BEST OF TIMES, WORST OF TIMES, THEN WHAT

After living through the best of times, there’s only one way to go.

What’s better than the best?

The correct answer is nothing, but that’s not the answer you’ll get from drunks and drug addicts.

It’s hard to tell any time when you’re numbed to reality.

The only reality I know that produces the best of times is living long enough to find a good woman, to see kids grow up and flourish, to see grandkids from the get-go learn their way around.

Also, a good dog who seems to enjoy their time with you is nicer than imagined.

But it wasn’t always like that for me.

The group I was raised with all got married early, real early, like early twenties.

I could never imagine that. Then they started having kids and somehow I became a new uncle.

While they were settling in for the long haul with growing families, I was circulating.

The young women I met as a young man had plans for us that went right by me.

My plans never changed: get a job, get an apartment, and write like I do now.

Once my girlfriend started chipping into my writing time it was time to end things.

Was I a mystery? Far from it, but not everyone agrees with spending time with a pencil and paper, with a typewriter and white-out, with a keyboard and a screen.

Was I selfish? That’s what I heard and once I heard it I agreed. The break-up soon followed.

 

Best Of Times Started With A Plan

Like I said, my plans never changed, but once I found out I had to change to keep a relationship moving the right direction, it happened.

I changed. It started one night.

I was in the wind relationship-wise, which means I wasn’t making any commitments and decisions to anyone.

A former girlfriend-ish woman got in touch with me and wanted to come by.

I told my current girlfriend-ish woman that I may have to leave town with my old flame.

And why not? I had few ties in town, shallow roots, and young enough to make another run.

Another run? The first had taken me from Eugene to Delaware, then New York, before coming to Oregon.

All of my moves had relationship partner potential, so leaving town was not out of the question.

My visitor was late and gave me time to reconsider.

The more I thought about it, the more I fell back into the question of ‘Upper Hand.’

She calls me, I’m available, and she’s late. Who had the upper hand?

So I unplugged my telephone, committed to not being an insensitive jerk to the one person who seemed to like me, and went to sleep.

I woke up at 3:30 and plugged my phone back in and it started ringing.

So I answered.

Me: Hello.

Her: I hate you.

Me: Join the club.

Her: Why didn’t you answer your phone. I waited outside your building for hours and called five times from the pay phone up the street.

Me: I thought you had other plans.

Her: You were my other plans.

Me: Then come on over. But wait, you hate me.

Her: I’m not going anyplace after being stood up.

Me: You stood me up so I unplugged my phone.

Her: That’s too bad for you.

Me: More like too bad for you. Maybe your next boy-toy will be more needy, more like you.

Her: I’m not needy. I don’t need anything. I just thought . . .

Me: You just thought you’d stop by and get all frisky and move on.

Her: A lot of guys would love that.

Me: And they’d wait all night. Those are your guys, not me.

Her: What makes you different?

 

One Door Closes, Another Opens

That was the beginning of me taking some responsibility in a relationship.

You hear about men stepping out on their wives, their lives, and wondering how it all went so wrong.

I was a holdout on marriage until the end.

After I proposed to my wife a few years after the late night call, we broke up.

But this woman wasn’t having it. She was going to be my wife and wasn’t about to get demoted back to girlfriend.

Instead, she’d leave town and start over.

Wait, that was my plan up until then. She was using my plan against me.

My play for having the upper hand went horribly wrong.

No begging me to change my mind, no pledge of blind loyalty, no willingness to live under my thumb.

Under my thumb
Her eyes are just kept to herself
Under my thumb, well I
I can still look at someone else

So we got married, have stayed married, and the biggest shock of all, we are a committed couple.

The idea of an ‘open marriage’ ended the night I unplugged my phone.

Notions of sowing wild oats? That’s an excuse for old men to young men.

An old guy told me you could never trust a woman to be where she says she’ll be.

“They say they’re out with girlfriends when they’re meeting some guy they first saw when they were out with girlfriends the last time.”

I tried figuring out who he was, the married man with the cheating wife, or the guy meeting the cheating wife.

Now I’m the old guy telling the youngs to honor their spouses with loyalty and fidelity.

Or don’t get married.

Those are the rules of the Married Man Club. I don’t make them, but I live them.

So should you.