A Mystery As Yet Unsolved
I met an old friend the other day. I call her that, but
really we were friends only because we were often thrown together through
mutual friends. During the time I knew her best, she was married to a man we
uncharitably called “the golden child”. He was really rather ridiculously
handsome. You don’t often see his kind occurring in nature.
He was the ideal kind of tall, well muscled, tanned and fit.
Wavy blond hair, blue eyes, a cleft chin. It was silly, really, to look at him
with a critical eye. It really could not be done. I suppose he was smart. At
least he was smart enough not to talk very much. I knew without a doubt that
his spectacular looks had taken him far in life already. Maybe he knew better
than to speak and break the spell.
This woman, now his ex-wife as I had predicted all those
long years ago, was about a year older than he. Really a cute girl, though not as beautiful as he was handsome. But she was very sweet
and smart, gregarious, and ambitious for her husband to do well – she had
personality enough for two.
She also worked hard. They had graduated from college
together, then she worked and paid for graduate school for him. His future was
assured and he had been able to move from one high profile job to another with
no missteps in between.
I always thought she probably offered career guidance as
well as beautifully ironed shirts and sorted socks.
The problem was she always looked older, more tired,
slightly askew. In short, they just didn’t match
very well.
I predicted they would divorce, of course. I gave them five
years and I hear they made it a little longer than that. He remarried a
flashier, younger woman and they have a perfectly perfect suburban life
somewhere. Now his first wife looks like an even older, more tired version of the
woman I used to know. She didn’t mention remarrying or any children. I suspect she didn't have the heart for it. Maybe she had poured all of her love and attention
into him. Perhaps no one else would do.
I’ve seen this several times, where a man latches on to a
woman early in his life, allows her to pay his way, sort out his life, give him
adoration and then he’s gone. I suppose it happens the other way, where the
woman benefits from this kind of attention, but I just haven’t seen it on the
hoof, so to speak.
This brings me to the mystery that remains unsolved - the
questions that scream for answers. Is it possible to be honest enough to see
this coming and then be able to get out before this vampire ruins your life?
Is there such a thing as rational thinking when the heart is
involved? I truly do not know. I am not sure I could be that…what would be the
word…clear eyed (perhaps that’s it) about myself.
During a courtship, do we even try to predict the future? Do
we understand what someone’s motives might be? I simply do not know.
It may be that we are so eager to hear the words of love
that we believe everything we hear. It may even be that this man’s motives were
pure – perhaps he did love her, at the beginning. There can be no doubt that he
loved the adoration he saw shining in her eyes.
And she saw her Prince Charming. That they did not live
happily ever after was not for lack of trying on her part.
(Before you get your panties all in a twist trying to figure
out who I’m talking about…this is an amalgam of several people I know…and
several more I’ve observed. I’ve already fuzzed up the details and made them
unrecognizable. So don’t even try. And, to further confuse you, sometimes part
of the charm is all about the potential future. Doctors, lawyers, rising
newsroom stars all have their own “beauty”.
But my questions are real. I do
wonder about these things. And I’ve seen it often enough that it’s worth the
wonder.)
