Story Time

Friday the thirteenth. If you don't want to tempt fate, you need to read, "Still Walking." Just a thought. Trying to nab the all important paraskevidekatriaphobic readership demographic.

I need to finish a post I started in late October. I called it "Story Time", and it is not one of my erotic stories. Sorry, no body fluids in this post.

To set the stage, there is a very nice elderly gentleman who occasionally fills in for our regular janitor. I wish I had a picture of this man – he has a kind face, and at first glance, you would think he had salt-and-pepper hair. But his hair is all white – he is a black gentleman, and he is losing his hair so his scalp and white hair have the illusion of having salt-and-pepper hair. Age? Not sure, but from talking with him, he has to be in his eighties. His skin – which reminds me of the most wonderful chocolate ice cream – does not reveal his age. His skin seems to be all one color – and a very rich color indeed. He was probably very handsome in his youth. Were I a spry 75, I would be looking in his direction now.

Anyway, he told me a story – and in the shortening days of October, I promised to reveal his story (and I didn't do it at the time). Darned me. One of my New Year's Resolutions was to get rid of all of my draft posts in "Leesa's Stories." Finishing this story will accomplish that resolution. Teaching point: If you are tired of not accomplishing New Year's Resolutions, aim low. For instance, "I resolve not to wet myself while camping in a large group." Now everyone, well almost everyone, can nail that resolution. Now I won't embarrass any of you who have done this (that would make me a bitch, and I am sweet as pie), but someone may have written about this on November 7, 2005. Perhaps.

Back to the story. Oh, am I spastic today.

He told me a story of when he was 25 years old. He had returned from the War (I assume WW II), and to his wife. He was injured during the war, and so he was walking with the aid of a walker. Please remember, this is the 1940s, and although I was not there, I am relatively sure there were no cellular phone, and most homes only had one or two phones in the whole home (black rotary dial phones).

So this young, ill man wants to make a phone call – to his girlfriend. He did not call her that, he said, "I needed to call a girl." So he tells his wife, I am going to walk down the block to use the pay phone.

"What is wrong with our phone?" his loving wife asks.

"I just need to walk down the street and make a call," he answers.

This elderly gentleman smiles as he recalls his answer. Then he tells me that she sees right through him – she knows there is another woman.

Her next response was effective – it did was it intended.

She said, "You can go down the street and make the call if you like, but once you get back in our apartment, your ass is mine."

And he reminds me that he was walking with a walker, and he thought she might kill him. At that point, he stopped his cheating. He never made that phone call.

I can't relate the story like this gentleman – my impression is that the story was sweet, a bit shocking, and I needed to hear it at the time. It was like there is some point at which one makes a decision to change – and that was the point for this man.

Getting back to me (attention whore, remember?), after I came clean with my husband. Well sort of clean, anyway. Was I going to cheat again – I was not sure. Probably. Got drugs, went into therapy, cried a lot for the next month, and I did not know what I wanted.

There was a point in an argument when I finally got it – my hubbie wants me to be around even though I cheated. And I saw what he thought our marriage was suppose to be – an image I held for some time. I could not turn back the clock, and I hated how he sometimes looked at me. He looked at me with eyes of betrayal. Earned, yes, but it still stung me to the core.

Now we still fight, I still am bitchy at times, and we are not tossing rose petals beneath each others feet each day. But I look at him differently, with a deeper sense of love. This man's story reminded me of that on that October afternoon. She is now dead, rest her soul, but he had more than 50 years of a good marriage. Well, maybe 45 years of a great marriage and 5 years of a suck-y marriage. I don't know. But I believe I was meant to hear this man's story.

Sure, I joke about a New Year's Resolution that all but VX (sorry, VX, I am a bitch at times!) can live up to – but there is another resolution, not made because the calendar turned from one year to another, that centers on renewing my marital vows every day. That's a resolution worth keeping!