A Story In Search Of A Moral

Ohhhhhh yes. You're right. I did start the story of my first marriage only to drop it like a buttered tea cup, didn't I? Sorry about that.

I think the problem is not so much that I am embarrassed (I am not; although I should be) as every time I start to put it together in my head it comes out like a badly written short story; one in which the characters behave in inexplicable ways from start to finish. It seems... lame to tell you that I did x y and then z without being able to provide any insight as to why. But honestly, I still don't know. I have absolutely no idea why - when I was, say, 15 to 25 - I made consistently terrible decisions seemingly at random. I imagine being in the same situations as the younger me and it's like yelling at the screen during a movie.

"Noooooo! Don't! Go! Into! The! Woods! "

Now if I turned on the water in my newly purchased house and blood came gushing out I would turn off the tap, get into the car, drive away and never ever come back. Twenty years ago - as far as I can tell - I would have looked at the blood and the spectral demon glaring at me from the bathroom mirror and said, brightly, "Hmmm, we'd better split up and investigate. I'll take the basement."

What the hell? Why if I loved Julian with every fiber of my being did I initiate so very very many other relationships in his absence? Why if I felt at best lukewarm fondness and at worst utter contempt for Andy did I marry him? Dunno.

So I'll tell you the facts as I remember them but it's going to be a bring your own analysis event. Actually feel free. Critique away. The best I can come up with is:

1. alien mind control

2. I spent an entire decade more than a little tipsy

and, frankly, as plausible character motivators neither of those are going to make the New Yorker.

College. Junior year. I don't remember the pretext but I wound up in a conversation with Julian from one of my English classes and the sparks flew so fast and furiously that we stood in the pouring rain and made small talk. I was instantly besotted. I was also dating Mike - a former Marine recovering alcoholic ten years my senior - who lived with me off and on. It was a little awkward to encourage Julian's capital R Romantic courtship (flowers, tiny gifts, notes crammed into my mailbox at three in the morning) while gently dislodging Mike but I managed.

I just laughed aloud because I was sitting here thinking how deft and tactful I was about the overlap until I suddenly remembered the way I finally ended things with Mike. His closest friend was getting married and he was the best man. The bride-to-be had invited me to all her showers and prenuptial events and it was a big deal for Mike. So rather than attend the wedding as his date like I had promised I... left town and hiked the Appalachian Trail with Julian and his family. Subtle!

Good grief.

Anyway, I fell madly in love with Julian and it was dreamy. I think I made this analogy before but that year exists in my memory like a classic film montage with, like, I don't know, a Snow Patrol song playing in the background. All plaintive crooning and swelling strings. There were parks full of tulips and rambling explorations through old neighborhoods and lots of art and staying up until 6 in the morning and Granny Smith apples with English beer and brie. If we quarrelled I don't remember it and if I was less than entirely faithful at all times I do not remember that either. Like I said, I was besotted but I did not have the best impulse control, once upon a time. 

Here's a picture from 1992. We went to Cape May for the weekend. I just looked at this picture for a long time trying to see what I saw then but all I can tell you is that I thought he was the most attractive person I had ever laid eyes upon. I wanted to fan myself every time he glanced at me.

He graduated that Spring but I had a year left. He stayed in Baltimore with me and got first a retail job and then a poorly paid position with an itty-bitty publisher. Every time I read about the tough job market for current college grads I murmur in sympathy because the early 90's sucked too. We were, I think, quite happy and quietly domestic but there was lurking discord: he was waiting to hear back on his Peace Corps application. To me it felt like a guillotine, a sword of Damocles, a sentence of death pending appeal. Huh. I guess we did quarrel. I pleaded with him not to abandon me for two years and he pulled sad faces and said nothing that ever made me feel the slightest bit better.

Have I told you all this before? Probably.

Moving forward.

He left for Honduras and I sank into utter despair and finished my last semester of college in a sea of grief and cheap Kahula. Man, it hurt.

This is one of the inexplicable parts.

I was heartbroken, missed Julian like a limb, wrote him faithfully all the time, fully intended to go down to Central America as soon as I graduated and spend as much time as I possibly could with him and... I started a fairly serious relationship with a guy in Chicago.

In high school I dated a guy named Gregg. We broke up (obviously) but stayed friends (it was his wedding Patrick and I attended last month, actually.) One night after Julian left I called him at one in the morning, like you do, and got his roommate Chris instead. We talked. Then we talked again a couple of days later. Then we started talking all the time and shortly after this I went to my friend Christine's Easter brunch. She served ham and Bloody Marys and while the former was quite delicious the latter was more relevant because if I had not started drinking before noon that day I would never have decided that an immediate trip to Chicago was in order. But I did. Air travel between Baltimore and anywhere used to be very cheap and easy so once I had decided to go meet Chris it was simple to get a flight the next morning and - elevated by all that spicy tomato juice - I did.  

We started a long distance relationship with lots of phone calls, some visits, and a trip to Florida where we stayed for a week in his parents' unbelievable beach house in West Palm. At the same time I was still writing to Julian (skipping some of the, ah, details of home fire maintenance) and planning my first trip to Honduras.

Sorry, I really feel like I have told you all this before. I don't mean to bore you.

I spent a month with Julian, came back for my brother's wedding and called Chris. He was furious and said that my trip to Central America constituted a de facto break-up. I said, ah, no, really? and c'mon baby don't be like that. He told me to drop dead. That was it for him for a while but he reappears later so heads up.

