I don’t ascribe to the notion that whatever happens is ‘fate.’ I do believe, however, that each path chosen has just a few outcomes. Hmmm…that statement reminds me of something a friend told me years ago. Let me paraphase: life has just so many scripts. It’s the players that change. Now I like to think I’ve ‘got this’ – meaning control over my life – but there are those times, well, when I wonder.
Life’s funny. Sometimes I imagine a puppet master experimenting with the strings. First you’ll be yanked this way, then that way, and then sometimes you’re just left sitting on a shelf in a dark closet collecting dust. You sit there, coughing in a ‘wooden’ manner, hoping the ole’ puppet master will take a break from his story board and let you out, if only to jerk your chain, er…string. Ah, but I don’t really think like that.
What I do think is that sometimes my timing is off, and definitely, I have had some curious players in my life. For example, I got really involved with the real estate market. I was buying, renovating, and flipping properties. Not having a wad of cash, I often found myself making ‘little’ profits, but still, I was pretty pleased with my accomplishments. And then, just when I was about to really cash in on a sweet little project, the market dried up, the buyers were gone, and I ended up writing blogs to dump my angst. There are others who got yanked up by the sucky economy, and in a perverse sort of way, I take solace in that, knowing that I wasn’t the only one who tanked. I’m not laughing at anyone else’s shared misery, just saying, it’s a little easier to swallow when you know you’re not alone. Shall we meet for a bite to eat and share our war stories?
And then there’s the players. Fortunately, for me, most of the people in my life are above par, bar none. Wonderful people. Love them dearly. Then there were those few deviant characters who invaded my space, and ‘gasp’ I let them in. Lawd! What a mess certain people can make. Toxic people they’re called. They should come labeled with the skull and crossbones. For example, one of my husbands (I’ve had two, divorced them both; I won’t id either, because I don’t want the other to gloat), was a brute. A physically threatening brute. If I had been a more timid woman, I probably wouldn’t be in here typing away. In that amazing way that lovers are known to be, he never exhibited his ‘wife-abusing’ tendencies before we said “I do.” No, that came the first week of the marriage, when he got mad at me for not wanting to go in the deep end of the pool at our mountain honey-moon getaway. Hey! I CAN’T SWIM! But did that matter? Nope. Instead, he showed a surly, nasty, mood that seemed to stay with him the rest of our short marriage.
There’s more. But dredging it up is making me feel something — don’t know quite what it is yet, but I’m going to stop for now. (heh, heh, don’t you hate that? just when it might get juicy, and trust me it’s juicy) Maybe I’ll go into more detail in another post, but suffice it to say, if I saw him on the street, I would go around the block.
Then I married the other one, before the ink was barely dry on my divorce papers. It was so-so, basically. Boring, actually. Plus there was that little thing missing called ‘trust.’ See, he was charming, hard-working, devoted to family (his), said all the right things, but man, could that man lie (and cheat). Whew! But he did it in a nice way. LOL. I didn’t have to assume the fighting position or put a crow bar to his wallet. I think the relative ’peace’ I had while married to him allowed me to put up with some of the nonsense. By the time we had married, I was tired, and I needed to rest. So I did. And then one day I woke up and said ‘what the heck are you doing?’ Now see, I’m not one of those women who stalks her man by riffling through his wallet, following him in an unmarked car, making accusations that I can’t prove, but sometimes when the mess hits you upside the head, you HAVE to react. So it did, and I did. The evidence was just too in my face. He had gotten sloppy. He had allowed himself to think that since I didn’t do all the aforementioned things that he was good to go. He started making mistakes. He took too much for granted. (this is another one of those entries that begs for details…later, maybe). I got my hat and left. No, I gave him his hat and bid him farewell.
See, I had always wanted to be married, have a family, a house, two cars in the garage – the works. And then I got it, but the timing was off. I got the wrong men at the wrong time, under the wrong circumstances. Why did I think I could make it all turn out right with what I had? Anyway, I figure having just one focus left me ill-equipped for life’s other offerings. I spend a lot of time playing ‘catch-up.’ I’ve caught up with some things. Got some more to do. But goodness, I sure would like to know at which stop to get off.
If life is a bunch of scripts, I’d like a rewrite of few of the next chapters, thank you very much. If there is a puppet master, can somebody hand me some scissors?
