Rat Man
I'm a bit off my politics at the moment, so I'm going to expound on the idiocy of one man. For once, I'm not talking about John Kerry.
In the early Summer of 1996 I agreed to marry this guy. We had been together for awhile, albeit by long-distance, and he decided it was time. Now, this guy was in the Navy, stationed at Virginia Beach for a while before shipping out again. He was supposed to ship out in 4 weeks when we became engaged. He wanted me to drive to Virginia Beach from Champaign, IL. Two weeks before our engagement I started my first post college graduation job.
Needless to say, it was way too soon to request vacation. I couldn't go. I was behind the 8-ball at work and had just moved into a new apartment. So, I suggested we get together when he got back to VA, 10 months later. By then I could take some vacation since the growing season would be over. He agreed. In actuality, he really wanted me to pick up and move to VA. Quit my job, get out of my lease, and move, knowing he'd be leaving in 4 weeks, abandoning me to my own devices in a foreign town for 9 months without job or home. But he agreed that my way was best.
A week later he called me, said he didn't love me anymore, and our relationship ended. It took all of 45 seconds. There was no discussion, no reason. I was hurt. Resentful and suspicious. But mostly hurt. I never heard from him again. I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and went on with my life.
A year later I met someone wonderful. But I still doubted myself. Eventually I fell in love with this new guy. We dated for many years before we got married. He is my Prince Charming. So imagine my shock, fear, and suspicion when the sailor called me a couple of months ago.
Of course, I learned he was trying to make contact before he actually got me. He called my parents and got the answering machine. He called the family business and talked to my cousin. My cousin gave him a phone number for my first job. They gave him the number of the facility I'd been promoted to. Those people refused to give him my new contact information as it just seemed...weird. My stepmother told me about the message on the answering machine.
I admit it, it freaked me out a bit. Why, after 8+ years would he try to make contact? I had a few ideas, and I'm not ashamed of them. I figured it might be part of a 12-step plan. I thought it might be some medical emergency or a death in the family. I even thought maybe he reenlisted and is just now getting out. And a tiny little part of me suspected it could be a booty call thinly veiled in a long-delinquent apology.
I toyed with not returning the call. I've moved on. I'm happy with how my life turned out. I certainly don't need to talk to him again. But my curiosity was piqued. He had treated me shabbily, and I wanted to avenge that girl he hurt. But I also didn't want to do so in a way that would bring me to his level. I wanted to be the better man.
So I returned his call. I was cool but polite. He was a bit too friendly for it to be suspicion 1 or 2. He asked how long it had been. I told him 8 years. "You must be surprised to hear from me."
"You could say that," I said.
He says he just wanted to "apologize for the way things ended between us." Hmmm. I said, "It's been 8 years, surely you haven't been fretting over it that long?" To which he replied, "Well, yeah, I have. I'm sorry." To which I said, "Thank you." He then asked me what's been going on in my life. I told him I was married. He asked, "do you have any babies?" Strange phrasing, I thought and answered in the negative.
I asked about his life. He has 2 sons, one 4 years old and another 20 months old. He talked about how he does all kinds of boy things with them: hunting, fishing, rough-housing. I asked, "And their mother?"
"She's not around." Ah ha! [Right eyebrow raises in a Columbo-key-to-the-mystery-found kind of way] I'm on to him.
He said, "I have a habit of running women off."
"I can't argue with that," I replied. We chatted a bit more and he wished me and my family well. He was glad that things were going so well for me. I offered up the same banal platitudes. End of call.
This was nothing more or less than a long-distance attempt to posset his ego. He was attempting to regrab my heartstrings and play me again like a fiddle. It was all conveniently disguised as an apology, true. Is it uncharitable of me to point out that if he had really felt bad about what he had done, that surely he could have found time to apologize before 8 years had passed? It was transparent. Perhaps it is un-Christian, uncharitable, petty, and callous of me to say it. Worse, to feel this way.
But you know what? This chickie learns from her mistakes. My husband loves me, even at my most annoying. Hell, he worships the ground I walk on. I wouldn't trade him for anything - I worship him right back.
But the hurt little girl inside of me needed to hear the apology, late and though it was thinly veiling another motive altogether. I fed that little girl the squashed bug of a man that once tried very hard to squash her. And she is happier for it. Not real proud of herself for the need to feel vindicated after so long, but she does feel better.
Villains Vanquished!
Labels: John Kerry
