In May of 2000 shortly before what would have been our 16th Wedding Anniversary Stacey and I separated. At the time I was devastated, it blind sided me, I simply wasn’t expecting us to divorce. We had talked about separating but in my mind it was simply talk. In retrospect I know we had separated long before May but were merely continuing through the motions.

As I mentioned I was totally unprepared for the break-up and suffered a lot of anguish, fear and hatred. Divorce is ugly no matter what, and there is never a “winner”. Everyone loses, much like a war there are causalities on all sides. In my mind there was no other action but a hasty retreat. Now, I had planned on moving back to Medford anyway in the fall to work at my company’s new store in Ashland so many of the household items were already boxed up. So calling in every damn favor I had, I packed up my distraught children, myself and moved back to Medford.

I begin working in Grants Pass in the interim as I waited for my position to open up.(It would be 02/07/01 before it the store would actually open.)  Regrouping my emotions and those of my children, time and distance begin to shed a new light on the situation.  However as you might or might not know divorce takes time and money, both of which I had little of. So in order to bide more time I continued to feign weakness long after I had truly recovered. I had discovered that the divorce was the right thing to do, it wasn’t handled correctly but the goal was indeed the right one. I felt that I was regaining part of the person I once was.

Back in my homeland surrounded by my friends and family I was no longer a stranger in a strange land. Yes, I schemed, lied, misdirected and took whatever actions I could to achieve my goals. I am not particularly proud of it all but I was a Father protecting himself and his children. Or, at least that was my own self serving reasoning for my actions. And in March of 2001 I was legally divorced.

Now the peculiar thing about examining one’s life is the realization of the different directions your life could have taken if you had made different decisions in your life. On the road to recovery you stop and to look at the things you did and said, wondering how you got to the place you are at now. In my search of condolences with those I knew I came across a huge divergent spot that my life could have taken with another person in my life. It was with a special person that had drifted in and out of my life for the past 25 plus years, it was Claudia.

Claudia and I had met in grade school, and I have a School picture of the two of use sitting next to each other smiling away in blissful youth. Not that we were exactly friends or anything (remember boys and girls at that time didn’t exactly socially mix, cooties and all you understand) but we did walk similar paths home on occasions. Even then I was comfortable around her when we were forced to mix sexes in such things as square dancing or group projects and for some strange reason Claudia and I always seemed to come together.

Then came Junior High and Mid-High, we both seemed to separate for a few years. Then in our final years of schooling Claudia and I took a computer class together. It was like old friends catching up. We talked and we laughed, we enjoyed each other’s company. It was an early morning class and my hands would still be cold when I arrived, later on I would make sure they were still cold. Claudia in her kindness would hold my hands to warm them up. We were friends but we were attracted to each other. Despite this, our shyness and quiet demeanor kept us from pushing the relationship any further. We encountered each other around town, with me always assuming that she had her own life and didn’t have any interest in me other than a friend.

Then in the winter of 1983 we met again under much stranger circumstances, what became to be the biggest irony of our lives was the fact that she began dating Stacey’s brother and we ended up double dating. While at our soon to be mother-in-law’s home we shared a Christmas kiss before our ultimate separate weddings that held in it more than we could have ever realized at the time. So I marry Stacey, with Claudia standing right there with us and she marries Stacey’s brother. As the years passed, we always enjoyed each other’s company at family gatherings. It was she and I that sought each other for conversation and support. Yet another strange twist of irony was the fact that whenever Claudia or I would ask about each other, Stacey would make the statement. “You two are so much alike you should have been the ones to get married.” Indeed, all these years later I contemplate the roads that I could have traveled.

So it was with this former past that I sought out Claudia for consultation over the E-Mail as my marriage was coming to its end. However, some how I unknowingly downloaded her response onto the wrong computer and never read the response. Once in Medford I tried calling her but couldn’t get through on her phone. With my mental state of  “Trust no one” I was going to dismiss any further conversation with her. Then I happened by her parent’s house and the girls noted that Claudia’s car was there. A strange compulsion made me turn into the driveway and walk up to the door. We gave each other a friendly greeting hug and we made small chat. I mentioned that I had tried to call her but wasn’t sure about the number and asked if she could give it to me. I was desperate to talk to her so I asked her out for coffee or something and she politely refused. She was in the midst of preparing a family dinner so she wrote down her information and I instinctually touched her back. I left slightly disappointed but satisfied I had made some sort of contact.

 I tried for several days to reach her using the phone number she gave me but all I got was an answering machine that would cut me off. When I finally did get hold of her she was busy do this or busy doing that. What I didn’t know was, she did desperately want to see me but she was terrified about pursuing the relationship. What followed was a game of “How do they feel about me?” We went on one date to the movies. Within two weeks we both had finally opened up enough to lay all the cards on the table and express our true feelings.

 What followed after that was a very natural and loving experience that seemed to mend the damage of past relationships, distant and time. Both of use felt younger and better than we had ever felt. Our lives seemed to fall into sync and we both have been happier than we had been in a very long time.

 Finally after all trepidations had fallen and several trial proposals, I officially proposed, ring in hand and on bended knee, Christmas morning. Then two weeks later on January 8th we ran down to the Courthouse and were married. For the second time applying our names to a marriage license. Only this time, 18 years later, Claudia signed in the spot for the bride instead of as a witness and everything else seems to now be in the right space as well.

Now some time into our marriage we both can’t help to wonder, why didn’t we do this sooner?