When I was growing up and would wait for the Junior High/Middle School bus, there were a couple of guys that looked a bit strange and were outsiders. The two guys wore long trenchcoats (this was waaaaay before Columbine) and had the whole 'I don't fit in so I'll try to intimidate you by looking scary' vibe. Little did I know that my sister would marry one of those guys about ten years later.
Less than 18 months after I got married, my sister (six years younger than me) called me to let me know that she was getting married. (I got 12 days notice and off I flew to Rapid on scary-expensive plane tickets that I couldn't afford.) Once she got married, it was like she dropped off the face of the earth. I rarely saw her and felt really disconnected from her. It was a painful time and I felt like she and I were on different planets. She smoked (as in her clothes always smelled, smoked), lived with her husband and some of their friends in the same house (my sister said when the movie You, Me, and Dupree came out that she didn't need to see it because she already lived it), she worked while her husband remained unemployed for years, and it seemed like we only talked around the holidays, if at all.
Once my husband and I saw Mark's heartbeat on the sonogram, I called my sister to let her know that she was going to be an aunt. She seemed very excited and genuinely very happy. Just a few weeks later, I got a telephone call from her husband. (Very weird-- I never talked to him. Ever.) He said that he had searched their computer, found that my sister had been conversing with an old boyfriend and was planning to leave him. I was blindsided-- I thought it couldn't be true because she'd call me and tell me personally.
Well, my sister did leave trenchcoat-guy, who, as I didn't know, was incredibly manipulative and controlling and as I did know, was happy to just let my sister finance his life. She has now let me know that once she heard that she was going to be an aunt, she decided that she couldn't let her nephew think that she was the strange aunt and she decided that her life needed to change. She did reconnect with the old boyfriend. Even though I wasn't personally happy that she went straight from a failed marriage to an old boyfriend, she has gotten her life together and we are not only sisters, but once again friends. Her independence day is next week. She'll officially be divorced and that chapter of her life will be over.
Happy Independence Day, M.
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2 comments:
Not only am I speechless...my fingers aren't even helping me. I have never taken the easy road, but the last 13 months have been the hardest yet the most fulfilling.
You and I both know that the easy road doesn't have as much to teach. On to bigger and better things, right?
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