Hindsight it a wonderful thing, isn’t it?
But make no mistake, I loved the woman … or, at least, I held a genuine perception that I loved her although, viewing the timeline from 20 more years on from the experience, I now recognise that such a naïve outlook of life was simply a manifestation of how I optimistically viewed the world in general anyway. eg. I was always a glass half full person and rarely dallied with or fixated on the negatives of anything.
So sure. Whatever concept I held about falling in love or comprehending being in some kind of loving relationship, well, (pause), I guess I truly believed I’d accomplished and manifest that sort of a reality; certainly my own version of it anyway.
Love is blind
And yes. My persuasive illusion remained entirely intact for nearly two decades despite Jackie’s flaws and failings being entirely visible and illuminated in the gaze of so many other folk, especially the family she, herself, had been adopted into.
But what am I inferring? What am I actually saying>
I’m saying that the woman I spent, possibly, the best 20 years of my life with was actually quite an insular and cruel person. Someone who was entirely intransigent when it came to compromising or accommodating the thoughts or feelings of anyone unhappy to endorse or go along with the path or course that she was always determined to follow.
And in Jackie’s world there was never enough time, or a space or a place for pause or reflection. Treadmill Jackie was locked in battle with an internal stopwatch that informed her unrelentingly she simply didn’t have the time to contemplate or, God forbid, stop long enough for her hectic mind to gather its own thoughts into any semblance of cohesive understanding.
And this constant hectic chaos, a frenzy of always having to bite off more than she can chew sets off a very uncomfortable atmosphere that everyone else around her then picks up on.
It was only after I dated other people after our marriage was over that I realised I’d spent the previous 20 years manoeuvring around Jackie like a male spider, always with the ambition of stealing a kiss without ever getting bitten.
And love story?
Turns out, it was only ever in my head, not our relationship!
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