Happier Days

I was going to find happiness in life if it was the last thing I did!  That's what I said under my breath as I made my way back down the stairs.  I had had it with the insensitive, critical and harsh ways of my so-called spouse. 

We had met in college and from the first time I met her I was taken with her pretty features and the fact we seemed to have so much in common at the time.  I was a senior and she was an in-coming freshman.  We were making small talk waiting for a college advisor to become available so she could choose her semester courses. 

As we chatted I asked her name and told her mine.  She said her name was Trudeaux.  I had become acquainted with someone when I was younger by that last name.  I had been to a couple of his concerts.  So, I asked if Steven Trudeaux were her father.  She told me that he was her father.  That opened up more subjects for us to talk about.

During the semester I ran into Meghan from time to time.  Once I invited her to go with me to the local department store and then to a fast food restaurant all because I didn't feel like attending an afternoon class.  She and I sat for a long time talking and just enjoying one another's company.

One day I was on my way to practice piano for a music class.  I burst out of the doorway of my hall in Boyd dorm.  She and her cousin were standing on the stairway leading to the lounge where the mailboxes were located.  I wasn't going to stop but I thought that I might seem rude so I turned on my heel and walked back into the atrium.

She seemed a little pre-occupied when I said hello.  Her cousin was standing behind us while we were on the stairs.  With a little prodding from her cousin she asked me if I would go with her on a date.  That week in college was called Sadie-hawkins.  It was the one week of the fall semester when the girls asked the guys out.  I remember reaching for her pinky ring, removing it, and telling her I would marry her.  She had an odd expression on her face and I said, "Yes, I'll go with you."  You see, her cousin and two other friends were inviting their boyfriends on the date.  They needed a fourth to help pay for the limousine, restaurant, etc.  So she had to ask someone.

From what seemed like such an innocent remark about marriage has led to 17 years of on-again, off-again good and bad relationship experiences.  We have two children now.  Both of them girls.  I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.  One of my girls is almost 14 years old.  The youngest is 10.  That's why making the one decision I want to make is so hard.

It would mean the world to me to be happy for once in my life.  The roller-coaster of emotions is enough to drive a person to madness.  If I knew then what I know now about this woman I married I would have run for my life.  You see, when we were first married we were close and very good friends with one another.  Then, subtly, over time there began this change.  She started to become angry, critical, harsh, emotionally detached.  I wasn't sure what to think.

Now, as I look back I can see that she is a very selfish person.  Everyone in her life has to do what she wants in order for her to be happy.  She gets angry at the drop of a hat.  As a mother, I know she loves the girls, but she takes her frustrations out on anyone who is close enough to receive the brunt of her emotions.  She is set off by the most trivial of events.  I can understand getting mad or angry if one of the girls did something dangerous and it caused a catastrophe.  But getting angry because someone didn't rinse a dish?  What kind of reaction is that?  Or if she has to clean the hair out of a sink or out of the tub causes her to say stupid things under her breath. 

She's also good at blaming everyone else for something she may have caused herself or for her not being happy.  I can tell you this...I am fed up with all of it.  I can say that I have reached the end of my rope with this...this...this woman who thinks the world revolves around her!!

Oh, if I could only take a trip back about 19 years and still have full knowledge of what life has been like I would make different decisions.  One thing I would do would be to avoid her like the plague.  I would see her coming my direction and decline her invitation to go on the Sadie-Hawkins date.  I wouldn't invite her to go to the mall or to hang out with me.  I would make sure to do things opposite of how I did them back then just to stay out of her way.  I wouldn't care that her father was Stephen Trudeaux. 

I want to be happy again!  I want happier days. Days filled with peaceful thoughts, friends, children being themselves and me not having to hear the anger or cynical words of someone so fully engrossed in themselves they don't care who they hurt with their hateful words.

I grew up in a home where my parents were loving and kind.  They were the type to teach you how to do the things you needed to know when you were an adult.  My father is still my best friend today.  I call him on the phone just to see what he's doing and to talk.  He and my mom are still just the loving parents I grew up with.  I know that my choice of a spouse has hurt both of them deeply.  I know this because my self-centered, hateful, unforgiving spouse has kept them from enjoying their grandkids.  And, I know it hurts my parents, has hurt my kids and hurts me very deeply.

I want love and romance in my life.  I want it with someone who wants to be loved and romanced too.  It would be so wonderful to spend some time with someone who enjoyed reading, fresh, hot coffee, the symphony, ballet, sports or someone who would just want to curl up with me and watch a good movie.  Someone who loved enough to do the mundane things of the everyday without complaining or saying they are "sick and tired" of this or that. 

I long for happier days.  That's all I ask for...happier days about a thousand miles away from her....