To Be Or Not To Be

“That is the question” ~ quotation from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. My blog is not distinctly along the same lines as Shakespeare’s thinking through Hamlet. It is more related to what is currently on my mind, about understanding how life choices work and ultimately, do we have a choice, or would we all end up at the same final point regardless of the twists and turns, obstacles and multiple pathways? I have not written for over a month. Not because I have nothing to write about, but my thoughts have been chaotic and un-cohesive, difficult to put into words. Today, the following took shape.

How do we know in life, if something is meant to be or if it is not? How do we know if we have followed the correct path for our lives or if there was an alternate, perhaps better one? This is a purely philosophical, hypothetical, because we will never know. There is no earthly way to know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we may have chosen the wrong way when we came to a fork or a crossroads on our journey. But we can wonder, and wonder I have.

Looking back over the last fifty four years of my life, I know that I made bunches of wrong choices, but would I be in a better place if I had chosen differently? I cannot cover every aspect of my life, from education to career choices and so on in a blog, so I will focus on the choice most heavily on my heart, relationships.

My very first ever boyfriend was a horrid man, he only wanted one thing. He was also ugly to boot. Don’t know what I was thinking. However, so desperate was I to be chosen, wanted, loved, that I happily accepted the opportunity to be this guy’s girlfriend. Things went south very quickly because I did not want to give him what he wanted and he broke up with me after only a few months of dating.

I was devastated and that first boyfriend/girlfriend association for me, taught me things about men I had never known before, which were detestable and coloured my ignorant understanding of males and relationships. Up until that point, I had a very rosy, romantic and clearly unrealistic idea about men and dating. Since my information was based solely upon reading a plethora of Mills and Boon romance novels, it is not surprising that I was so shocked to discover that love in the real world was completely different.

I had low self-esteem and little confidence during my teenage years. My friends were all blond and beautiful and I was a skinny, gawky, brooding brunette. I never felt attractive and cried buckets of tears over my crooked nose and teeth. I stuck a photograph of Anneline Kriel on my dressing table mirror and prayed every day for God to please make me look like her. Never happened.

My second romance and high school sweetheart, was my first real love, and I nearly fainted the day he showed an interest in me. I had known this young man for a couple of years, as he was the best friend of a family friend. At the time I met him, he had a girlfriend and I just admired this hunk from afar.

One day, a chance meeting took place, where I discovered that not only was he no longer dating the other girl and he was interested in me. He was going to a house party on the weekend and he wanted to know if I would be there? I nearly fainted on the spot. I stood gazing up into the blue eyes of one of the most eligible heart throbs in our town and my heart swooned. I could not believe that this young man was asking me out.

I did go to the party and he was there. We danced the night away and the evening ended on a slow dance to “Love Hurts”, which became “our song”. I was absolutely smitten. The love I had been looking for seemed to have found me and my fifteen year-old self was head over heels in love for the first time.

It wasn’t long, before my rose-tinted glasses were smashed to smithereens and I was in the throes of a real boy/girl relationship and not in a Mills and Boon romance. We quickly discovered that we were very different, he was into sports and I was not-so-much. He smoked and he was old enough to drink and I was not. That did not stop me though and I started smoking at fifteen and although not a drinker, would occasionally have a “ladies” alcoholic beverage.

He appeared to me to be one of those acceptably “bad” boys that your mother always warns you about, but the relationship with him is so exciting, even if it is in many ways destructive, you cannot give it up. We fought a lot. We broke up, we made up, but he kept telling me how much he loved me, and in my heart I believed him for nearly three years.

I won’t go into detail, but thanks to the guy who became my third ever boyfriend, I broke up with my high school sweetheart. This third guy was witness to a very ugly, public incident and he wondered why I had stuck with my first love. This man also said that he would be interested in dating me if I was single and that got me thinking. I did not have to stay in this relationship that was clearly not working and I did not have to be alone, there were other men out there who might like me.

So I ended the relationship with my first love and dated guy number three. That did not last very long either, only a few months and it was over. It did not bother me very much, so I was obviously not really into him. He was quite a bit older than me and I did learn a lot about relationships from his “sage” advice.

Against my better judgement, I ended up going back to my high school sweetheart, as he had been devastated by our break up and wanted to get back together. Nothing had changed. He even asked me to marry him then, and multiple times over the next year or so, but I was not interested because he did not appear to be very good marriage material to me.

Over time, I have been proved completely wrong in this regard. He has been married to the same woman for all these years since he and I broke up. I have no personal knowledge, however, from common, public information, he has been a loyal husband and a good father, to two lovely girls.

After that I had a string of really pathetic and mostly short-lived relationships, until I met the second love of my life and the father of my beautiful daughter. Another man, much older than me, but also gorgeous. He was a really good looking charmer. Highly intelligent, musical and artistic. I thought I had met my soul mate.

