{"id":4402,"date":"2011-03-01T03:28:25","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T10:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=4402"},"modified":"2011-03-01T03:28:25","modified_gmt":"2011-03-01T10:28:25","slug":"what-ifs-and-might-have-beens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/01\/what-ifs-and-might-have-beens\/","title":{"rendered":"What ifs and might-have-beens"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like wandering through old cemeteries. In the same spirit, every couple of years I visit the Social Security Death Index<\/a> online. The entries there aren’t as poignant or informative as old tombstones (though they do contain something tombstones don’t — defunct SS numbers). But every once in a while I’ll think of people from a long time ago and enter their names.<\/p>\n

A depressing number of my old acquaintances turn out to be dead. Not because I’ve reached that age where it happens (knock wood), but because of war and drugs and other bad habits long ago. My best friend from high school died in her 20s. I don’t know the cause; I lost touch with her and wasn’t aware she’d died until I looked up her name. But she was a person of such sorrow that if it wasn’t suicide it was probably some suicide analog. An accidental drug overdose. A driving-while-impaired accident. <\/p>\n

Yesterday I learned that the guy who was the love of my life and the bane of my existence for more than 20 years is dead. Been dead since 2005. I hadn’t entered his name in the SSDI before now because … well, I wanted only to forget him. He was a troubled character I fell for in high school. I let him make my life hell. Years later, I contributed to making his hell.<\/p>\n

I was an idiot in my younger days. I liked the bad boys and was under the delusion that “love” could heal their wounded hearts. Idiot. Truly.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t surprised that he died young. And again I bet I know the reason. The official cause might have been cancer or a ruptured liver or an accident. But whatever his death certificate says, the cause was booze. And the groundwork was laid by some of the hardest, scariest drug abuse I ever saw. <\/p>\n

In high school and the next several years, he would take any drug, in any amount, any combination, without question. I would see him at a party, already drunk, already high on heaven knows what. And if somebody handed him some pills — down they’d go. It’s a wonder he lived to graduate. By the time he was 23, his body was already old and starting break down. He survived, but by then I’d gotten some sense and drifted away from him.<\/p>\n

By the time he was 30, he’d turned his life around. He’d left the drug scene and its bad company. He came looking for me. I fell in love all over again. By then he was a good guy with good friends who eventually became my friends. High school dreams come true. Imagine that. We envisioned being together forever.<\/p>\n

There was just this one little thing. He still liked to party. Hard. Really hard. And because it was “only beer” and “only on the weekends or after work,” it didn’t count. It didn’t count even when he guzzled so much that he’d puke — and then go right on drinking. It didn’t count when he slurred his words or staggered or fell. It didn’t count when he had blackouts. It didn’t count when a farmer had to haul him home, his pants drenched in urine, after he drove into a ditch. It didn’t count even after his boss (and friend) pressured him into a treatment program because, after all, he was totally in control, his drinking was strictly recreational<\/i>, and anybody who thought otherwise was just a party-pooping old lady who didn’t know how to have fun.<\/p>\n

Eventually I left. I left in a way that didn’t reflect well on me. I hoped he’d say good riddance and move on. Instead, he decided to get revenge for wrongs both real and imagined. He tried to kill me. Twice. He became a relentless stalker.<\/p>\n

Thing is, by then he was, to everybody else, extremely likable. The sort of person who’d always lend a hand. Hardworking and honest. When we broke up, none of our mutual friends believed me when I said he’d tried to kill me. They thought I was just being a jerk when I got a restraining order, which (like all restraining orders) did absolutely nothing to keep him from lurking, making silent phone calls, and sending threatening letters (their contents printed with a Dymo labeler for anonymity, their envelopes addressed in his own unmistakable hand). I finally had to leave the state and cut off most relationships with people we both knew.<\/p>\n

That move was the start of the best part of my life — and much better relationships. But I don’t think much changed for him.<\/p>\n

About a year later, I was at an airport and happened to run into one of those mutual friends. He asked me, “So where are you living now?” <\/p>\n

“I can’t tell you,” I said. “I know you’re a nice guy. But you’re one of _____’s drinking buddies. I’m hiding from him. I have to. I know you won’t believe me, but that’s the way it is.”<\/p>\n

He surprised me. “Oh, I believe you, he said. “Yeah, he and I go out to bars together sometimes and we have a great time. But there are other times I see him and he seems so strange I cross the street to avoid him.”<\/p>\n

That’s just about the last word I heard about the former love and bane of my life.<\/p>\n

Not quite the last, though. A few months later, a lawyer tracked me down to ask what I might know about an allegation a teenage girl had made against ____. The accusation was so creepy, and the girl (a neighbor) so unreliable, I could only shake my head and realize nobody would ever know the truth. Much later I remembered that cops had investigated him for a similar act involving another unreliable kid when he was a teenager. He wasn’t charged and always swore it was a case of mistaken identity. His protestations were so ardent, his indignation so heartfelt, that no one could doubt him.<\/p>\n

Sober and sane, he could be a great guy. Drunk or disordered? Some people you never really know.<\/p>\n

After I left him, he blamed me for every problem he had. Some of the blame, I absolutely deserved. But he also blamed me for problems he’d had since his druggie days and for other things I never did and would never do. I’m guessing he went on blaming long after I left and used blame and rage as an excuse for slow self destruction.<\/p>\n

I hope not. I hope he got some happiness. But I tend to think not much.<\/p>\n

After learning he was gone, I googled him, looking for an obituary, for blogs or Facebook pages of his friends or family members, for anything that might tell me more. There was nothing. He appears to have lived, then dropped into death, with less impact than a pebble dropping into a pond. It feels strange that somebody who had such a huge influence on my life for so many years could just disappear like that.<\/p>\n

I wouldn’t have stayed with him. But when I learned he was dead, I wondered whether he would have lived longer if I had stayed. Not because of any wonderfulness I possess. I just wondered if he might have eaten better, boozed less (eventually), been more motivated to look after his health, or been more sane simply for having companionship and stability. Would we have gotten past the dark parts and found something good together on the other side of our troubles? Would the once-upon-a-time love of my life ended up being the love of my life, after all, if we’d persevered? I don’t know. Could be. Probably not. In any case, didn’t happen. Do I now owe some karmic cleansing for whatever part I may have played in his too-early death? Not that I “drove him to drink” or “made” him do anything. He made his own choices, but I played a role in his downhill slide.<\/p>\n

Too late, though. It’s all what ifs and might have beens. Pointless speculation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like wandering through old cemeteries. In the same spirit, every couple of years I visit the Social Security Death Index online. The entries there aren’t as poignant or informative as old tombstones (though they do contain something tombstones don’t — defunct SS numbers). But every once in a while I’ll think of people from a long time ago and enter their names. A depressing number of my old acquaintances turn out to be dead. Not because I’ve reached that age where it happens (knock wood), but because of war and drugs and other bad habits long ago. My best…<\/p>\n

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