Waiting More Than a Dozen Years

[TeaEarlGreyHot]

I think your answers don't lay here...

All good observations and all stuff I've thought through myself. I guess that if it occurs the same way for you as it does for me it demonstrates that I'm not imagining this stuff and other people can see the same thing that I do.

As for my vibrating coworker...no, she was running her own game and I wasn't playing.

No, I look back at some of the opportunities I seemed to have and have no way of knowing how or whether they would have turned out.

But there was one couple with whom I shared my feelings about my first wife, how things had gone, where things had gone wrong and what I was willing to do out of love to repair and bring things back. We (my first wife and I) had known this couple since shortly after we had gotten married. They too were newlyweds and our life tracks followed a similar path...a couple of years out of the university, marriage, a couple of years later a house, and then pregnancy and children.

When my wife announced the affair and moved out, they were good friends and reached out to me. In some ways, their willingness to have me share their Thanksgiving (which I did accept) and their Christmass (which I did not) helped maintain my sanity. At the time, though, they were my advocates and although still friends with my soon to be ex-wife, they tried to bolster me by telling me that they thought she had made a really bad choice and that if she came to her senses that she was going to be very lucky to have me there, ready to put things back together.

I didn't want to impose my troubles on my friend's lives because I was aware of some of their struggles. So, I tried not to wear out my welcome. Ultimately, a couple of years later, their own strains caught up with them and they parted.

She waited for what she considered to be an appropriate period of time after their divorce. We had not talked for several years when she called me. She wanted to go out with me and wanted to know if I was interested. I was weeks away from my second marriage and I declined even to go out and have dinner with an old friend. She had other things in mind, but I just did not go there and did not allow myself that luxury.

I should have taken that chance.