I Used To Be...

This weekend I took a journey to my past.  I woke up, ate breakfast, packed a bag, hopped in my car, and drove until I reached nine years ago.  His eyes were still a piercing blue.  He still made me laugh at his jokes.  He still made me feel safe, and he could still melt all tension and anxiety completely away from me just by being near.  The chemistry was still there between us.  Everything was exactly the same as it had been before—and it wasn't.  I was different.

Mr. Cadet has always been my ghost of lost-loves past, and I finally had the chance to see him over the weekend after so much time had passed since our last encounter.  Meeting up with Mr. Cadet again after all these years was absolutely wonderful.  It was amazing to see how your memory holds on to things that you don't even realize were there.  We would be sitting there talking and catching up, and he would do this cute little thing where he tips back his head slightly when he is saying something funny, all while giving me this goofy little grin, and I would immediately think—I remember that!  When he hugged me, just the way he smelled would send a tidal wave of emotions and memories crashing down on me.  And when I looked at him, though almost ten years older now, I could still see that same 23-year-old who used to race me across town in his truck so I wouldn't miss my curfew—and who would then stop in the church parking lot down the street from my parents' house to kiss me when we made it with a few minutes to spare.

Mr. Cadet hadn't changed a bit, except older, and maybe a little wiser.  He was still the same handsome, charming, genuine, honorable gentleman.  So why didn't my heart drop into my stomach when he looked at me like it used to?  Why didn't I allow myself to jump into the sky and float along with fluffy clouds of silly emotion?  And though he told me more than once that he had a great time and wanted to meet up again soon, why was I skeptical that I would ever hear from him again and preparing myself for the worst in my heart?

I suppose that I shouldn't expect to be normal quite yet.  It has been nearly a year, but it feels as though I have been "getting over" my divorce for much longer than that.  I'm finally ready to be normal again.

But instead, it feels as though a part of me has died, leaving an empty void in my chest, and the part of me that knew how to love someone is gone forever.  I wonder sometimes if I will ever be capable of that kind of love again.  When my ex-husband destroyed our marriage, he seems to have destroyed the part of my heart that was filled with hope for fairytale endings and the ability to feel romantic passion.  And here I am left, not only with a broken heart, but with a broken spirit—and wondering if it ever ends.

I wrote this poem when I was in college, around the time that Mr. Cadet was in my life on a daily basis, and I found myself thinking about it today.  At least I know that, when I wrote this, I must have been feeling close to the same way that I am today, ten years later.  Somehow, in the years after I wrote this poem, I became that glorious bird again.  Hopefully, I can do it once more now.

I used to be…

A bird with golden wings—
I lived high up in the mountain tops
That were peaked with silvery snow.

Each morning
When the sun flashed
Its first brilliant rays of daylight across the land,
I would swoop down
Straight down
Passing clouds as I dropped,
Falling so fast towards treetops
And then
Remounting the wind
And letting it carry me up again.

I used to fly behind waterfalls
And let my big golden wings
Gently brush the crystal-blue water.
I used to sweep through grassy fields
Covered with wildflowers
And leafy trees
Filled with chattering chipmunks...
Then
I used to rise above the clouds
And flutter in and out of rainbows.

At last, as the sun’s bright light
Disappeared behind the mountains,
I used to land softly in my nest
With the sweet taste of freedom on my beak—

A bird with golden wings…but I’m not anymore.

Forever fearless,
Dumbfounded Divorcée

The One That Got Away

Even after a woman is married (or otherwise informally attached), it is perfectly normal for that woman to still wonder about the men of romances past.  Certain questions might occasionally cross that woman's mind:  What might have happened if I had ended up with Mr. High-School Heartthrob?  Where is Mr. College Crush today?  Or, was my true 'Mr. Right' truly Mr. Office One & Only?  Considering the current lives of these past paramours does not mean that we are stuck in the past or that we don't love the one we're with.  It does not make us cheaters; it makes us human.  For most of us, there is always that special man from our past who we label as The One That Got Away.

The difference between other women and me, the divorcée?  I can actually do something about it.

His name was Mr. Cadet.  As I was traveling far north to that frozen tundra I called college, my family was leaving my high school life behind and moving to a new state; once again I was able to call a city in the South "home."  All throughout college, each last day of April, I left my snow boots, scarf, and gloves behind and went home to my small-town sunshine.  Because it was a new place for me, I had to meet new summer friends through the wonderful world of waitressing.  This is how Mr. Cadet entered my life; he had just finished with a five-year commitment in the U.S. Army and was working as a waiter while attending a local college.

I am not quite even sure how it happened.  One day, we are working alongside each other as coworkers; the next, we are AOL instant-messaging each other at home.  One minute, he's introducing himself during our shift; the next, he's going out of his way to pass me to say hi and smile.  The two of us always volunteered to stay as the last waitstaff on the floor, challenging each other to see who could bring in the most cash in tips (and convincing the hostess to seat members of the opposite sex at tables in our respective sections to gain the advantage).  Then, we would walk out of the restaurant together, usually chatting and flirting next to our cars until long after the parking lot was empty.

For the most part, our relationship was completely platonic—a few times, it progressed to something more.  But of course, the summer would pass, I would go back to school, and the relationship would be forced to end.  However, as soon as winter was over and April appeared again, Mr. Cadet and I would once more be drawn to each other, unable to fight the chemistry between us.  But, since we knew how much it would hurt when the summer was over, we didn't talk about the future; we would never express how we felt.  Summer romances seemed to be our fate, at least for the time.

Then, as my senior year of college was looming ahead, my family told me that they would again be moving—which meant, when I traveled back north that September, I would be leaving my small town paradise and Mr. Cadet behind for good.

So I told Mr. Cadet that I was leaving.  I told him that I wouldn't be back that next summer.  I told him that I was applying to grad school, and I could pick any place in the nation to attend, any place I had a reason to go.  I waited for him to give me a reason; I waited for him to ask me to stay.  He never did.  So I left, and I didn't look back.

I do not blame him for letting me go.  He was 24, and I was only 21 when I saw Mr. Cadet for the last time.  So young, having to make big decisions—we cannot be expected to make the right one every time.  And who knows?  Maybe it was the right decision.  Maybe it was only a summer romance, and we were supposed to move on to new futures.  We might have never worked out.  However, even after all these years, when I think about the characters of my past, he has always been "the one that got away" in my love story.

A few months prior to my ex-husband dropping the D-word on me, Mr. Cadet sent me a friend request on Facebook, after almost 10 years of no contact.  Turns out, he just moved to a city only a six-hour's drive away from my current location.  We started chatting one day recently, and I finally got up the courage to ask him:

"Why did you let me go?  Why didn't you ask me to stay?  I was crazy about you—I would have stayed there with you."

He surprised me completely with his reply:

"I didn't ask because I didn't know you wanted me to.  Why didn't you ask me to go with you?  I was crazy about you too—I would have followed you wherever you went."

I truly believe that everything happens for a reason.  I know that I was meant be married, I was meant to get divorced, and I was meant to be hurt beyond belief for a reason.  So I have to wonder — was "the one that got away" meant only to be a part of my past?  Or is there a reason he has suddenly reappeared in my future?  Maybe, I'm not yet supposed to know.

But the plus side to getting divorced?  If I want to, I actually have the chance to find out.

Forever fearless,
Dumbfounded Divorcée