Oh the drama of finding love yet again

I had left New Jersey a naive child of thirteen with an innocence that would be lost forever. I know that happens to all of us; I just wish I could have released it on my own terms, not someone else’s.

My two years in the mid west proved to be more than I could have bargained for.
I was now a woman, W O M A N. (Are you singing now) I’m a woman, w o m an …….

It was also a time of discovery; I wasn’t stupid or lazy in regards to school work, I had a condition.

I had never done great in school. Oh I passed all my classes, but homework was a struggle; as were reading assignments. My parents assumed that I wasn’t applying myself hard enough; goofed around too much, and just didn’t take my studies seriously.

On one of my dad’s business trips he was out to dinner with several other men he was traveling with, and the discussion turned to a new condition relating to how information is process in the brain.

Mirror writing, difficulty retaining information, the list went on and on.
My father immediately went and called my mother. Holy shit, our daughter isn’t an idiot, she’s dyslexic.

That was a big deal for me; I always thought I was the mutant in the family; it takes its toll on your confidence.

Thinks were looking up; I had the man of my dreams and I wasn’t an idiot. Life was good.

Now, I had assumed that having sex with your boyfriend would cement the deal; especially if you put out every time he wanted it. What more could he possibly want?

You would live happily ever after and never be apart. WRONG!!!

It was always on our minds that I would be moving back to New Jersey at the end of my freshman year. There was nothing we could do about it either; my dad’s job only required us to be in Illinois for two years, we knew that when we left Jersey.

At that time, we were happy it would only be for two years. Now, I didn’t want to go back; my life was here.

My dad, once again, was being so selfish.

I actually believed that at the time. It’s no wonder that some animals eat their young.

So, as I walked around in haze of mixed emotions; love, fear, and confusion as to what the future held for us, my lover went off behind my back and met with someone new. John had a new girl friend.

He broke up with me, stating still that he was very much in love with me, but with my moving back east soon, there didn’t seem to be a reason to stay together. He hoped I understood.

Understood my ass. I was destroyed. The end of life as I had known it was over. I was very upset and very dramatic. I would NEVER find love again nor would I ever be happy again.

It wouldn’t long though that I would be asked out by another John. That’s me, I have lots of Johns.

My new John was blond and very good looking. He told me broke up with his girlfriend so he could take me out. He had been noticing me from afar. I was very flattered. That’s all it took, compliment me and I’m yours. Barf. He knew I slept with my boyfriend and wanted some of the same I can only assume.

I didn’t sleep with him; actually I only went out with him a few times. It seems I could say no when the reason had something to do with someone other than myself. I knew his ex girlfriend. I hadn’t known at the time that he had been her boyfriend, but when I saw her in the local ice cream shop and she started to cry, I would soon find out. Her boyfriend had broken up with her because she wouldn’t sleep with him. Seems he had met someone who he had a better chance with, me.

She didn’t know it was me, but I knew, and I felt so bad. This girl was crying on my shoulder about me and she didn’t even know it.

I don’t recall her name, but she was sweet, kind and strong enough to know what she would or wouldn’t do to keep her boyfriend. I so admired her for that.
I never dated John again and he went back to his girlfriend. He had tried but failed to get what my other John had. Hurray for me.

It wouldn’t be long before my first love came back to me, sorry and begging me to take him back.

It seems that he was so jealous when he heard I was going out with someone else, he said it forced him to realize his deep love for me.

We were, once again, a couple.

When my dad took my sister, mother and I to the airport to leave Illinois for good that summer, John came along also to say his goodbyes.

According to what my dad told my mother, he had never seen a young man cry as hard as John did when we boarded the plane.

I was allowed to go back to Illinois for a month later that summer. I would be staying part of the time with my friend Jill and her family and the other time, with John and his parents.

It was on this trip that I would receive what I had always wanted (well, since a year before that is) an engagement ring. John actually proposed to me, diamond and all. His parents were thrilled.

The first thing I could think of saying after I said yes of course was, “what did parents say when you asked them?” He hadn’t told them. Oh God was I in trouble.
I made his mother call my mom. It wasn’t pretty. When I got on the phone after what seemed like an eternity of both moms talking, all my mother said was. “ GIVE THE RING BACK”

Looking back, she sounded like Terri Gahr in Young Frankenstein. PUT THE CANDLE BACK…..

I had never heard that tone of voice coming out of my mom, and I haven’t heard it since, thank the lord. It was scary.