I had gotten into law school by this time but had deferred admission for a year. I am... not sure why. Because I wanted to be miserable and broke and lonely and wait tables? Whatever the reason I was basically killing time in DC and after a few crummy months packed full of unfortunate decisions

(my father and step mother had allowed me to move in with them rent-free and had even given me the use of a car. they, um, had to take the car away again - ok! I AM embarrassed about something after all. embarrassed and ashamed - because I was not behaving in a responsible manner. let the record show that the witness has made the drinky-drinky vroom-vroom motion)

I fled my American Express credit card debt and my student loans and everything really and went back to Honduras. It was ok. I still loved Julian like Tabasco but he worked all the time and I was bored. In retrospect I should have written a novel or volunteered to do just about anything but instead I was sulky and everything tasted weird and we kept losing power and water and I was never entirely sure that armed militia weren't going to come and murder us in our sleep.

Here we are in our doorway in Honduras (Shawna just fixed the picture for me so it is right side up. many thanks to her. I still want photoshop for Christmas.) I had chopped off all my hair and I remember being surprised that Julian was so grief-stricken by its loss. Men are weird about hair.

When he had the time we travelled quite a bit through Honduras and the rest of Central America, experiences which I remember with more fondness than I viewed them at the time. With very little money our transportation and accomodations were always the cheapest we could find, so travel consisted of a couple hundred miles in the back of a pickup truck filled with dogs or sleeping in a building whose third floor leaned eleven feet to the left of the first floor. 

When I left to earn a little (very little. none, actually) money before law school I was sorry to leave Julian but I was not sorry to get out of Honduras.

I went to law school in Cleveland rather than Williamsburg Virginia because I concluded that I could not live in a town that did not have a 7-11. I could cheerfully strangle my twenty-two year old self for this decision because in-state tuition would have rendered law school a three thousand dollar mistake rather than the infinitely more costly one it became.

Someone in the comments asked about law school. Why did I drop out? Because I hated it. I hated absolutely every second of it. It was nothing like I expected it to be and I didn't understand one word in ten. Nobody read cases the way I did. Nobody seemed to be interested in the stories involved or the relative fairness of the decisions. Contract law might have been in Finnish as far as I was concerned. I was probably the worst law student in the history of all time and the entirety of jurisprudentia gave a sigh of relief as the door hit me on the way out.

Maybe that explains the next part of my life, a little.

I was drowning in debt, the only plan I had had for my life - Julia Valentine Blossom, Attorney at Law - was a complete bust, and the only way I had ever managed to even partially support myself was by waiting tables which is never a good route to prosperity. Julian was as hard to reach in Honduras as ever and he showed no signs of leaving early to come rescue me. Of course I should have rescued myself. I should have tugged on those wide bootstraps and slapped on a jaunty bow and done... something. But I didn't. I worried and I panicked and in my spare time I fretted.

I called Chris. Maybe we had been talking all along, maybe not. I don't remember. But at some point during the first few months of law school I called Chris and asked if I could come to Chicago for a weekend. I am pretty sure he said no. I am pretty sure I insisted until he finally said OK. It's a little fuzzy but I think I realized pretty quickly that Chris was not going to solve my problems for me. He was angry and no longer found me the least bit charming. His new roommate, though; he liked me. Yep, it was pretty clear after one evening that Chris' roomate Andy thought I was the knees of the bees.

Good grief I say again. This really isn't my favorite story.

Andy was a very nice computer programmer from Minneapolis Minnesota and what he was thinking I will never know. I could hardly have been more toxic at that period of my life if I had been bubbling green slime and stamped all over as biohazard. And to make matters worse he had just been about to embark on a very suitable relationship with the sweet friend of a friend of his. The very day my meteor crashed into his snowscape he had been scheduled to play tennis with a woman who kinda liked him that he thought maybe he kinda liked too.

I said, "Tennis? Bleh. Call her. Tell her something came up. Reschedule. Let's go drink and play pool."

So he did. Then he fixed everything. He loaned me a little money to tide me over in Cleveland. He agreed that dropping out of law school was prudent and helped me rent a room in a group house in Chicago. He drove the moving van for me and carried my couch into storage. When the first job I got making knock-off wallets in a Chicago basement (cold call, cattlesque recruiting actually) flopped he got me a job as a receptionist for his company and when I thought it sounded grown-up and sophisticated to get married he bought me a ring. I probably should have been grateful to him but in truth I just remember feeling vaguely annoyed all the time.

Whyyyyyyyyyyy? Why did he do all these things? His friends hated me. His family worried about my influence. I can tell you, I guess, why I married him (immaturity, vanity and anxiety) but I have never and will never understand why he didn't tie a brick to me and drop me in the nearest river rather than continue to deal with my pettiness and my peevishness and my... hey, embarrassment again.  

We got married in October the following year and we fought more or less every second thereafter.

The following summer I found myself alone at a bar one night and jostled into a guy with eyes like autumn leaves and a disconcerting sense of humor. We started talking and after half an hour I wanted him. I wanted him very very much indeed. I saw him three times before I finally confessed that I was married. He took it pretty well.

"You have thirty days to get out of your marriage or I am never seeing you again," Steve said.

The End

PS I just read this over and I am amused to discover that the story of my first marriage was really a story about Julian and how hurt I was and oh yeah I married whatshisname. I also was surprised that I do not possess a single picture of the guy. Not one and it's not like a ripped them all up in a fit of pique either.

PPS I think Andy wound up married to the nice young woman that he had ditched for tennis.

PPPS I think if Julian had really wanted to be with me he would have been.

PPPPS I think that by one's early twenties one should be past such things but I am willing to hear your shameful stories to the contrary.

