I follow a Medium.com writer, Jonathan Morris Schwartz. A theme he writes about is the residual love we still have for exes (see link below).
Jonathan wrote, “If allowing yourself to occasionally wonder what it would be like to ‘try again’ with a past love brings you emotional joy and euphoria, give yourself that indulgence. Do we sometimes get another chance to re-explore romance with someone whose love survives the test of time? Of course.”
Oh, Jonathan. Let me tell you what happened when I ‘re-explored romance’ with someone 20 years later.
The Backdrop
After I graduated university, I joined the military. I was assigned to a base which was planted in a county with one of the highest male-female ratios in the country.
Suddenly, the fellas were flocking to me.
I had no illusion that the sudden barrage of invitations from men had anything to do with a new hairstyle or a new shirt I wore.
Being the pragmatic that I am, I knew I needed to figure out which guys were pursuing me because I had a vagina versus which ones were pursuing me because I was Lee.
Enter Brock.
At the time, I was still training for my grand-yet-never-realized dream of being an Olympic marathoner. Sometimes, men from base would join me for my workouts, but they wouldn’t last long. I was serious about training, so I cranked through miles, not letting the men use training time as flirting time.
Brock lasted.
Over the miles and months, our friendship grew.
And then I was injured. I limped around for a year as the useless medical professionals said, “We have no idea what’s wrong with you, but here are some pain meds.” I couldn’t run. My dream — my identity — disappeared.
Brock dragged me to a bike store and made me buy a road bike and helmet. He dragged me to the pool, morning after morning.
Brock biked and swam with me. He cussed at the doctors with me.
He pulled me, and he pushed me, and naturally I fell in love with him.
But I was an officer, and Brock was enlisted. The military does not permit the two to fraternize. If we did, then it would be on me, as the officer, to take the consequence: a dishonourable discharge. Basically, I could get fired if I dated Brock.
Being the pragmatic that I was, self-preservation trumps love, so I was relieved when the military assigned me to a different base where I didn’t have to be near the temptation that was Brock.
Brock and I agreed that if this thing we had was really something, then we’d meet up again one day when we were both out of the military.
Fast-forward 10 Years
When My Space® was a thing, Brock found me. I was divorced and out of the military. I felt that little flutter of hope when his name popped up on my screen. We exchanged two catch-up messages. The third message was from his account but was not written by him.
Turns out, he was married. His wife apparently broke into his account and wrote that I was a homewrecker and that I should leave her husband alone.
There is no way in a million worlds I am the kind of woman who is any shape or form ever going to do wrong by another woman in this regard. It’s just not the kind of person I am.
I will never be ‘the other woman’.
I didn’t bother telling her that I hadn’t known he was married. I just immediately broke off all contact.
Fast-forward 10 More Years
And then Facebook® was a thing, and Brock found me again. This time, he was in the middle of a messy divorce, the kind where his wife had managed to get him thrown in jail a couple of nights. The kind where he’d been barred from seeing his kids ’til the courts figured out what was what. The kind where he’d lived in a rehab home at his lawyer’s urging just to make it look good when they went to court.
And this time, Brock had man boobs. I know how shallow that sounds, but bear with me. The man boobs were symbolic.
The Brock I knew from the past was a special operations guy. Hard core. Brilliant. Edgy. Pure energy. Make it happen.
He rode that fine, dark line between daring boldness and just-barely-held-in-check dynamic personality that made him so good at his job but so close to getting arrested on any given day.
I read somewhere that test pilots and high-level criminals have the same personality type. The only difference is whether they follow the law or not.
Brock had been the guy who survived dangerous missions, the guy who prowled the dankest corners of our planet, the guy who jumped out of planes and did the things you only read about in Tom Clancy books.
His body was a tool for his trade, with a ridged 8-pack and skin pulled tight over rippling muscles. When we trained, he trained as though he was possessed. Every workout we did was full of intensity. Brock didn’t have an easy day. Brock didn’t know moderation. For him, every stroke of the pedal, every stroke in the water, mattered.
That was how I was, too. That’s why we understood each other. This was the foundation of us.
Brock had been perfectly suited for his profession. It absorbed his intensity. It gave him an outlet for his intensity.
And then Brock retired because the military doesn’t let you stay in forever.
Though Brock was only in his late 40s, he had the joints and vertebrae of a 70-year-old man. A body can only endure so many Gs and hard landings. A body can only endure so much extreme excess and extreme deprivation.
Brock endured many surgeries that made his ever-present back pain worse. The pain made it hard to move from the couch to an upright position. Exercise wasn’t an option. He gained weight, more weight, and man boobs.
Constant pain, for years, can warp people. People in constant pain become different people.
Brock’s wife could only endure so much. She did not like Brock being at home, though she had missed him during the 20 years he was hardly ever home. She didn’t like his erratic behaviours, like the time he, a 50-year-old decorated veteran, slept in the yard because, in his alcoholic stupor, he couldn’t figure out where the door was. The time he tried to spank the dog with his flip-flop and accidentally hit her when she tried to intervene. The time he cussed out another dad at their son’s soccer game.
She booted Brock out, afraid he would accidentally harm the kids.
Brock’s erratic behaviours were likely induced by the pain meds and alcohol he used to keep his constant pain down to not-make-him-contemplate-suicide levels. Then again, Brock, without an outlet for his intensity, was never going to be an easy man to be with.
Leaving the Past in the Past
I stared at the shirtless man with man boobs in the video screen of my Facebook® messenger app. He’d been talking non-stop about going on a trip with another veteran buddy. They were going to take their metal detectors to find some gold and also keep an eye out for Bigfoot who was believed to have caused some young woman to disappear in that area.
Before that, he’d ranted about his soon-to-be-ex wife (“that c***”); his looming eviction because the building manager found out he had a dog (his lease didn’t allow dogs); his new-found religious fervour (which might help him in the child custody hearings); and his wish to kill a buddy’s wife (he was too incoherent for me to figure out what she’d done to earn his ire).
Being the pragmatic that I still am, I knew I wasn’t willing to take on this feral man.
Had we first met in the here and now, I would have nothing to do with this man. I would have flicked him away without a thought.
But he was Brock. My first love. A military veteran. A hero, broken by his service.
Romantic love wasn’t going to happen, but maybe I could love him in the ways that matter most.
We agreed to stay in touch, though I wasn’t willing to give him my phone number or address yet. “Let’s just stick to this app for now,” I said.
At first, we video-messaged quite a bit. I would wake up to a call from him at 2:16 am, listen to his rants, soothe him, and go back to sleep. After a while, I answered the calls less and less.
Tonight, Brock is calling. I see his name on my screen. He’s trying to reach me. He needs help.
When I was injured, Brock dragged me to a bike store. He dragged me to the pool. He cussed at the doctors with me. For a year, he pulled me, and he pushed me, and naturally I fell in love with him.
Tonight, I don’t answer.
I am so ashamed.
Summary
Military veterans can be hard to love.
To those of you who love military veterans, who stay with them as they heal, or stay with them even though they aren’t healing: I salute you.
I remember watching Brock, 20 years ago. I sat on the shore at dusk. He was the last surfer out there, still out there after all the other surfers called it quits. Of course he was.
As he stared at the horizon, looking for just one more wave, I stared at his back, wishing the ocean would send him just one more wave. I just wanted to watch him one more time, gliding so smoothly, gracefully, elegantly over the dark water.
If only life would send him one more wave.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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