insert witty title here

I'm sharing this roadtrip with a co-worker named Scott. He's a friendly enough guy...kind of reminds me of my dead dog (God rest his furry, farty soul). Scott's only been working out of this office for a few months and since we have similar jobs, I guess he feels that we should be bonding on a social level.

Since I'm crying the blues about being so unsocial, I thought it would be pretty hypocritical of me to adopt my usual aloof posture in response to his barrage of questions. As we chatted, he filled me in on little tidbits of his life and I sort of did the same. Frankly, if I enjoyed opening up I wouldn't spend so much blog energy writing smartass humor - I'd be baring my soul to the world.

But in the end I decided to open up. A little. So here is a bit of Christopher's past that I shared:

When I was nineteen I was still in the army. Prior to being sent over to Germany for a three month tour, I was put on a radio communications course. In this course I met a young private named Fiona (I was a corporal at this time). In spite of the fact that she was dating an officer who was away on some long training course, the two of us fell madly in love. There was no such thing as spending too much time together. It was my first adult (as opposed to adolescent) love and I knew that it was the real thing.

After the radio course was finished I had a week before shipping off to Germany and the two of us went on a short camping trip. We made love under the noon sun while the river burbled beside us. We lay in the dewy grass and watched the stars circle overhead. If there was a romantic cliche, we did it. By the time we returned home I was miserable at the thought of leaving her for so long.

The more I thought about it, the unhappier I grew. I confided in my best friend, Brian, who I had gone through high school with, and his advice was to concentrate on the job at hand and remember that three months passes fast. But, I thought, what did he know? He wasn't in love. He didn't know how much this hurt. So I decided that it was time to stand up for what I wanted.

I went to my officer in command and informed him that I wasn't getting on the airplane tomorrow. Since the military doesn't look favorably on uppity Corporals deciding what they were going to do, I had my hands full convincing him that I meant what I said. But in the end I suceeded - with a warning from him that I was pissing a lot of people off. But what did that matter? I was going to be with Fiona after all.

The next day, as the airplane left, I drove to the Junior Ranks Mess to wait for Fiona to arrive. I couldn't wait to see the look on her face when she walked in and saw me there. It was going to be a wonderful summer. At 4pm she walked in and when she saw me her jaw dropped. She hurried over and asked what had happened. Why wasn't I on my way to Germany?

I told her what I had done, how I had put my love for her ahead of everything else. "But I don't want to ever see you again" she said. "My boyfriend is coming back and I want to be with him. I was going to tell you in a letter next week".

~ ~

It took a long time to get over that. In the end though, what can you do other than get on with life?

*****


After a night's sleep:

Not sure what prompted me to bring up that old chestnut last night... I think I'm just bullshitting myself with more razzle-dazzle verbiage. Writing some history allows me to feel like I'm being all open without having to get into what the hell is going on with my life now.