PPPPPS Thanks to your clicking the advertiser for the cruise sweepstakes just renewed their ad through the end of the month - hooray for unexpected windfalls. YAY and THANK YOU! If you wouldn't mind continuing to click maybe they will buy space again in the future and I will use the money to take you all out to lunch. I also have an ad for a children's series called The Search for WondLa and The Well-Read Wife who does book reviews and has been very nice about buying ad space pretty often. 

Comments

[Heather]

I just think it's cool that I feel like I know you so much better now. Enthralling story...and it's all true! Awesome! I've been reading for about two and a half years and I feel like this really brought me up to speed...I missed a lot.

[SarahB]

Oh, wow. Thank you for finishing that story. I'm resting before our holiday party, and it just calmed my nerves and wow. I'll think of something more cogent to say, but thank you for your honesty, and I look forward--oh, I how look forward--to reading the comments.

[Crystal]

It never ceases to amaze me how much my misspent youth parallels yours.

Lee said virtually the same thing to me.

No wonder I like Steve. I wouldn't be who I am if it weren't for my beloved and frankly, broken body and mangled brain, I *like* me. Finally. I often say I believe I would have been dead were it not for him, in a gutter, choked on my own bodily fluids. He saw the good in me when all I heard was "you're stupid, you're ugly, you're useless, you'll never amount to anything". He did not give me a pass, he did not accept my excuses, he expected me to do the right thing. He knew I could when I did not. It was painful, but so worth it.

Ah, if only I were as beautiful and funny as Julia, my memoirs might be saleable, but alas, it was not so. I was more.... dark and sullen and socially awkward.

See? My husband is a miracle worker. :)

We all make mistakes, we all have regrets. You didn't have an easy go of life, Julia. You've worked hard to grow and learn and change, and to raise children who have the security of the love of their parents you weren't able to take for granted at that age.

My only consolation for the hell that was my childhood (which included a drug-addict mother, being harassed for months by a pimp at 11, emotional, physical and sexual assaults at ages that make me shudder) is to raise children that have both the secure love and the moral compass they can to some degree take for granted. Some parents want to provide their kids with the stuff they never had. I just want to give them the security I never had, and to raise them to never harm another the way I was harmed. I protect, but do not shelter them. They know more of the details of my past, and medical concerns than most would consider seemly, but I want them to truly understand that even unwittingly, you can fatally damage another.

I'm not one for shame. I'd rather learn, make amends, and try harder next time.

I think, on the whole, Julia, you're a fine woman. If you had a bumpy past, made decisions of which you are not proud, I think you've come a long way. Don't let those cheeks of yours burn too hotly. We're all just human. :)

[Marsha]

I don't think I was quite as inventive with my idiocy but am reasonably sure that I displayed just as much (if not more) of it. I treated terribly two young men who adored me and whom I would not be surprised if they take a moment to spit on me should we encounter each other again. When I say "terribly" that's actually a shocking understatement. I'm ashamed of myself now in mid-life. Let's see...I did have some academic shenanigans, but managed to graduate on time. I was also reminded recently of some parties that I threw that I had completely forgotten some 20 years on and also of two road trips that I wouldn't have believed I took but for the photographic evidence. One of them is a story that will keep me out of elected office so it's probably best that I have no political ambitions anyway.

History, we all haz one.

[Tonuala]

I don't think your post makes me "feel better" about my early 20's - I was toxic green sludge as well - but it has really helped me recall the insanity of that time in my life. I was a smart girl who did incredibly stupid things.

And now I have a 17 year old step daughter who is a smart girl doing incredibly stupid things. I think I can give her a little more slack than I was before reading your posting and the following comments. She's in for a wild ride, and I need to let her have her journey to "her Steve".

[Sandi]

Since I married at 18 and separated at 41...my early twenties were all apple pie and ice cream and babies.
But years 41 and 42?? Oh my, the things I did.
I would never have the courage to post them online, maybe because they are still too fresh. When I turn 80 maybe I will publish my memoirs! :)

[Alyson]

I have stolen the last line of @Manda's comment because is awesome.

I was a little nuts from about 22 - 27, when I met my husband, who occasionally drives me nuts because he's so nice to me!! But mostly is ok if not fantastic. 22-27,though, fraught with one night stands, hanging out with rock bands (though no secks - also love that spelling - with them) and a LOT of booze. For the majority of it I lived in New Orleans but then I managed to carry on for a while back home in Boston while living at my parents' house. Ugh. I miss the rock band portion and the New Orleans portion but not the rest.

[Laura]

The moral of the story is that everything happens for a reason. The sum of your past experiences, good and bad, got you to where you are today. Without those "mistakes" would you have ever ended up in Minneapolis?

My mistake was sticking with an emotionally abusive boyfriend who had helped me through the death of a friend. It was as that relationship was unraveling that I reconnected with an old acquaintance who later became my husband. Thirteen fantastic years later, I wouldn't change a thing.

[Melissa H]

My goodness I was UNBELIEVABLY boring from 17-24. So, so boring. I am enjoying living vicariously through the comments since I didn't do any exciting living of my own.

[Erin]

I'm quite certain that one's twenties is the time for crazy decisions. I broke up with the college boyfriend who was about to propose (he'd told my mom he'd bought a ring) for a dangerous bad boy type from Boston. We moved to Seattle together so he could join a band. I quit my first ever IT job to do it and moved with no job prospects. Once there, I discovered that he hadn't been kidding about his depressive streak and our main activity was "going to bars and drinking ourselves into oblivion". A few years later, his infidelity reared it's head and I decided it was time to move back home (across the country). Two months later, I decided that I didn't WANT to be home, so I moved BACK to Seattle. It's a miracle my parents didn't kill me. The toxic Ex and I spent another year+ together, but pretended we weren't together. I dated lots of other guys during that time. I hit a particularly low point when I was with both the Ex (who was never going to commit to me) and this other guy who was never going to commit to me. My ex and I finally called it quits for real and he went on to impregnate his next girlfriend and marry her... five months after we'd broken up for good. And then life stopped being insane. When I turned 30 I was actually relieved. No more crazy twenties!