I simply could not believe that my mother was being so unreasonable. Didn’t she know that we were in love? Didn’t she remember what it was like to be with the only person on the planet that you would ever love and want as a husband? Apparently not. Selfish, just like my dad.

Reality, once again did not come into my life for a long long time.

I did give the ring back; at the airport when I was flying back home. Can you believe that my parents were still upset with me. Once again I cried for a long time after that.

My parents fooled even me, during school break around Thanksgiving, they let John come for a visit. It was wonderful, we were still in love, but that would soon end.

We both knew it wouldn’t work. I was, after all, only in the tenth grade, and leaving school was not an option. So we drifted apart. I was very sad about that. I even looked him up a year later when I went back to visit with my friend Jill.
I found his number and gave him a call. Seems he lived with his parents on a farm in Iowa then; had married and was happy.

So much for me being the only one for him. Just another lesson learned….well, not really. I tend to grasp these things much later than I should.

New Jersey was good. Although the friends that I had left behind only two year’s prior were so much more immature than I was. I had matured into a young, experienced woman; most of my friends were still, can you believe it, virgins. How childish.

Once again I was so out of the loop on what was appropriate and what wasn’t.
It wouldn’t be long before I met the next “love of my life” His name was Donny and I was in love, yet again.

It was in my junior and senior year that our love affair lasted. He was a Navy man. How can you go wrong with that?

I should have called out the Marines.

He was very nice at first, oh wait, don’t I say that about every single person I meet? I had met him through the guys (my best friends, but that’s a story in of itself) one summer and that was that. We seemed to hit it off right away; there was just something about him that was different than some of the other guys I had dated. I should have realized he wasn’t any different at all, he was just better at camouflaging his faults.

Donny was short, not particularly good looking, but seemed shy in a very cute sort of way; he was not intimidating in the least. Be cautious of the quiet ones ladies, they bite.

Donny was a virgin when I met him. When we had sex for the first time together, in his parent’s apartment in Newark, I left my socks on. Can you believe it? Me and my feet, what the hell is the deal with that?

What a first impression. I should have followed my own advice after my first time was so stressful. But, this was so spontaneous that I didn’t have time to plan the whole seduction scene. He threw me on his bed and said let’s do it. That’s romance.

I wonder if after we broke up he thought that all women left their foot wear on while performing the act.

Anyway, we went on your typical dates, dinner, movies; and of course, parties on the beach with the crew. Life was good; or so I thought.

When he went to sea several months after we had started dating, he would write a little bit to me every day, and then send the letters all at once. Now, being the idiot that I was, and not realizing how attached his mother was to him, I called her to tell her that I had received eight letters, and did she hear from him also; yup, one letter. One lousy letter.

Mind you, we had been talking for weeks about how we couldn’t wait to hear from him, and the first person to get A LETTER should call the other. I was in heaven, not only was in madly in love (again) with this man, but his mom loved me too. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.

Could I have been exposed to radon or lead at some time during my childhood that caused such brain damage?

That was the beginning of the end of his mother liking me. She now hated me with a passion that I can’t begin to describe. Ladies, always let the mother of your boyfriend tell you what she got first, then you adjust your answer to always, and I mean always go less than what she got. You can’t lose that way. Otherwise, look out. Especially if she is the jealous type who feels that only she is good enough for her baby boy. And the sad part is, she really liked me in the beginning.

This woman was not happy with me. She even went through his things when he got home from his tour and read the letters that I wrote to him. In one of my letters, I jokingly said that we should go streaking down Arnold Avenue, the main street in the shopping district, when he got home. It was the craze at the time. I was joking, I certainly had no intention of running butt naked down our main thoroughfare. But, she took me seriously and had her son call me to come over. I did, but little did I know that she was on the way to my parent’s house, to show them the letter and let them know what kind of a slut I was, corrupting her son.

Can you believe that he actually went along with her: Set me up so I would get in trouble with my parents, or so she thought? That should have been my clue to dump him. Jesus Christ, I was a fool. As it turned out, my parents weren’t home. I did tell them about it and although they weren’t happy about me talking about being naked for all to see, they understood it was a joke and asked me to dump Donny.

Once again, I didn’t listen.

Now, when Donny got off the ship, our friends and I all planned to have me waiting on the beach the first day he was able to have leave. All our friends and his cousins would stand on the beach, blocking his view of me, so when he finally got onto the sand and started hugging everyone, they would move to the side and he would see me, standing there waiting for that long anticipated kiss and hug.

