infinite wisdom

Today while processing files at work a student by the name of Glenda crossed my desk. I got this sinking pit feeling in my stomach. I knew a Glenda once upon a time. Glenda was a girl from my past. She went to the same high school I went to and was in the senior class with my then boyfriend Steve when I was merely a sophomore. He was mine and yet she spoke to him daily and I was insecure about it to the max. She was pretty. Really pretty!! Now, never mind the fact that I was a really pretty girl in high school and apparently (according to my cousin Wendy) in amongst the �in� crowd. She made me feel insecure because she spoke in an animated way as though she had not a care in the world. I on the other hand second guessed everything that I did and was unsure of who I was at all times. Glenda had a car and blonde hair and though she was bigger than me, she had something that bothered me. His sporadic attention.

Prior to my interest in that boyfriend no one else was interested. And then we became an instant item and every girl in the school started to see what I saw because low and behold love makes a man walk with a swagger and according to the interest factor increase I would have to say that it made him appear fifty feet high and instantly ten thousand times more attractive to the opposite sex. That�s the first time it happened to me, but I�ve witnessed it since.

Please note that he never lied to me, and god how I wish wish wish now in the throes of happy reminiscing that I could say he never cheated on me�.but he did. And guess what, it was not with Glenda.

It was with some slag he met at a carnival. Her name was�oh heck who can recall? I only recall the beach bottle peroxide blonde hair with those atrocious 80�s hair sprayed wings sliding up the sides of her face. I recall how I felt watching him walk with her; I remember the plastic bottle of cheap vodka my girlfriend handed me that helped me forget what he just did to me. I even recall that he was wearing clothes that I just purchased for him the day before. I remember how she told me it was okay that she was with my man because she could only have done that if I wasn�t good enough to him and he wasn�t happy with me. I remember all of those things but do not remember her name.

I do however recall that when I asked him to leave with me instead of her he admitted that he had not just met her but had indeed picked her up and brought her to the carnival himself and had to take her home. I remember the grip on the vodka, I remember the tears, I remember it all, but that girl, she still remains nameless to me today even though I know that I knew her name once upon back then.

Oh but Glenda�.I shall never forget her name. She was the one I had nightmares about and having nightmares about someone else creaming your love life is far worse than the reality of the one that does the deed. Indeed.

I don�t want to admit this but I forgave him. That nameless girl never reappeared and it was an incident we both put out of our minds for the next 5 years. And we both did so successfully. In fact, he proposed and I declined for other reasons. Maybe I forgave my ex-husband the first time around because Steve taught me it could be successfully done. That mistakes didn�t always have names that you carried like scars in your soul.

Sometimes now I worry about other�s interrupting my happiness. But I don�t worry about names or faces that I�m aware of. I worry about the evils that life dumps into your life that you couldn�t possibly know about previously. Part of me realizes that you can worry and fret or you can appreciate what you have today. I also realize that to forgive infidelity is to accept infidelity as an ok thing. It�s not ok in my world. I would never forgive it again. I don�t think I could.

Oddly enough, with Rick, I worry more about "am I making him happy?", "Does he feel complete with me?" I worry far less about anyone else messing it up. I worry about MYSELF messing it up.