Love is a many splintered thing

As a teenager and young adult I had an uncanny proclivity to attract psychopaths.  There were a few notable exceptions (Wayne if you are reading this you are one of the exceptions), but for the most part, my choice in romantic partners was seriously flawed.  When I was 15, I dated a boy who thought it would be fun to make me believe he was gonna throw me off a mountain top.  I failed to see the humor in it, and was truly terrified when I found the only thing keeping me from pitching backward off a cliff was the snap on my blue jeans.  My prayers were answered and the snap held, but that was the last time I went anywhere with that lunatic. At 18 I was engaged to be married to another misfit.  (It took me a very long time to be able to identify insanity early in the game.)  He didn't try to kill me, but he did shoot himself.   At 20 I married a maniac out of fear because he threatened suicide.  Having already been down that road, I didn't want to venture that way again.  I don't really count it as a marriage.  I never wanted any part of it, it barely lasted long enough for the ink to dry, and the screwball slashed his wrists anyway.  It would not even qualify for what today is known as a starter marriage.   At 22 I married for love, but if he wasn't a nutcase before he went to Viet Nam, he certainly qualified for commitment papers afterward.  Something about all those terribly young people dying all around him turned him into a serial cheater.  Maybe he was that way all along and just hid it better before he went to Nam, but I think the war turned him into something even he didn't like.  After that, I gave up.  I had never actually "looked" for anyone to love, but I made up my mind I was going to actively avoid any entanglements from that point forward.


I found myself young and single and living in Atlanta at a time when the young male population outnumbered the young female population by a large margin.  I had a big time!   It is likely I dated some young men who were probably relatively close to sane, but as I was not having anything to do with any relationships, it just didn't matter.  There were times I felt lonely but never enough to let down my guard or let anyone get close.  My brother-in-law once fixed me up on a blind date.  It was with a coworker of his at Georgia Power, so I figured he had to have some degree of intelligence and maybe even a social grace or two.  Wow, was I in for a shocker.  I sure hope my brother-in-law had no clue what this dude was really like.  They just worked together, so I would like to believe George only knew him professionally and did not have a great deal of insight into his personality.  The first place Homer (yes, that was his real name) wanted to take me was to an X-rated movie.  I told him I thought maybe that was inappropriate for a first date, so he suggested the Playboy Club.  I was beginning to get the drift.  I countered with the suggestion we go bowling.  He thought maybe we should just go back to my apartment and "watch television".  We ended up going bowling.  The ensuing wresting match when he dropped me off at my apartment later was really unpleasant, but he did win a place in my memory banks, forever.  I wrote a poem about how horrible my date was with him.  I won't publish it here because it includes his entire name.  I'd like to think somewhere along the way he got a clue in life.


As I've mentioned, I took a job in Atlanta and ended up in Baltimore.  Actually, the timing was perfect because I was attempting to ease my way out of a situation with someone in Atlanta and moving to another state seemed like a good solution.  Turns out, it was.  For the first year I lived in Baltimore I did the same tap dance, slipping and sliding my way to avoid romantic entanglements.  Then along came Bud.


I had no intention of falling for Bud.  He had several strikes against him from the beginning:  he is significantly younger than I, we had just gone through many months of intense hostility toward one another, and he wasn't my type (which could mean he was actually playing with ALL his marbles).  I fought against my feelings every inch of the way.  But we started dating and before long we were seeing each other exclusively.  Bud moved in with me, and eventually he and I shared a townhouse with our friend Tim.  There are some stories there, but most remain untellable.  Then Bud and I split up.  Or, at least we weren't living together any longer.  I'm not sure we ever quit seeing each other.  We must have found a thousand reasons we needed to go somewhere together or do something together until finally we were exclusive again, though we kept separate apartments.  In October of 1980, Bud moved to North Carolina, along with many of our friends, to open a company specializing in high end grandfather clocks.  We had all worked at the Daneker Clock Company in Maryland (which is how we all met) and the company had folded.  The managers of Daneker still wanted to make clocks and found  investors to help open a new company.  The move to North Carolina came about because North Carolina was the furniture capital of the world and the company needed skilled furniture craftsmen.  I had a job in Maryland (not at the clock company) and did not intend to make the move to North Carolina.  From October through December, Bud drove from North Carolina to Maryland almost every weekend to see me.  By December he had convinced me to move to North Carolina.  Originally I thought I would get my own apartment once I got settled, but somehow that never happened.  I also ended up working for the clock company in North Carolina.  In 1982 we decided to buy a house.  The house we selected (where we still live) would allow for a VA loan requiring no down payment and since I was a vet, that was the route we chose.  Unfortunately, my salary was not enough to make the monthly mortgage payments and the only way they would consider Bud's salary was if he was also a vet or if we were legally married.  I asked him how he felt about two years in the Army, but all I got was daggers shooting from his eyes and a stony silence, so we got married.  I didn't know it at the time, but it was the smartest thing I have ever done in my life.  I didn't go in search of a short (well shortish, he's 5'-10"), fat, bald man, but that's what I got and I wouldn't trade him for any man I have ever met.  Not only is he remarkably well balanced, he is a Boy Scout, loyal and true (he really was a scout).   He is reliable, basically honest, faithful, and most importantly of all, he has a well developed sense of humor.

I have found something for which many people claim to be searching but never seem to find -- true, lasting love.  I wasn't searching when it knocked me over like a steamroller, but I will forever be grateful it found me.