I went to embrace him and just feel him next to me again after such a long time. I had played the scene in my mind for weeks, anticipating his coming home and how it would play out. I tend to lean towards the dramatic. When you are sixteen and seventeen and in love, the feelings are so strong and you feel sometimes that you won’t be able to make it through one more day if you don’t see the man that holds your heart.

That was a scenario that only happened in my dreams. Donny stopped, looked at me for a moment and proceeded to yell at me in front of everyone that he needed to be with his friends and what gave me the right to be there when he had not specifically asked me to come. .

Having my mind set on a certain reaction, only to have him push me away and scream at me for being so selfish as to think that he would want me there was something that I had neither thought of nor anticipated in any way. My mind could not comprehend what was happening. He had not asked me to be there so what gave me the right to assume that I would be who he wanted to see his first full day back.

All of our friends just stared at him; but no one came to my defense. Most of them just kind of wandered down to the water; it was such an awkward situation for them.

Jesus Christ, half of my friends were his cousins, and the others were just too stunned to speak I guess. I was left standing there, looking like such a fool as Donny pushed past me, and I mean literally pushed, to join the others farther down the beach.

I don’t know if I was more hurt or embarrassed, but I do remember that I wasn’t mad or angry. If anything, anger is the emotion that should have been pumping through my veins, not embarrassment. I should have gotten my things and gone home, never to speak to his sorry ass again. I just did not know my own worth.

Now mind you, I was friends with all his relatives and we shared the same group of friends. Fuck him. I didn’t say that, I didn’t even think it at the time. Once again I did what I do best. I cried, hysterically. I thought that my life was over. I can remember the feeling of total loss. I was actually devastated. I didn’t think that I could go on without this man in my life, loving me.

It should have occurred to me that if this was love, who the hell needs it, but once again I just didn’t see it.

Now, wasn’t it not too long before this that I couldn’t live without my Illinois boyfriend, John? Hey, I can’t help it that I loved way too hard and fast. It would be years down the road before I realized that I hadn’t loved this man at all. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t love. What a sad way to live one’s life at 17 years old; thinking that life would not be complete, or worthwhile without a boyfriend, and an asshole one at that, in my life.

I sat for over an hour all by myself down the beach from where all my friends and Donny were enjoying the day. My best friend of all the guys we hung around with, Huey, came over and tried to console me. It didn’t do any good. If Donny didn’t want me as his girl friend, I would be miserable for the rest of my life. Oh, the drama.

Donny approached me when I was sitting there, like the perfect martyr, and said we should talk when we all got together that evening. I know it; can you believe that I went back that night for more fun? At least I had his permission this time.

So, later that evening, we all congregated at the house that Donny and his cousins’ families owned. When I got there and I had composed myself enough to speak, I apologized for being insensitive and not realizing that he would want to be with his friends and not me when he got home after three months at sea. I begged him to forgive me for being at the beach and getting him angry. Those stupid love letters telling me how much he missed me must have thrown me off. I don’t know why in the world I would have thought he wanted to see me, or that I needed his permission to be there in the first place for Christ’s sakes. It goes without saying that I did not say that to him. I just apologized, or if you prefer to be politically correct, I groveled.

I should have kicked his Navy ass back into the ocean where it belonged. We made up, but only after he made it perfectly clear that I was never, ever to embarrass him again by showing up uninvited.

We were all leaving the back yard, on our way up to the beach, when he pulled me back from the group. I assumed he was going to kiss me and apologize. Nope, he grabbed me by the hair and slammed my head against the side of the house, which just happened to be cement, as hard as he could. I cannot tell you how much that hurt. I actually saw stars. He was trying to get my attention to make sure that I was never again insensitive to his wants or needs. I got it alright. And did that bring me to my senses? Nope. I apologized for getting him angry again, and begged him not to be mad at me; after I was able to pick myself up off the ground that is, and come to terms with the pain that surging through my head.

Once again, I cried for a long time after that.

It couldn’t have been more than three weeks after the head-slamming incident that there was to be a huge party on the beach. We were all so excited. It was estimated that approximately 50 people would be there. Food, booze, music and fun. What could be better? I was working at the bank at the time and decided to invite one of my friends who had just recently gone through a rough patch in her personal life.