[Erin]

P.S. That picture of you and Julian in Honduras was so pretty I almost cried. My goodness.

[Alli]

What is Julian up to? Do you ever speak to him? I love that Steve was not mad about your being married! Sometimes the love of our lives aren't good marriage material. I know mine wasn't, but that story is VERY long.

[GottaSayAnonymous]

Wow. For the first time ever, I read every single one of your comments. Truly, someone should put together an anthology of your story and all these others and make it required reading for girls AND boys in every freshman English class.

I've got sordid for you. 19-25 I was with an amazing man, 6 years my senior (he was a grad student, I an undergrad). He was brilliant in every way. He literally shaped me, molded me from a dorky (albeit cute) girl into a woman, confident in her mind, her looks. I call him guru guy, because that is exactly the role he played: Spiritual (and sexual) guide. And he loved me like no one else has ever (or possibly will ever) love me. We would have gotten married. (by commonlaw in CA I guess we were) But my parents didn't approve of him, for the simple fact that he wasn't the same religion. Despite the confidence GuruGuy had instilled in me, the idea of my parents' outright rejection of me if he and I stayed together was too much for me to bear. I wavered on getting married even when he was absolutely ready (and his family had accepted me with open arms).

So what happened at 25? Well, my newly-confident-in-herself a** came across a shiny new med student who had landed temporarily (like a gypsy) to do a rotation in the lab I was working at. He was also of a different religion (but really an atheist), but I somehow felt he may be more acceptable to my parents. He was closer to my age, therefore we shared a lot of the same cultural references. I think I thought that I no longer needed a Guru who I would constantly be looking up to, I needed an equal. I think he was never more than mildly curious about me, but I was face-to-the-curb smitten.

There was an...overlap. And a procedure had to be done. (no, I cannot say it out loud, b/c you see, I had 10 years of infertility and loss after that and I can't help but think...God's vengeance etc. etc.) I never came clean with my GuruGuy and he held my hand through the whole thing (thinking the baby was his, whereas I never really knew). In my mid-20's stupor, I still thought I could have a future with the med student, so I broke up with GuruGuy, in a coffee shop in San Diego on the way back from a roadtrip to Encinada. The sight of his heart breaking will be with me forever. But, what did I really feel? Free.

Meanwhile, the med student floated away as easily as he had appeared. Never to be seen again.

Then I had a couple of small flings and punished myself by being celibate from the age of 26-28. (another regrettable fact b/c at least I could have been having anonymous sex in those years when I was still desirable, if nothing else).

Finally, at 29, I met my husband. He is of the same religion as me, but doesn't have a spiritual bone in his body. 10 years of wavering & negotiating & compromising, then infertility, loss, procedures, at 39, I had our daughter. And she's the love of my life now. My husband is my life partner, but...

They say relationships have three distinguishable phases, 1) lots o'sex 2) parenting 3)companionship. Those can be with one partner, but, in this culture, more likely, the progression happens over several partners.

I'd love to be able to forgive myself, but I'm kind of convinced I have no idea how. Maybe that's a part of our biology too?

[Darlene]

For me it was ages 16 to 24. I was in love with a guy that never made me the priority in his life and his mom hated me. He finally gave in to her and married someone else and lied to me about why I wouldn't be seeing him much (I didn't see him until I ran into him 10 years later). It took me a while to figure out we even "broke up" and a year to really get over it and figure out what I really wanted and needed in a boyfriend/husband. I wouldn't have even figured it out then if he hadn't left me. Now I look back and I'm so glad it worked out the way it did. I don't regret it because it got me where I am now with a great husband and 3 kids. The funny thing is that as soon as I figured out what was important in a relationship, the right person came along and I was able to recognize it. The last I heard of the jerk was that he "made a mistake." Thank God he did or I would have been the one making the mistake.

[Cee]

I hope you realize now you owe us the story of your courtship with Steve!

[TeacherMommy]

My mistakes from ages 17 to, oh, around 32 (because it takes me longer to learn the lessons, that's why) were far less dramatic on the whole, but soul-killing as well. Mostly involved getting and staying involved with someone with whom I was unhappy after less than six months, but because we had had Teh Secks together and were each others' first and all that, I was convinced I had my bed and must lie in it. Miserably.

Which, in the end, after multiple break-ups and near break-ups that should have become real and permanent and somehow lasted at most a week, led to marriage and a house and then two children. And then the PPD. Ultimately, he had an emotional affair and I had a full-fledged affair and after I had broken it all off and tried to repair things and realized that he KNEW in his gut that something had happened and I had to tell the truth...well, I did.

Which led to the marriage imploding and my years and years of depression + PPD turning into despair and I, well, I ended up in the psych ward. And such is his character that this was the actual final straw that snapped whatever love he still might have had. We separated. I ended up meeting an entirely unsuitable but refreshingly DIFFERENT man who became my Rebound Man. We broke up after a few months, surprise surprise. And so I decided to have fun just dating, joined an online dating site, dated a couple of men casually and discovered that I actually COULD date without immediately falling for or even particularly wanting a man, and then went on a date with a man and fell immediately for him and now he is My True Love and we shall be together for, well, ever.

Oh, and in there somewhere I managed to get divorced in a remarkably amicable way, and we are as civilized and amicable as possible with only occasional Issues.