This man wined and dined me in the fashion of true romance. He took me to intimate coffee shops, the theatre and bought me poetry books. I had never been this smitten in my whole life. When he started talking about marriage I thought I would faint with happiness. Inevitably, as my more realistic self with years of life experience would know now, it was not to be and he rejected me after finding out that I was pregnant.

If I could go back in time and change many things, the one thing I would never change is having my daughter. She was and still is, the best thing that ever happened to me. Whatever kind of messes my choices have brought about in my life, I would go through each and every one of them again if the outcome meant that my daughter would be born. From that perspective, I could not and would not change a thing.

Having the responsibility of a child to raise did change my outlook on dating and romance. My pages-long requirements for an ideal husband had, by this time, been whittled down to four things. He was not to smoke, drink or womanize and he had to love and accept my daughter as his own.

So now we get to the third love of my life, Russel. Apparently we had met when I was in high school and he had fancied me, however he was not my “type” and I would never have dated him back then. So much had changed when we were set up on a blind date ten years after he had first me. I did not even remember him. Even then, I never imagined that this short, freckled, blond-haired, athletic man would become my husband.

Russ was late for our first date and that was one of the reasons I was not initially interested. I do not like tardiness. We did not see each other again for about six months, but the girl who worked with me, and had set us up on the blind date, told me that he kept asking about me and appeared to be interested.

Stuck for a partner for a social event, I ended up asking Russel if he would accompany me and things went better than the first time. He collected me for the date on time. Russ did not smoke or drink, which were two of my relationship deal breakers, and he was also kind and considerate. I had been told that he had only had two girlfriends before me, so I was pretty sure that Russel was not a womanizer. Checked box three on my list.

We started dating and at first I kept Aileen out of the picture. It was only after Russ appeared to be interested in having a serious relationship and asked to meet Aileen that I introduced them to each other. It was a Friday night, Russel arrived on time and the three of us had supper together. He had brought a box of smarties for Aileen, which she was allowed to have after we had eaten.

It very quickly became clear to me, that Russ was also going to check off box number four. Aileen appeared to really like him and he was great with her. My precious daughter brought every toy she owned into the lounge to show Russel. She sat on his knee, eating her smarties and sharing her toys with him. My heart melted.

Fourteen months later we were married and two years after that our son was born. As with all my previous, serious relationships, we had issues. We fought, we made up and discovered that we were very different, with little in common. We even considered divorce a couple of times, but the saving grace in our marriage consisted of two very important things for me, Russel’s great sense of humour and his acceptance of the difficulties I struggled with due to depression.

When Russ and I were wed, I did not consider him to be my soul mate. In my mind I had chosen a man who checked all the right boxes and met the criteria I had set for a husband. I had settled. I had settled for someone who was not my first choice or even my second or third choice. Nevertheless, he was the one. Russel was the one I married, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death us do part.

I know that I was not the best wife, and perhaps Russ was not my ideal husband, but looking back, I know that he was the right one for me. I could not imagine the last twenty eight years with anyone else. We had learned a lot about each other as human beings and companions. Both of us changed and adapted to keep our marriage alive, regardless of the circumstances. Without Russel, our amazing son, Michael, would not have been born. Here again, I could never imagine a life that does not have Aileen and Michael in it.

Having looked in the rear view mirror, I don’t think any of my earlier relationships would have worked. So even if I could go back, I would not change anything. I would still marry Russ, however, I would try harder to be a better wife in the hopes of a happy marriage. Instead of trying to change Russel to fit my own ideal of the perfect family and married life, I would change me. Alas, as human beings, we often only realise what we have when we don’t have it any more.

After twenty seven years of marriage to Russ, I would go back and do it all over again. We had become accustomed to one another. We were comfortable together. We understood and accepted each other as best we could. I wish he was still here so that we could grow old together.

People often say, “Appreciate what you have.” Sadly, we don’t. I so wish I could give this hard-gained knowledge to all the other married couples I know, especially young people. The truth is, none of them will listen to my advice, because we all learn difficult life lessons the hard way. I know I did. My greatest regret, not truly appreciating what I had. I spent too many years wanting more and better and not being grateful for what I already had. I am not talking about material possessions here, they are merely earthly and temporal. I am referring to relationships and the lasting impact they will have over a lifetime. That is truly all that is important in this life, these matters of the heart and genuine love. Hold fast to these things and I believe that you will be able to look backwards with far less regret.

If anyone who reads my words can take any of my advice to heart, I would plead with you to choose relationships, choose to love. Not necessarily the romantic, mushy kind of love. Choose instead the doing kind of love, where actions speak louder than words. But also, speak the words. Say the kind, thoughtful, loving things and remember always, to love yourself. Listen to your heart.