Can you take a guess what happened, judging by my luck? You guessed it, Donny propositioned her. He actually asked her point blank if she would go to bed with him, not a block away from the party at his families summer home. She said no, came and found me to tell me what a scum bag boyfriend I had and left the party.

I am amazed that I found the courage to confront Donny about his outrageous behavior. I was so hurt and confused, but proud of myself for finding the voice to let him know how I felt. My pride did not last long. We went back to his house where I was told in no uncertain terms, “If you love me, drop the subject and get in bed.” I did what I was told. Love making at its finest; angry, without love and one sided. Once again, pathetic.

Seems I was just as big an asshole as he was.

It wasn’t too long after that incident that my man decided he didn’t want to be in the Navy any longer. As many of you may know, that is not a decision that you are allowed to make on your own. It is called going AWOL. Not such a good thing.

His family consisted of nine aunts and uncles and various cousins. They all owned that summer home together in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ. This house was great. It was three stories tall and had nine bedrooms, a living room and kitchen. But it also had a huge garage that was converted into a gigantic kitchen so everyone could sit together and eat or just gather and spend time together.

This is where he stayed while on the lamb. I would lie to my parents and would tell them that I was staying at a friend’s house and go there and stay with him.

I actually, only stayed one night with him there, but would meet him almost everyday to go out, or just discuss what he was going to do. I mean, you can’t hide in a small seashore community forever, can you? It wasn’t until someone told my parents about this that we got caught.

I still did a lot of walking in those days, and told my parents I was on another one of my journeys. I walked over to a friend’s house where Donny happened to be spending some time to visit with him, because as you know, without my man I was nothing. When Wayne, our friend came back to his house where we were, he told me that he had just been at my parent’s house and that they knew Donny was AWOL. My parents knew that I was at Wayne’s house, and were going to come and get me. Having had a good relationship with my parents, he offered to come and get me and bring me home.

I can‘t describe the feeling that I had in my stomach. I can honestly tell you that that was probably the longest five-mile car trip that I have ever taken. It was just awful. My parents knew. That was the worst thing that could have possibly happened to me. Forget about Donny and the possibility of prison. I was worried about how my parents were going to react. For all the shenanigans that I did, I had a very healthy fear of my parents. I just never thought that I would get caught at anything.

It was worse than I thought. My dad cried. God, there is nothing worse than making your parents cry. I sat at the kitchen table while my parents yelled, talked, cried and just stood silent. I was so ashamed, I had absolutely no defense. And the worst part of it was that I had had an out to all of this. One of my teachers kept me after class one day because he sensed something was wrong. I had, and still have, such respect for this man that I confessed all. He was very kind to me. He told me that I had no choice but to turn him in. It would be better to do that than have them find him first. I agreed.

We walked down to the guidance office together where he found the number of Earle Naval Base for me, told me that I was strong enough to do this and shut the door so I could have privacy; leaving me alone to make the call and do the right thing.
I couldn’t do it. I should have, but I couldn’t. This teacher was very patient, he didn’t pressure me to call and he didn’t ask any questions as to where Donny was or how he was getting by. So, we were left with my parents finding out and Donny calling his uncle and having him go with him to turn himself in; which he did the very next day.

My parents grounded me, took my car keys, and told me that I would have to gain their trust all over again, that I had let them down by harboring someone that was AWOL and worse then that, I had lied to them over and over again. That, my friend, was the worst. My life was over, again. I must be part feline, I keep dieing and coming back again.

I was so upset the next day that my mom let me stay home from school. I did tell her that once I was 18; they couldn’t stop me from doing whatever I wanted, and that I would continue to see Donny. My love for him was too strong for them to keep us apart. God, don’t you just want to barf. It sounds like a bad script in an even worse soap opera.

Later that day, my mom came to my room with the phone. It was Donny. He was waiting for his uncle to come for him and wanted to see if I was alright. He had called his family to let them know what was going on and his uncle was nice enough to go with him when he turned himself in. Funny how he cared then but not when he was bashing my head against the wall.

He received some time in the brig and a dishonorable discharge.

I continued to see him briefly when he got out, but he had not changed. He was still very physical and I just couldn’t take it any longer. I finally did break up with him with the help and emotional support from my future first husband.

I know, don’t even say it……

I saw a mutual friend of ours a few years back and he told me that at that point, Donny’s parents had died and that he was homeless. I don’t wish that on anyone, not even him.

But like I said, what goes around comes around.

I left him for the safety and security of Gary’s arms.

From the oven into the fire pit.