Always Surprising.........

I'm feeling very pensive today. I just read a rather shocking email from a high school friend. First an introduction to the friendship.......over my junior year summer vacation I got married. I did this the day after I was 17. The following Fall I was living in an apt. in a nearby town while attending the high school I had attended previously. One of my nosy teachers interrogated me one day and then reported to the office that I should not be in that school. I was promptly forced to either pay tuition of thousands of dollars or change schools. I changed schools and the first day there I met my friend whose name sounded so much like Bon Bon Sherbert that became my nickname for her. This poor girl had lost her Dad many years earlier and her Mom was dying of cancer when we met. She was being raised by her grandfather, a man who was not known for his warmth, although to be fair he saw that his two granddaughters were taken care of. Right after her Mom died she was able to get a driver's permit and I decided to teach her to drive. Let me tell you, I was not the greatest driver back then. Still, she was able to get her license. She became engaged and began to plan her wedding to her high school sweetheart. She asked me to be her matron of honor, and I began to be a surrogate mother of sorts to her. She didn't know how to plan a wedding and I helped, while letting her do her own thing. It was bittersweet to see someone only 18 without a living parent at their wedding. The newlyweds rented an apartment in our same complex and we saw quite a bit of each other then. One day I bought a house and she was afraid to drive to see it. Over the next few years I had a son, shortly after, she had a daughter and then a son. We saw each other rarely over the next few years. I noticed that other than with her only sister or their mutual friends, she didn't seem to have much of a family life or social life with her husband. When I went there he was a recluse hiding out in either their bedroom or a computer room later. I was frustrated at times that she chose to stay with him. She had been such a vibrant and fun person and now she seemed to just be hanging on. Today after over thirty years of marriage she wrote and told me he left her. What I wanted to write back and say was that he actually left her about twenty years ago. To be honest I am happy that at last she can move on with her life. I told her that I have been through a divorce and will be happy to be a listening ear for her. I also told her to begin to live and have fun again. Damn a man who does this. On the other hand, I just wish he had done it long ago. I wish women, and men, who lived like this would realize that it's NOT a real relationship and that they should either make it work or let it go. Investing decades into something that is bankrupt just seems so futile. Having said that, I was guilty of that myself. I always tried to find the silver lining. I always hoped one day I would do something that would be a catalyst for my ex to change. He never got it and he still doesn't. I accept that he never will. I can't say that he's a bad person. He just is what he is and he is not what he is not.

If I could have access to every person standing at the threshold of a new relationship I would so want to give them this advice: find someone you like as they are. You will never change them and they will never change you. Find someone who has the qualities that you want or need. No one is perfect and during their mistakes, accept that they are imperfect as you are.
Most importantly, if the relationship is a mistake, recognize it and either get on the same page to make things work or gently, without inflicting unnecessary pain upon the other, let go.

I wish you luck my friend and it's my earnest hope that the best is yet to come for you.
We're never too old to start over and do it right the next time.