One Monday Afternoon…

On Mondays, a new week usually starts… (except for those souls for whom it begins on a Sunday) and with this start all the “nasties” forgotten and/or ignored over the weekend come back with, it seems, renewed vim and vigor (I don’t know about the first word, but these two always seem to go together) to make their presence felt …

On one such late Monday afternoon, several years ago and after having spent most of the day trying hard to reconcile just plain wishin’ with reality (and not very successfully) I sat in front of a window, overlooking a vast expanse of modern day city. Then, I lived in an apartment building and was occupying a small apartment on a high floor. Allowing me to enjoy this view was actually the saving grace for that particular four walled, somewhat claustrophobic enclosure. 

I was alone, living through one of those periods known in the life trade as “in-betweeners” and it was quiet… perhaps more than what I would have liked it to be… then again, after all is said and done, nice quiet is better than not nice noisy… Anyway, there I was and thinking out loud (which is OK to do when you are alone) when into my mind came these “things-to-do” attack… You must understand these terrible and treacherous attacks are made up of issues not resolved or which have simply been laid aside in order to relegate them to the great dark beyond… that is, wherever those topics go when one successfully ignores them long enough.

Being Monday afternoon, these pesky items decided to come back and haunt me, to keep me from relaxing and enjoying the sunset over whatever was at my feet (probably streams of cars full of tired, hungry and mad people) and to goad me into actually doing something about the so-called problems.

Of all the issues I might have been faced with at the time, there is one which now comes to mind, after all these years… and it was a simple question…should I marry again? Granted, this is not a “lightly to be taken” issue; it can be life changing and it brings no guarantees. Boy… do I know this now!!

You see, I had recently come out of my first marriage and the final weeks had not been conducive to leaving the mental and/or emotional doors open to a repeat performance… not any time soon, anyway. Yet, I had met someone whom I thought might be a way to a better life, perhaps to a relationship which could bring peace, love, happiness and… well, all that stuff. 

So there I sat, my little brain hamsters mashing gears and goin’ for all they could, trying to bring a semblance of order into these very unbalanced and unbalancing thoughts. What to do?  On the one hand, the idea of having someone as a partner was attractive… on the other hand and perhaps fueled by the “un-partnering” ways of the last partner these thoughts were tempered, like being doused by a cold shower,  with a heavy dose of skepticism.

I have never said I had all the answers to life’s riddles and the older I get, the truer this statement seems to become… So back then, being that much younger and with as much hair on top of my head as I now sport on my upper lip, decisions were made which, indeed… changed my life. Not sure in which direction, whether up or otherwise. But change it did.

There was this young woman I really liked… only problem? She was already married to someone else… To compound the problem… she also liked me… However, her husband was transferred out to the west coast before we had a chance to make some dumb decisions so… that was taken care of. Then there was Maribel… she of the long flowing hair and hippy (these were the late 60’s into the early 70’s, so “hippy” was still in) clothing which was as revealing as it was forbidding … she was from Spain and looked like a beautiful, fiery gypsy queen… we came close, oh so close to putting our lives together… No dice… she was quite a bit older and her daughter was only 5 years younger than I. In the end, she decided this was not to be, although it was not an easy decision…

Then, there was the young lady I had met at the beach some time before and who had made it not a secret she was interested. When all was said and done, she became the mother of three of my children. I have to say, I married not only her, but her mother’s rice, beans and ropavieja cooking. Yes, they were from Cuba and even had ties to my hometown.

Did it change my life? Yes, to be sure. The best to come from this union, as it was from the previous one, were the children who are all -but one who has gone- grown up now…

Monday afternoons… Hmmm! You will understand it if I don’t like them so much… they can be downright troublesome and lead one into virgin paths where the future is always on the balance…

But then again… that is always the case… or not?

Be Well … Be Back!!!

Final Notes:

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