A Boy, A Girl, and Poof!

At a party, an adorable boy gazed into my eyes, “Will you kiss me?” His wish was my command. I leaned in to deliver a half-way decent smooch, and boom! At this moment, two naïve thirteen-year olds set out on a journey spanning seventeen years.

Along the way, we experienced hiccups, and when breakups occurred they resulted from his boyish desires, not from my doing, as my insecurities kept me glued to him like a fly to a sticky board, but he always returned.

The time came for my beloved to join the service, age 19, and as he fulfilled his duty, I joined him in a far away state where a Justice of the Peace pronounced us man and wife.

The legality afforded some assurance that I wouldn’t be abandoned. A child of parents who neglected and left me to fend for myself, this aspect was of crucial importance. Though, at the time, the criticalness of this element eluded me.

A year later, our son ‘s birth, and I found the reason for my being. To a degree, the demands of motherhood enabled me to ignore Daddy’s workaholic nature. The complete aloneness dissipated with the needs of my child.

Four years passed, and our gorgeous daughter completed our family. Beautiful, healthy children to love and guide. What more did I dare ask?

Yet, I did want more. Addicted to his job, the interaction of my husband with the kids, with me, grew to be near non-existent. Though I begged and pleaded for years, for the kid’s sake as well as my own, the beseeching, the tears running down my cheeks, fell for naught. The lack of my hubby’s involvement rendered me broken, lonely, and ripe.

In stepped an entrancing devil who enticed me from my sorrow and loneliness, from my spouse, and worse, from my kids. In a few short months, all exploded into a devastating divorce. The ruins thrust me into chaos, and into the mighty arms of the new man, a violent, abusive monster.

The circumstances went from bad to nightmare in a flash, and access to my precious babes vanished when their father moved them thousands of miles away. The next 20 years, I struggled to survive the almost total absence of my children, and the onslaught of assaults hurled at me with increasing intensity. One day, the police advised, ” We can’t protect you. You need to go into hiding.”

Lucky to be on this side of the crap, with maturity and wisdom, and free of the nightmare, I understand the reasons for the demise of my marriage, the descent into the hell I endured.

Too inexperienced, in too much of a hurry to grow up, and far too needy.

Youth, the springtime of our lives, is the time we should explore, discover, and come to a realization about who we are, what we want, but I failed to graduate from this developmental stage. My young dreamer self, drowned in unrealistic expectations. A type of blindness, naivety, kept me from comprehending the real possibilities and consequences of my actions.

As an under twenty female, eager to be an adult, I believed I understood life better than the neglectful/hurtful grownups surrounding me. My goal, to venture far from their grasp. Rather than learn to crawl before I walked, as is the proper order of things, I ran toward that which laid beyond my comprehension.

The workings of my troubled adolescent unthinking mind played a considerable part in the many flawed decisions I reached. Not only hurting myself but those dearest to me.

Long ago, with short lifespans and out of necessity, people commonly wed in their teens. Today, the tendency is to wait until the 20’s, and later, to marry.

This newer outlook on matrimony, waiting until one is emancipated from their boyhoods/girlhoods, is a much wiser stance to adopt.  To allow ourselves time to emerge from our innocence is prudent, as the chance for success is greatly heightened.

Alas, no spell or potion exists. We can’t magically revisit our early existence and develop with insights and knowledge saving save us from our childlike ineptness and lofty expectations.  And, as much as my own tale serves as a caution, I fear few will take heed.

Oh, there goes another boy and girl waltzing into youthful visionless bliss, and before they realize, poof! Leaving them to wonder, “What in the hell happened?”

In the dust sprinkling down, look to youth, its limited intelligence, and its eagerness to gaze toward the heavens in starry-eyed expectation, for there is the answer.