Thank God that's all over.

And now I need to go take advantage of a child-free house with MTL, if you know what I mean.

Heehee.

[HiMom!]

Oh god, I read all of these. I'm in my early 20's and just starting to worry that I will NEVER be any smarter than I am right now. These comments are unutterably reassuring. Thank you all.

Annnnd, um, I'm going to stay anonymous, because, uh... my mother reads your blog too. Yeah. Hi mom! I love you!

I bet you she still recognizes the comment.

[Bonnie]

I have been waiting for that story for years! Thanks.

I wasn't stupid/crazy when I was younger, fortunately. But all my friends my age were (still are, mostly - I am 25). I think the fact that I supported myself completely after age 18 kept me pretty straight.

[Meegan]

Oh, my. We are simpatico, my friend. In my early twenties I, ahem, had intimate relations with all three dwellers of the apartment across the street. At one time, I was dating one and sleeping with another. It was around this time that I met my husband. Fortunately he had the sense to let me continue along my path of fury and self-destruction on my own. In my mid-twenties, I had an affair with a married man. And another. I had more than a casual relationship with drugs and alcohol, along with a raging eating disorder. I cleaned up a bit, but not enough to keep me out of jail for mistaking the walk-in freezer of a club for the bathroom. I tinkled on the floor. Then, as I was simply being escorted out of said club for being such a lush, I punched the bouncer in the face. (I had been doing my Tae-Bo with Billy Blanks!) Bad idea. I spent my birthday in lock-up. No lie. My parents bailed me out and never have I been more humiliated.

Around age 26 I entered into a relationship with a healthy, lovely man. I thought I was going to marry him. Yet for some reason I cheated on him at every opportunity possible. For some reason that relationship didn't work. Could be that his friends hated me. His parents thought I was a little...unpredictable. I think he was so used to dating "nice" women I was like a novelty act.

Finally, I re-met my husband and we began dating. He patiently waited for me to get my shit together, and was generous enough to allow me to break up with him several times. He took me back. Several times. I pushed him to his limit. Fortunately, his last straw was the official mark of my mental and emotional health (thank you, multiple therapists and So Much Medication). We've been married, happily, for 6 years (and what, ho, I'm 37!) and have two wonderful children.

For some of us, it just takes longer. May that not be the case for my daughter. I shudder to think....

[Erin]

I feel so much better knowing that there are so many of us out there who did mortifying, selfish, batshit crazy things in our early twenties. And a little scared, actually. Collectively, we have been an awfully destructive bunch. Sorry, boys!

[TC]

oh yes. i met a guy in my 20's and got knocked up three months after i met him and thought it was stellar, despite the fact that he had no job/stuff/any redeeming traits. half way through pg i realised i should have left him but stuck it out for another year thinking i could change him/everyone would think i was a loser for leaving. after a year, had this weird dream that my best friend was marrying some guy i'd known years before, decided it was a stellar idea to get in touch with said guy that i had not spoken to in at least 5 yrs. got in touch, we started hanging out, he encouraged me to end relationship with father of my child, which i did, one of the best things i have ever done. hooked up with new guy rabidly for about 2 months before getting bored of him. went back to ex. ditched ex, had string of one night stands. had small but lovely relationship with nice new guy. got back with ex. ditched ex. had another small but nice relationship with nice new guy. thought nice new guy was wonderful, perhaps i could do this forever? thought scared crap out of me, ditched nice new guy, had string of short relationships and one night stands. got back in touch with nice new guy, had nice relationship, nice guy ditches me. i make booty call, nice new guy complains of lack of direction in our relationship, says he could either have dumped me or proposed to me. i point out that proposing would have been nicer, he does so, we get married, have two children, very happy.

i'll never in a million years understand what he saw in me that made being put through the wringer a few times worth it, but by golly i am thankful every day that he stuck around and put up with my crap.

[B.Mare]

At last! I join the masses who have been waiting a long time to hear all this. And it reminds me it's long overdue to write my story of how I ended up in Scotland, which basically involves lots of dumbass decisions on my part based on immature relationships in my early twenties.

[sarah k]

I read this on the edge of my seat, snapping at my own sweet husband who kept interrupting my reading. :) oops. Anyway, thanks for sharing and I'm so glad you met Steve in the end, and I think (as the comments indicate) everyone is a bit haunted by some embarrassing specters from those years. Mine were different but I still writhe when I think about them.

Oh, and That first picture of you, with Julian: I think you look just like your Caroline!

And I agree that Julian sounds wishy-washy. Unlike Steve. :)

[sarah k]

p.s. I think I cheated in my comment above by not actually sharing the nature of my embarrassments. I guess in a way I was embarrassed to (ironic, eh?!) because they are not so dramatically novel-worthy; but in solidarity, here goes! I am embarrassed of having been 1)patently desperate for someone to ask me out when I should have just been happy to pursue my life and wait for a guy who would be interested enough to pursue me; 2) spineless enough to put up with a domineering boyfriend who kept me on the hook ("I'm just not SURE about us, but maybe...") and liked me best when I had made a dumb comment that he could laugh; 3)grief-stricken when the above winner broke up with me; 4) wild enough to date a boy halfway across the country whom I met on a plane and who just really was not quite as intelligent as the man I'd been waiting for for years (in my defense, he was gorgeous and he was a philosophy major so I THOUGHT he was smarter than he really was) and 5) silly enough to insist that the guy I was very good friends with at the same time the above long-distance relationship was going on could not possibly be Mr Right since he was 1 1/2 yrs younger than me.

