Questions (The End) OR A Love Story

"Once More"

This post will answer my last two questions from readers:

“I want to hear the story of how you were reunited with your high school sweetheart! I love happily-ever-after stories! I am a hopeFUL (not hopeLESS) romantic. :-) “

AND

“I'm trying to figure out how you have 4 children of various (spread out) ages yet (I thought) you said you were only about 34? Is there a story there? did you have your first very young?
sorry if that's snooping, you don't have to answer. “

I saved this question for last, because it is my favorite. If you hadn't already guessed from reading back through my blog, it is my favorite thing to talk about. Our love story, my fairy tale.

B was my very first boyfriend. I was thirteen, and still reeling form my father's first heart attack when we first met. He was nine months older, but similarly intelligent and every bit as driven as I was back then, if not more so. Most of our time together was spent sharing academic pursuits, attending movies which his other was kind enough o drive us to, and later, making out on the bean bag chair in my bedroom. (we weren't allowed to sit anywhere near the bed...) We shared our first kiss, and provided each other with our first sexual experiences. (even though we didn't have sex.)For a teenage boy he was surprisingly gentle and kind. He was a terribly difficult act to follow, I think. We went our separate ways after two years, due simply to the pressures of growing up and parents who worried that we were too serious about each other, that it might interfere with plans for college and the future if we didn't see other people. Even our breaking up was quiet and free of drama. (Although I remember a great deal of crying on my part afterward, there was no animosity, no angry words or typical teenage acts of retribution.) We remained friendly, but drifted apart slowly, moving in very different direction for a long time. Throughout high school we made several attempts to recapture what we had before, but our efforts always missed in one way or another, leaving us both frustrated and longing for the easy closeness we had known in the past. It was something neither of us seemed able to find with anyone else, despite trying. I suppose it is fair to say that we both moved on, but never really got over each other. I never really stopped paying attention to what he was up to, (I think they call it stalking now...) and he sort of just forgot I existed for a while as he threw himself into school projects and getting ready for college.

Just before my sixteenth birthday I met a guy at the local skating rink and started dating him. The guy was alright, but it was his two year old son, J, that I really fell in love with. It was a volatile relationship to say the least. He was eight years older than me, with a quick temper and a big mouth, nothing at all like my gentle introduction to love a few years before, but the love for a child is a powerful thing and J had completely stolen my heart. (J is my step-son, who will turn twenty-one this coming June, and I count him as the first of my four children. Because of the age difference between my ex-husband and I, J was born when I was only 14.) Not important to this story, but I stayed in this poorly matched relationship for fifteen years. We married, had three more children of our own and finally divorced back in 2005. (incidentally, my daughter, age 14 was born when I was eighteen, my sons, ages 10 and 5, when I was 24 and 28.)

Now back to the real story. During the fifteen years I was with my ex-husband, B and I bumped into each other here and there. He helped me t pass a computer course in college back in 1996, and I called him a bit later just to talk in 1997. We kept having these near misses. Times when I was trying to make my marriage work or he was in another relationship. One of the most pivotal moments was back in 2003 when I lost my Dad a few days before Thanksgiving. After six years of absolutely no contact, B showed up at the funeral home the night before Thanksgiving at the end of the funeral service. I had spent the last 9 weeks caring for my father as his heart slowly gave out. I was under more stress than I thought it possible for one person to bear. November alone has seen my youngest with pneumonia and the chicken pox, my step-son barely making passing grades in school and the start of my middle son's wild mood swings and behavioral problems. I was working full-time, my marriage was already circling the drain and by the time I saw B there in the back of the room, I was coming completely unglued. I can't even begin to describe that moment, the way my face flushed and my heart started to race. I would like to say that our love story got its second chance right at that moment, that he was the antidote to my breaking heart. But. I could barely make my feet move to cross the room. I wanted, more than anything to fall right into his arms, bury my face in his neck and breath in that sweet, sweet smell that had always belonged to him alone. I was unable to do any of that. I know I smiled at him, that he smiled back nervously and stumbled through some of those things that are said at funerals. I know I told him I was glad to see him, glad to know that he was doing alright. I know he handed me a letter that I would later read, again and again. I know that when I leaned in to give him half of a hug I could smell the beer on his breath. I know that I spent months replaying those moments again and again in my mind, sleeping and awake and that, always, afterward my heart was left aching for him.

Fast forward four and a half years. Years filled with a dozen different kinds of losing and letting go for us both. Long years. I lost my brother-in-law, and my aunt. I started over again. I ended my marriage and tumbled through another disastrous relationship. (this time with a woman.) I lost touch with my step-son and all of my half-siblings from my father's first marriage. My older two kid's emotional problems had spiraled out of control several times over. They were diagnosed as bipolar and I mourned the loss of what I had dreamed would be an easier ride through their school and teenage years. I struggled with depression, my mother's deepening depression, her successful (so far) battle with breast cancer and the complicated world of child psychiatry. I know they were long years for B too, as he struggled with his problems with alcohol, helped his mother through her own heart attack, and dove headlong into the daily care of his grandmother as she continued the steady decline brought about her Alzheimer's disease. In the same town, maybe ten minutes apart most of the time, he and I struggled, and hurt separately, but in so many of the same ways.

Now, I am going to take a minute to shamelessly plug Facebook. I am aware of all of the evils and irritants of online social networking. But. Without Facebook, I might never have gotten my fairy tale. It was that search feature. I had been Googling B on and off for years with nothing new. But when I plugged his name into that facebook friend search---THERE HE WAS!!! SO in June of 2008 we finally got back in touch with each other, and this time our timing was perfect. I was divorced and he was living alone. I was long since ready to move on from the relationship that I had been dragging behind me for more than a year. We talked and emailed and walked together in the park, we chatted for long hours late into the nights getting to know each other again. Then, finally, after almost twenty years, we got to experience the comfort of sleeping a night nestled in each other's arms. It was, hands down, the best night of my life.

It's been seven full months now since we started dating again. It has not been an easy seven months by any stretch of the imagination. My kids have had their good and bad days. November alone was back-breaking. B stopped drinking. (for the most part) Both of his parents were diagnosed with cancer. (pancreatic and breast) My mother's friend, who has been like a member of our family for years is losing her battle with colon cancer. We have, in the last few months, tackled more big problems than most marriages survive. And we have done it well. So the way I see it, all we have to do now is to keep getting through the small, everyday moments. We just have to remember how important it is to fall in love with each other, over and over and over again.....I think we'll make it just fine.