The Beginning of Some Ends

I used to read the blog of a young girl - close to my daughter's age. I would link to it, but she has since gone private. Apparently someone went off on her about something. Politics maybe. The reason I bring her up is that once she said something to the effect that she thought people were weak for dissolving their marriages. Apparently she was not over her parents' divorce. Her sentiments were sweet yet very naive. Well sure you could stay in a marriage if a gun were held to your head. I wanted to address my two divorces because in a post some time back, I may have come across as cold-hearted and flippant.

When I was 22, for some reason, I started thinking it was time to get married. I wasn't one of those girls that just dreamed of marriage all my life. As a matter of fact, I had turned down 3 proposals by this time and was living with a guy that I knew I did not want to marry (I guess that would be proposal #4 now that I think about it.) Yes, I know that one should not look for a husband while living with a guy, but that's what I was doing. I met a guy in a very random way.

It was 1983. Our neighbors across the way had always been friendly, but after my brother moved in with us, the wife became VERY friendly. We were invited to join them for a day of boating on the river. They had a fancy speedboat, I always thought it looked like a white shark's tooth. It only held four people - like a small car. The trick to this river place was that you could only get there by water. We all parked on the river and then went by boat to this special spot. It WAS a really nice spot, with feral horses constantly grazing nearby. We ended up setting up next to some people with jet skis. I went over to ask about them and that's how I met husband #1, or H#1.

For some reason I gave him my business card. He kept calling me at work. I was in outside sales, so these calls were just slips of paper to me. Finally, the secretary made an odd comment which led me to think I should call this guy just to tell him to stop calling. Well, what happened was, he invited me to a David Bowie concert. And this was 1983. I HAD to say yes. I didn't lie to the guy I was living with. I mean, it was David Bowie. On the night of the concert, I drove to a girlfriend's apartment that was just off the highway to Dallas and had H#1 pick me up there.

Compared to the guy I was living with, this guy seemed to have so much going for him, he was manlier, more confident, more mature, and had an engineering degree! My little 22 year-old brain was blinking "husband material" over and over.

My brother, live-with-guy and I were all smashed into a one bedroom apartment. We had already been apartment hunting. Finally, I just told live-with-guy, "Hey when my brother and I move out, you're not coming with us." I was much nicer than that and told him he was too good for me and all that stuff and what a great catch he would be for some chick. He wasn't thrilled, but when I spoke to him a few years later, he told me it was the right thing for us.

Basically, my brother and I moved into this new apartment with H#1 being there most of the time although he still had his other place. This was August of 83. In mid December, every time I jumped up from sitting, I had an awful pain in my abdomen. Finally I went to the doctor. I was pregnant.......