In the end, I saw the light, broke up with #4 (which took some guts for me) and married the good friend from #5. Ended well, thank God!

[M]

Thank you, Julia. I was a pretty prudish young adult but just about the worst and most hurtful thing I have ever done, I did when I was 20. I looked at my very-decent-but-not-for-me long-term boyfriend one day and realized I was emotionally done with the relationship, then spent months (i.e. forever, in college) being awful to him by fostering a new crush. I distinctly remember being totally perplexed by my emotions, and acting even worse because of my perplexity. I'm still really sorry i didn't break up with him more maturely, and that I hurt him so much, but now I understand it better.

And hey, I ended up in Scotland too, like @B.Mare

[Doug]

Yay for Steve!

[Toni]

Is your middle name really Valentine (because mine is and that would be cool to find someone with the same middle name.)?

I have a similar story about a boy named Adam that I kept going back to - even thought I dated a lovely man named Patrick that literally rocked my world (and many signs off the wall). Sadly, neither worked out. Or should I say "Gratefully", as I have the best husband in the world (who's name is also Steve - it must have been the "Jennifer" of the early 70s??) .

I guess I always wonder, what would life had been like IF... I'm glad I don't know.

[Penolope]

When I was 18, I married my boss who was 6-7 years my senior. He promptly quit work and went on unemployment, spending his days smoking copius amounts of marijuana while I supported us by waiting tables. But I was in love. Four-plus years and two rounds of cocaine addiction later (his, not mine) he straightened up, had a great job and decided we should have children. It was sooner than I'd planned, but okay. Home pregnancy tests hadn't been invented yet, but before the eight weeks that it took before the doctor could say that yes, I really was pregnant were up, he started sleeping with the secretary at the company he worked for. He said he'd screwed his life up and needed to start over again. So there I was, 23, pregnant and divorced. I lost the baby at four months. He married the secretary and they lived happlily ever after. (I am SO THANKFUL he isn't in my life.) Then, oh my, I had me some (not always well-thought-out) hot romances. But that's a whole 'nother story.

[rupiedupie]

'Doug'?
Pull the needle off the record!
Nice to see the other gender represent here.

'I peed in a hallway'

Buahhhahahahahaha.

Cheers!

[wellandtrulyanon]

When I was 24 I was madly in love with someone who didn't love me back...and so I got married in a hurry to someone who was totally wrong for me as well as seriously, seriously lacking a moral center.

Fast forward 10 years. We have a beautiful daughter. So it was meant to be. However I often lament that I did not leave him the second I got the positive pregnancy test. He makes our lives so difficult and adds very little of value to MY life, although my daughter adores him and seems perfectly willing at her tender age to ignore all of the ways (large and small) in which he lets her down abysmally. :(

There really isn't a moral to my story. I just think it's interesting how different people's lives turn out based on fairly random occurrences. Whatever else I have learned from my dreadful marriage, it is that I cannot judge people for whatever inexplicable circumstances they are in, because people everywhere everyday are making ill-thought-out decisions. Sometimes those decisions turn out to be more silver lining than cloud, others are a decidedly mixed bag, and either way it's just pointless to think that we are really the authors of our successes or our failures. The same action in a similar context can lead to many different effects.

Kudos on marrying a good guy, who also makes lots of money. In addition to being basically impossible to deal with as a human being, my 'dh' is unemployed, not likely to ever have a real job, and has run up terrific debts in his and my name.

[Michelle NotlostAnymore]

Wow. I do feel better about my own story after reading yours, but only becuase I realize I'm not the only stupid 20-something. :)

Let's see if I can do as well as the other ladies at summing it up...

15 - 17 I dated the "bad boys" and BOY was I bad, and good, with them. I enjoyed the heck out of that time. Unfortunately I wasted a couple of great college acceptances and probably some tuition scholarships. Vasser, anyone?

From 17-18 I dated really, really too nice guy and was faithful, until I realized he was probably gay, and if he wasn't it was too bad for the gay guys out there. I was mean to him, instead of dumping him. Ugh. Oddly enough, after 20 years he's forgiven me, and we talk on FB sometimes.

19-23, Was a sad mess of dating/marrying a con-artist alchoholic with a mean streak. He conned everyone, including me, into thinking he was a GREAT guy. We married, and on our wedding night he turned into a nightmare. The irony that there were 3 tornados in our town and a hurricane during our honeymoon we wed DOES NOT escape my family's notice. By 8 mo he was seeing someone else, while trying to get me to sleep with other men in his presence. Yah, really. Sadly, no one believed me that he waasn't a good guy.

Broke it off with ex after 2 1/2 years (didn't want to let my family down, believed all marriages worked if you just tried hard enough). Started seeing amazing guy-I-always-wanted from High School. He hinted at move-in/marriage.

Couldn't get ex to sign paperwork. Lost amazing-guy-I-wanted (and my mind for a little while).

Started seeing HOT Dr. from Mobile, AL. Ex found out, told me he had cancer and was dying. Said he wasn't seeing "her" anymore. Moved back in with ex ('til death do we part didn't seem to long, might as well stick it out). Went to Dr. apt for cancer - asked Dr. after visit how long he'd lived. Dr. looked at me like I was stupid, said Ex was lying (only had bronchitis). Moved out again.

Couldn't get ex to sign papers for 2 more mo. Showed up at ex's door with a pen, said sign it or I'll get a lawyer and we'll put your secks life in the court docs (it's a small town). He signed, and we laughed like old friends when we got our court-approved docs.

Moved out of the state to get away from ex. Dated a few people, one was pretty memorable. Continued to see Hot Dr. off an on - was lovin' it. Figured out he was likely married and was definately seeing others, so let him slip away - no hard feelings.

