. You can guess the rest. There�s nothing like an abortion to cast a pall on the whole romance thing. We parted ways shortly after and I never saw her again. I hear she got married again many years ago.

I took time off from women for awhile after that. I spent my time alone, banging my thoughts out on an old portable typewriter. I wrote some pretty crappy poetry and I still have it stashed away somewhere. I was enjoying my single-ness. I lusted after a beautiful dark-haired girl, who was less interested in me. Her roommate was interested though, she was pretty cute. I didn�t see it for what it was at the time, it blew right past me. Too bad, I wonder even today how that would have turned out.

I met my second wife. It was romance. It was wonderful. It wasn�t perfect, but hey I can overlook a few things, right?

Newt couldn�t. She saw a side of her I missed. Good thing about sisters, they can tell you right to your face what they think and you have to take it. But you don�t have to listen. I didn�t, and we conceived our first child on a borrowed mattress on the second bedroom floor of my duplex. I remember the moment to this day and I also remember knowing we�d have a zygote. We married in June 1984. That little boy just turned 18 this year.

Life with Spidey was okay but missing something. We had common interests and goals and we worked hard on our house and became absorbed in raising the kids. But the thing that was missing grew larger. This missing part magnified over the years. We reached a point where we had nothing in common, aside from the house and the kids. It became a huge lumbering unavoidable thing, and by 1995 it was inescapable. She discovered AOL chat rooms, and someone more interesting than me. I filed, we split.

I met �My Intended� during this time, around March 1997. We met online (yes, I see the irony) and it grew into something unbelievable. Finally I�d met someone, my match. We meshed on many levels. At first I was hesitant to declare it perfect because of my lingering emotional state after the split with my wife. She understood and stayed the course. By November I was convinced my feelings were real. But in December she found a job in another state and moved at the beginning of the next year.

I can tell you from personal experience that long distance relationships don�t work. Sure, we had constant communication via the Internet, and she visited frequently in that first year. It worked for me because I had her to think about and to count on. I still had my independence and I was working on re-building a life separate and single and helping my kids through it. My kids didn�t have to deal with the distractions of another woman around. But nothing can replace the benefit of face to face contact. Nothing. Oh, and did I mention that she was (is) married. Oh yeah, I skipped that part. She told me how empty it was. Emotionally he was nothing more than a roommate. The years went by but she never moved any closer to embarking on a divorce. There was always some crisis that had to be solved first. As the years went by her visits here became less frequent because it got harder to get away. 18 months ago I was convinced that the one thing I hoped for was not going to materialize. Her forgetting my birthday last year was the culmination of neglect for me. The lesson in this for me was, never get mixed up with married women.

I broke it off last fall. It was easier to do than I thought it would be. She pledged everlasting love for me to the end, but her actions spoke louder than her words.

This was about the time I met The Girly. Again, I met someone with an impending divorce. But she was going to do it. She was much further along than the Intended. All the time we spent together was great, but I had this nagging voice in my head about the emotional turmoil people go through when ending a marriage, especially one with kids. I should know because I went through it myself. In a way I was playing the part of the Intended and she was me.

It was final about a month ago. That�s when she started having those doubts, the very ones I experienced. She told me last week that she needed �space�. The final frontier. Ha ha, I kill me.

So now the Intended is gone, and Girly is virtually gone and I�m alone again. It�s very strange. I haven�t felt like this in many, many years. Of course I haven�t been alone in many years. I have been emotionally engaged with someone for 23 years. I don�t very much feel like romance or relationships or any of that crap. I feel burned out. My track record isn�t that good and right now I don�t feel like I can ever make that right. Some people get lucky and they stumble into meeting someone with the right combination of characteristics, in the right set of circumstances, they fall in love of course and they get married. This is no guarantee of success, but they have that deep foundation of feelings and the key characteristics that can lock them together to weather any emotional storm. They stay together; they raise kids that mirror the things they love in that person they married. I don�t know if that�s going to happen for me in this lifetime.

Maybe it�s time to be just JohnnieV.

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