Your Most Disturbing Realizations

[tonyb]

Reminds me of an acquaintance who was going on and on about all her multiple failed marriages and relationships. Later, someone snidely noted that the common denominator in all those romantic car crashes was her. She, although very bright, is completely blind to this possibility.

The fellow I alluded to above is on his third marriage.

I’ve been married but once, to the person I expect to remain married to for however much longer I’ll be drawing breath. But I had many a more-or-less “serious” relationship prior to my marriage. Those arrangements fell apart for various reasons, but in a few of them the cause was, at base, my own selfishness. I’d suggest to anyone trying to save a failing relationship to ask himself if the other party’s life is, on balance, improved by his presence in it.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Not a disturbing realisation, but a "Damn, where did the time go" realisation:

This year people born in 2002 (after 9/11) will be 18 year old adults. There's adults now how weren't even born when it happened.

 

[GHT]

Not a disturbing realisation, but a "Damn, where did the time go" realisation:

Time, where does it go? My wife and I were in Jamestown in 2007, a few months before the celebration of it being the first settlement of English immigrants 400 years previously. That was thirteen years ago, and now it's 2020, and of course it was 1620 that The Mayflower set sail.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It never fails to amaze me that I can have adult conversations with people who weren't alive in the 20th Century. And that we're now in the third decade of the 21st.

 

[Fading Fast]

Not a disturbing realisation, but a "Damn, where did the time go" realisation:

This year people born in 2002 (after 9/11) will be 18 year old adults. There's adults now how weren't even born when it happened.

I had several friends who were killed in the World Trade Center attack who had young children at the time - three to eight years old.

When I see those children now, some of them out of college and with jobs, it amazes me that they are adults and that, they, basically, grew up without their dads.

 

[scottyrocks]

If the shoe doesn't fit, maybe it's because your foot's too big.

Woooof.

 

[tonyb]

Disturbing realization?

A fellow I’ve known for nearly 50 years, a one-time relative by marriage, has had a couple of strokes in recent years which have left him somewhat physically and intellectually disabled. He can still walk (slowly), and talk (slowly) and reason (slowly).

Long story short, he wants out of his current living situation. He’s in need of help to make that happen, mostly due to his disabilities. I now live well over a thousand miles away from him and almost all the remaining characters from those days half a century back.

Getting a clear sense of his situation is nearly impossible over the phone. His speech is affected, as is his cognition. My questions are met with one- and two- and three-word answers.

By pure coincidence, another relative of his lives here in greater Denver. The two of us have the means to move him here and provide him with affordable housing, if that’s what he wishes for himself. We expect to buy him airfare here next month, so we can meet face to face and hope that we can get a better sense of what he needs.

We’ve asked old friends and relatives back in Seattle to stop by his apartment and report back. We’ve been mostly shined on.

Look, I know the fellow has let people down. I know he has taken lousy care of himself (demon whiskey, mostly) and for that reason has only himself to blame for his failing health.

He’s been thoughtless, but I have never known him to be deliberately unkind.

Back when we were all young and full of fun and alcohol and whatever else might be available, this fellow often fueled the festivities. I have many fond (and amusing) memories of our adventures from back then.

Now I’m faced with getting him to Sea-Tac and aboard the plane. And I’m having trouble finding a person on that end to help with that. The one person who almost certainly would help can’t right now because he’s over in Spokane, some 300 miles away, tending to the needs of his nonagenarian aunt with dementia.

I owe it to myself and to the memory of those who have already gone not to let this man live out his days in a place he really doesn’t wish to be — not when I have the capability to do something about it.

And now I’ve come to the disturbing realization that most friends, even ones of long standing, are of the fair weather variety.

 

[tonyb]

An old girlfriend reports that she became a great-grandmother yesterday.

 

[earl]

An old girlfriend reports that she became a great-grandmother yesterday.

Been a great grandfather for over 3 years myself. Kind of cool actually.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A friend who is just ten years older than me is a great-grandfather -- and his youngest granddaughter, who I held in my arms as a baby just fifteen years ago is now a mother.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
A mother at 15. Dang.

A sister-in-law was a mother at 16.

My mother was married at 17 and (gasp!) didn’t have her first kid until 10 months later! Can you believe it! Kids those days!