Ex shows up at my door, needs a place to stay for couple of nights. Leads to his 2 wks on my couch, attempted suicide (his), 15 counts of Felony theft(his), 5 years in Fed Prison (his), and another issue that will keep me out of a political office.

Extricated myself from that mess, cleaned up my shit, lost 30 lbs, grew a spine, got a clue...

Met likely Love-of-my-life, had a GREAT time, got engaged. His parents didn't approve, (parents would disown him for marrying outside the faith). He left town with promises to figure out how to make it work. A year later, he was still promising, but seeing other people his parents "approved of". I finally woke-the-F-up and got away from his toxic a--.

Met now-hubby at a party, he was attached. Met now-hubby at another party, he was stupid and didn't ask for my #. Saw now-hubby at a concert and ended up spending the night at his place for the next few months. :)

Married, 2 kids, infertility issues almost killed us (and me a couple of times). Marriage is hard, hard, hard on us both, but we keep fighting, working on the issues, and working some more.

Oh, and I must have something guys like because...
1) Guy-I-really-wanted from High School popped up on FB. He's married but has been openly "interested" in me. I told him via phone, very nicely and all grown-up, that he missed his chance about 10 years back. Sigh.
2) Guy I almost married from other faith emails/calls/texts every month or so just to see if I'm still married or am willing to see him on the side. Right. Not-gonna-happen.

Sometimes being a grown-up sucks, but it causes WAY less drama.

[Maryne]

Oh, what IS it with the dreadful twenties? My story may as well be yours except that I finished Law School, married him and then moved to London. I met my Steve there and that was that - but what an awful, humiliating time of my life. Thanks for sharing, Julia. Your insight into the mind of a 2o something year old makes me reconsider my motivations at the time and I find I can be slightly less hard on myself.

[Crystal]

I know I'm probably being an idiot, but that first picture of Julian.... I'd swear you look pregnant. I keep telling myself it has to be the wind blowing your blouse.

The picture of you both in Honduras, you look so melancholy.....

[GottaSayAnonymous]

Another first: I came back to see what other comments had rolled in after I left mine. Been thinking about this post all freaking day, thank you very much. I really did think my behavior was an anomaly and something worthy of the worst shame. But I read these stories, and, no, not so much.

I kinda wish we could all be at a cocktail party together sans our men. Does our power lie in our stories? Man, you totally threw my brain in a tailspin with your lovely sharing of your (comparatively) lovely past.

Also the tae-bo comment as well as "he was a philosophy major so I THOUGHT he was smarter than he really was" had me totally laughing out loud. Love you and love all your readers!

And,yes, that picture in Honduras has an ethereal quality to it. Both your expressions. So very real and beautiful.

[Mizasiwa]

Wow! im one of the 'wish i was you's' i didnt have a crazy 20's becouse i was too busy being the 'grown up' and mommying everyone, to have any kind of crazy time. I very nearly landed up having an affair with the totally inaproriate ex with my husband until my husband and i were talking and he said to me - "you know weve been together for 7 years, thats almost double what the two of you were together for, dont you think its time to let it go??' and i snapped out of the 'wish and wonder what it would have been likes' like a bitchslap only with kindness! i think its the forgiving ourselves thats the hardest and the living life as it should be not in the past that its taken me almost two years but im getting there. I would also totally buy a book that you wrote no matter what its about. im going to look for your archives now becouse i totally missed all your posts from before 2005 have a great festive season!

[Anon for this one]

The only thing sordid about my early relationships was that they tended to be with exes of my friends. I started dating my first boyfried a few months after he broke up with a close friend of mine (at the time; the friendship cooled significantly after that). I started dating my husband a few months after he broke off his engagement to a close friend of mine (at the time; she obviously no longer speaks to me). It was quite the drama at the time - she had only applied to grad schools in the town where he was living, then by the time she started school he was already dating me; we got married less than a year after they broke off the engagement, and then the three of us all had to deal with running into each other all the time in this rather small community.

[Suzanne]

I am boring. Married my wonderful high school sweetheart, went to college and medical school, had kids. I love my life and most days I am glad I avoided the potholes of life, but on occasion I am jealous of those of you with "a past.". It is SOoo much cooler to have lived a wild life and come out on the other side, wiser and with interesting stories. I was the one watching the antics of my peers with a disapproving glare- and now I have no stories to tell. Totally uninteresting.

[Jen]

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/waiting-on-the-teenage-brain/

Your brain was 'at fault'..

[KatyinMA]

I can't wait to see what Caroline does in her twenties. ;)

[Betterasamemory]

Second/third/fourth/one millionth to please write a book!

But don't stop posting to do so!

[Emma @ emmasota]

Well, seeing as how my first blog was called "Divorced Before 30," I can relate. Lord, were my twenties (really the whole decade) full of poor choices and ridiculous romances. Thanks for a great story!

[Alice]

Well, my idiocy persisted well into my 30s, I'm sorry to say. College and grad school: many drunken one-night stands but complete failure to have a relationship more than 24 hours. Decided to "grow up" and had two dates with a guy I met a a professional sports event. Congratulated myself on not sleeping with him on first date, ignoring his blatant alcoholism (so... why don't you have a driver's license again?) Third date: caroused around the city, drank a shameful amount, invited him to stay... Worst. Sex. Ever. Hated him, hated self. Immediately went back into therapy and finally acquiesced to trying Prozac -- and voila! Magically acquired some self-esteem and ability to be with a guy without getting wasted in terror. Started dating a guy I'd refused to consider the previous year because he was a head case on medication and not ashamed to admit it (um, that would also be Prozac). We got married and lived happily ever after. And yes, we both still take Prozac -- because The Family That Drugs Together Hugs Together!

