True Love Lost, the Best Pain I've Ever Felt
I met the most beautiful special women in the world completely by chance. I was on a military deployment in Hungary; she is an American English teacher who was there teaching Hungarian high school student American literature and English.
We met early on in our yearlong travel and drifted into love so quickly and decisively I didn't realize the brevity of our relationship. It was as if I had known her and she had known me since we were children and we fit so snugly together like two pieces of a puzzle. It was as if I was waiting for her all of my short 20-year life. If our paths didn't cross there I would be in constant search of her magnificence until we met.
She had been previously married and from that marriage born a wonderful intelligent child who was a 9-year-old at the time. He did nothing but enhance the love that we felt for each other. He was the glue that slid
between the minuscule cracks in our puzzle.
The three of us spent everyday and night enjoying our unique and remarkable situation. We spent our days enriched with Hungarian culture and our nights dancing in each other's arms, eyes, and hearts. The mere thought of a gaze into her eyes made me soar into the heaven; I was on top of the world. How, why, was I so lucky to have met her, the one, my Ellen Polanski (character from: The Age of Innocence)! The only woman in the world that could take me beyond my greatest potential as a human was in my life. I could do anything because of her!
The three of us traveled through Hungary together; Pecs, Budapest, Mohacs, Fantod; and we traveled Europe together; Berlin, Munich, Vienna. We enjoyed the beautiful cities, buildings, and people we met along the way in the fashion they should be enjoyed. We shared these moments with each other, the people who in our lives we loved, adored, and cherished. People who after your life in such great positive ways. I was with two of those great people!
Our trip ended, but more great times were to come...
We came home, I to Pennsylvania, and she and her son to Virginia. We shared the love we felt for each other with our family and friends who we missed so much over the course of a year. We told them of our convictions for each other and that we would be together for life. My amazement in who she is and what she has accomplished continued to grow beyond its bounds.
I at 20-years-old was not complete with college and returned along my previous path. She did the same and resumed her position as a High school English teacher. Now we could see each other only on weekends and holidays. Every hour I spent on the four-hour drive to see her was nothing because of the excitement and joy that she brought me. Every penny that I spent when I called her could have been a dollar and I would not have come close to paying the price of hearing her voice. I helped her with her dog, house projects, her son, daily chores, and her parents whenever I could. The simplicity of sitting down to a meal was irreplaceable because of the two people I would sit with.
Time went on...
She was 29, I was 21, and her son was 10. A brief year and a half since the most wonderful day in my life had passed, the day I met her.
Life seemed to be crushing in on her. She felt as if she always had something to prove because of being a young mother with a failed marriage. (These feelings will always be infested in her.) Work became difficult and frustrating for her. She was trying to sell her town house and move to the country. Her son was more than a handful since she was still raising him alone after ten years. Her mother got cancer. She finally admitted to herself that she was a bulimic and had been for five long years. (Something I had no idea or evidence of.)
She knew in her heart that she loved me. She knew that I loved her. Life was hard for her and I could not understand how hard it was even as hard as I tried. She struggled financially and emotionally for years and felt as if she had gone nowhere and still had a mountain ahead of her to climb. She needed to be happy. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was hurt a person she cared so deeply for. I was 21 and she was 29. She had a son who I was only 11 years older than. I had to complete two years of school and hope to get a job near where she lived. I was four hours driving from her. What could I do if she really needed me in an emergency? How could I possibly help her with raising and disciplining her son? I was mature for 21, but I had much to see and learn. I had not experienced enough of life's trials and joys.
She felt as if she could not marry me as we had planned. She thought that she pulled me down and I wouldn't reach the levels and dreams I had hoped for if I stayed with her. She thought I was missing out on "my college years". She thought it would be difficult for me to be in charge of her son because we are so close in age. She thought I should not be forced to hold such a responsibility. She had many personal problems to sift through and solve and saw me as a grain of sand in those gears because I could not
physically support her the way she needed. As she put it she didn't want to, "ruin my life," with all of her problems.
She left me very abruptly for the obvious noble reasons. She wanted the best for both of us. In her mind to leave me would be the only way to accomplish this. We never fought and we always enjoyed each other's company, even until the very end.
I will always love and admire her. There will never be a day that I don't think of her and her son and hope that they are happy. I will pray for them always. It is painful, and I don't understand why life stabs and
picks and shoots people apart. I am here for both of them forever, and hope that our paths can cross once again.
But in all of my tears, frustration, and pain I thank her, her son, and most importantly I thank God for allowing me both the chance and the ability to love with such intensity and sincerity. I don't know what the future holds, but I am forever better because of her true love.
