http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/42/get-over-it
Topics like this are always tricky, because Alicia keeps telling me that I need to write more about our relationship and how great a story our story would make, but then I get to facets like this in our relationship and I really don't know how well it will go over if/when she does read it, and heaven help me if this actually ever does become popular.
As I talked about in the letter episode - Alicia got married while I was on my mission in Sweden, and I didn't know about it. I didn't see pictures, I didn't get an invite, I didn't get a letter, it wasn't until I was home for a while and was talking to her regularly that it got dropped on me by a third party that Alicia was married.
She got a divorce, and then started to date me and we, obviously, got married.
The only problem about the entire thing is that somewhere in the back of my mind, that relationship and the details of it, has never really been discussed all the way, and I don't feel it's my spot to ask questions about it, because the past is the past and I'm not a fan of ever bringing up the past because no good can ever come from dredging up the past of people's lives.
I want to get over it, I want to put it behind me, but there are constant (not daily, but at least quarterly) reminders about her first marriage. She'll be talking about someone at work who is going through a divorce and talking to her about it and she'll bring up her first marriage. Or, like a few days ago, I'll be cleaning the bedroom and find a wedding album under the bed and think it's ours. . . and it's not.
Now, let me be perfectly clear, because there is that chance that she will read this. I have no problem with her past, and I know SOME of the circumstances of what she was doing in her life, and I have no problems with past lives being in our past. The thing I have to sit with is some of the most basic things about that relationship. She's dropped some hints about it, and some of the things around the lines of what was happening in her life, but there's just some things I don't know.
The questions that sit in my head are something along the lines of -
What did/does he actually do for a job?
Where did you meet him?
How long were you actually married to him?
What was your first wedding like?
What is he like?
It sits with me, because the only proof that I have that she was ever married before is that STUPID wedding album that keeps on coming up even though I hate it, and in the picture she looks so happy, and it just feels like she's not as happy with me now as she is in those pictures and it eats away at me. To me marriage is a serious thing, and even if it is just a 'teenage' mistake that you made while you were young and dumb, it's still something in your life that should be treated as something important, but every time that it gets brought up it seems like it was just sort of a 'meh whatever' moment of decision, but I don't see it there in the pictures and in some of the other things she's said to me, so I think there's more to it, but she doesn't want to talk about it because it's such a touchy subject.
Things like this you know you're supposed to get over. You know, deep down, that she is happily married and has a kid now, and isn't thinking about that life, but then you see a picture of the happy couple on their wedding day and you start to doubt it, and it sticks with you. You want to get over it, but you can't. You can forget about it for a few weeks, or even a few months, but it sticks with you, and it just won't go away. Ultimately you realize that some things, although they stick with you for a long time, just aren't worth looking into because no good can come from asking those questions.
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