 

[ChiTownScion]

Almost 31 when I married and- damn!- that was too young.

 

[tonyb]

Had I married much earlier than I did it would have all but certainly ended in divorce. I’ll credit myself for sensing that, though, and for sparing myself and those might-have-been spouses all the attendant hassle and heartache.

The lovely missus and I are currently witnessing a relative pay the price of an ill-advised marriage — a second marriage, for one party, and a third for the other. It’s a BFM, for sure. I hate to see it.

 

[GHT]

Almost 31 when I married and- damn!- that was too young.

My missus was 18, I was 22. Our passion was ballroom dancing, when we travelled to compete we had separate rooms, it made sense to share a room. But her Dad was a stickler: "Sleep with my daughter? Not unless you marry her." Of course married at 18 meant she must be pregnant. We've been married almost 52 years. It's been a very long gestation.

 

[tonyb]

My missus was 18, I was 22. Our passion was ballroom dancing, when we travelled to compete we had separate rooms, it made sense to share a room. But her Dad was a stickler: "Sleep with my daughter? Not unless you marry her." Of course married at 18 meant she must be pregnant. We've been married almost 52 years. It's been a very long gestation.

My brother eventually married the girl he met in high school, after cohabitating for better than a decade. They figured they’d make it official before the baby made her appearance.

They’re both gone now — a massive heart attack, in his case, at age 53; ovarian cancer in hers, at 62.

Ovarian cancer claimed at age 71 perhaps the most “serious” of my one-time girlfriends, a woman with whom I shared a stormy on-again, off-again love affair of some 20 years duration. I didn’t hear of her demise until a couple years after the sad fact.

Perhaps it’s greener-grass thinking, but I occasionally find myself a bit envious of people who met young and got married and stayed married, more or less happily, judging by all outward signs.

I attribute to jealousy older people who utter some variation on the “they’re too young to know what love really is” line in regard to young people over the moon about each other. Hell, I *wish* I could muster the passion for being in the company of another person as I had when I was young. I don’t discount the role biology plays in that. We are but mortal flesh, after all.

 

[Zombie_61]

My missus was 18, I was 22. Our passion was ballroom dancing, when we travelled to compete we had separate rooms, it made sense to share a room. But her Dad was a stickler: "Sleep with my daughter? Not unless you marry her." Of course married at 18 meant she must be pregnant. We've been married almost 52 years. It's been a very long gestation.

My wife and I married young, and we had only been dating a little more than a year. Her Mom was convinced we were getting married because her daughter was pregnant...until it became obvious that she wasn't, that is. That was 38-1/2 years ago and, to my wife's dismay, we never had children.

 

[BobHufford]

My wife and I met on Valentines Day and were married on April 28th that same year (1983) -- the first kid three years later. We had to wait a bit to be married as it was turkey hunting season and half her family was preoccupied. It's been a great time together all these years.

 

[GHT]

Perhaps it’s greener-grass thinking, but I occasionally find myself a bit envious of people who met young and got married and stayed married, more or less happily, judging by all outward signs.

A perceptive observation, and eloquently described too. Sometimes in life it's important to remember that you don't need to be led into temptation, we know the way, all by ourselves.

Post-war up to the 1960's, divorce was all but unheard of in the UK, it carried a similar stigma to illegitimacy, women suffered in silence at the hands of brutal husbands. When divorce became freely available, the pendulum swung the other way and marriage became a disposable commodity. But now I read that many a young couple are working at making a their marriage a good one, a safe and happy place to raise a family.

My wife and I married young, and we had only been dating a little more than a year. Her Mom was convinced we were getting married because her daughter was pregnant...until it became obvious that she wasn't, that is. That was 38-1/2 years ago and, to my wife's dismay, we never had children.

Children can be a double edged sword, it's hard when you are childless and you see families together, but as many a parent has said to me, that is a chocolate box moment that you see, reality is a lot tougher. How painful it can be to see parents and their adult children estranged.

 

[MisterCairo]

Just learned my first girlfriend died of cancer last December, having just turned 50. And I have a daughter starting high school in the autumn. And I am seven years and four months from (current) mandatory military retirement age.

Where did all that time go?!?!

 

[Trenchfriend]

I'm sorry for the fate of your first girlfriend.

But the reality is, cancer will get at least 50% of us all.