[Amie]

16 moved out (still a virgin), lost said virginity 5 seconds later because, I'm old enough to not live at home so I'm old enough to have sex, 3 guys later..pregnant at 17 from a man (22 years old) who already had two kids, one who he saw on weekends (and the real reason I was with him, I just loved her) and one he saw only once in the last 15 years. Engaged by 18 (with a ring on my finger bought from a drug dealer). Emotionally and verbally abused...dealt with being evicted I don't know how many times because he bought drugs instead of paid rent...lost our son to children's services, got him back. Was into self mutilation and deeply depressed, took son to a shelter and finally found an apartment after getting away from him...he straightened up some and was with a woman I thought was a good person...gave them temporary custody (with no court papers, dummy) while I went to counselling and so on to fix my cutting and depression issues...when I was finished after a year, he wouldn't give him back and wouldn't let me see him for up to 6 weeks at a time, couldn't talk on the phone, couldn't visit. Spent 5 years fighting with him over it all, lost my court case even though he had pot growing in the basement (I was never an addict, still don't drink or smoke and was clean through out the entire fight, he was not but still won), and had every other weekend access until he divorced said woman who i thought was a good person (who told my son I didn't want him and that she was his mother now), and he gave him back to me...breifly tried to take him again but some how I won (!!) and somewhere in there (at 24 years old) I got pregnant with my second son with my second drug addict boyfriend, he left when I was 6 weeks pregnant, I met my now husband during the pregnancy (he was attached) and we stayed friends and eventually started dating (after they broke up and he had another girlfriend and broke up again lol) in January 2005. He adopted my second son in 2008 and we now have a daughter as well. We just got married this past October 30th. Drug addict number one made my life miserable for 13 years...until one day he decided he'd had enough...he gave up his rights to his 12 year old son about 6 months ago and we haven't heard from him since. Husband will be adopting him as well.

from 16 to 26ish was just bad bad bad...I made horrible mistakes from where I was living to who I was dating to who I let my son stay with. And the story I just told is just the tip of the iceburg...there are so many things in between all that including cheating and "kidnapping" and so on....it was just a really bad time. Makes me feel good to know I wasn't the only dumbass to choose things that we wouldn't even THINK of choosing now!

[Cori]

I must have been a late bloomer. I didn't even really get started bringing shame upon myself until about 29 to 33. Then I cleaned up my act and met my (wonderful!) husband six months later. Life is funny sometimes. Thank you for sharing your story with us.

[Kim]

This story gives me hope that people can do some really questionable things through their late teens and twenties and still turn out to be completely respectable people. I absolutely am not judging you, youth does weird things people. Thanks for sharing.

[Meegan]

Like many of your readers, I just read ALL the comments. A lot of amazing women read this blog, and a truly amazing woman writes it. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, and allowing us to share ours with you (and each other).

[Nancy]

Wow, your post made me ruefully laugh. Your navigation of the heart was bumpy, but wow, does it make for a good story now!

I did horrifically selfish things from about 18-25, flinging myself like a lemming into various romantic entanglements while simultaneously pining away for (and speaking nearly nightly to) DK who lived across the country. Including: sneaking curly-headed M into my house as a HS senior to spend the night only to have my mother catch us leaving in the morning; embarking on a short intense relationship with a slightly unstable woman that I quickly tired of and was cruel to for months (eh, it was Vassar, so sue me), being the UN of dating during my junior year abroad, including an engaged-to-someone-else German, an Irish guy who stuffed poems through the doorslot, a deeply lovely Englishman (who continued to sent florid love letters to the SF apartment I was living with DK in for the summer), and several Scots, a Frenchman and an Indian. Then there was the moody cyclist I dated my senior year of college, only to sneak off to meet DK in Venice for two weeks during Christmas break. The list goes on and on. I cringe sometimes to think about the destructive, drunky mcdrunk, drama queening I engaged in -- but we all got through it. And who knows if I'd be as happy and feel as lucky being married to DK now if I hadn't embarked on some weepy, selfish, romantic, ridiculous escapades back in the day. Justification? Most definitely.

[SarahB]

Man, I have read all the comments, and I just feel boring by comparison. The worst thing I did was more of the internal sort--pining after a friend for way, way too long and not looking elsewhere.

[victoria]

I'm sorry -- I commented without thanking you! I am sooo rude!

Thank you. It was really cool that you shared this funny, sad, highly eventful story.

-victoria

[Erika]

Well, since we are all sharing...

I dated my first husband for 8 years. Met him while I was taking a break after my sophomore year of college and waiting tables. I had two boys with him, married him, cheated on him, we fought, did drugs, spent more money than we had, lived in a trailer park, the list goes on and on. We broke up and got back together more times than I could ever count. He even walked in on me cheating on him once. He spent 2 months in jail for hitting me when I was 11 weeks pregnant with our second son.

I met my current husband while still holding on to the tatters of whatever-it-was that #1 and I had... he left me pregnant with #3... that was a real low point (one of many) My current husband is my Steve. He rescued me from myself. He adopted boy #3 as his own and has lifted me from the pits of despair to rejoin the land of the living. I made so, so many bad decisions... Starting at 14 and on until 27. Oof... just thinking about it makes me cringe.

I love your storytelling. Especially the way you ended that... priceless. I, too, would like to hear more about your courtship with Steve.

If I tried to write out my story I don't even know if I could. It would be more a novel than a blog post. Also there were drinky drinky vroom vroom times... don't feel bad. *cringe*