Sliding Doors

Ever seen the movie? It's been awhile since I've seen it, but basically it's the story showing what would happen to the same girl, if she had taken a path different than the one that she had taken.

Typically I stick to the usual ramblings in this blog. I don't like to make it too personal, and sometimes personal can equal boring. There's been a lot going on around here, and sometimes I just need to get it all out. And well, this IS my blog, and I guess I should take advantage of that.

My own life is like the movie, Sliding Doors. Not necessarily the movie itself, but the plot in general. I am one side of that story, one part of the "what if". Only I don't get to watch for another 45 minutes and see how the other side would have turned out, I just wonder. Almost daily.

I was always sort of a rebel child. A preachers kid who just wanted to break out of her shell. I experimented in my teenage years, I did things I shouldn't have. Somewhere along the way, I dated a few guys that were ok, no one that ever really stuck out.

After I graduated high school, I met a guy. In a bar. Sounds simple enough, right? I was 18, he was (at least 18). No? What?

Ok, so I dated this guy that was 2 years younger than me- I found out several weeks after we had been together, and we were already developing really strong feelings for each other. Age is just a number, right?

To spare you all of the seriously messed up details, it was a totally destructive relationship. At one point I moved to North Carolina with him and his dad, before something snapped in me 3 months later. I came back to WV, and never looked back.

I won't "knock" that part of my life- it was who I was at the time. I was blind to my stupidity at the time, and embarrassed by my actions now. I hurt my family, I alienated my friends. I gained so much knowledge experience from it, and I grew so much after it. I became a different, better person.

When I came back from NC, I moved back in with my parents, got a job, and started over. Life was really good. I had my own car, I had my family and I had my friends back.

I could tell you so many stories about how I met the love of my life. We knew each other in high school, and several times in life, fate has brought us back together in ways that you only see in a really good movie. Once I came back from NC, we started dating again. One night after dinner, we'd only been together a few days when he told me he loved me. It wasn't the first time, but it freaked me out that it was so sudden. We hadn't seen each other in years, we were different people giving it another go.

And I ran.

I literally cut ties with him, I for once in my life had TRUE love and I let it go. I freaked out, and I lost it.

That same night that he told me that he loved me, was the night that I met my now husband. We were out at a bar, the boyfriend has been drinking and was acting goofy, a a drunk tends to do. I had had a long day at work and all I really wanted to do was shoot some pool, which I was damn good at back in my day I must say ;) My now husband was there with a friend and so I played them in pool. The boyfriend was on the stool acting ridiculous, and the future husband was confident. He was self assured and seemed to be having a good time. He asked me for my number and I gave it to him, and we went on our first date that next weekend.

I don't know why I went out that night. I'd had a bad day at work and I just wanted to relax. And more importantly I don't know why I gave the now husband my number that night. I was with a guy that loved me more than anything, and I gave it up because for once in my life, I was scared of love. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and I ran through the wrong "sliding door".

I say all of this to say that rarely does a day go by that I don't realize that I married the wrong person. I didn't fall in love with my husband, I fell in love with what he could give me. I had come out of a terrible relationship with (literally) a teenage boy, and met a guy who was nice, who took me on trips, who was fun loving and respectful. And who was fake. He won me over, and then the curtains closed and the real guy came out. his attitude makes him ugly, and the fact that I could still love my ex boyfriend from forever ago helps nothing in our situation. I truly have lived the movie Sliding Doors because I know how it feels to wonder what if. I know that the love of my life is out there, engaged to someone else now (this is fact) and probably getting married soon. I know that if I STILL think of him and love him NO less than I did 7 years ago, then it is true. I know that you cannot possibly have a schoolgirl crush on someone for 11 years. This is how long I have known him.

I married my husband because I got pregnant with daughter. I know now that it was not the right thing to do, but as I've said in a previous post, many eyes were on me and my family and I felt like I had to do it. I know better now. I know that I would have had the best support system in the world as a single mom, and I know that my husband does not make me a good mom. I am a wonderful one without him, and sometimes in spite of him. It was the one thing that I didn't doubt when I became a statistic of teenage pregnancy. I never once doubted my abilities to be a good mother.

When we first got married, divorce was imminent. We fought non-stop, it was nothing but stress. I kept in touch with my ex, certain that I would end up back with him. At one point it was so bad that I took my then 7mo old daughter, and drove 6 1/2 hours to the beach. He lived an hour from there and we met up. my husband later found out about this, and I can honestly say I still don't feel bad about it. Call me a bitch if you must. We ran into each other a few times over the course of the next couple of years, and each time was just like we'd seen each other the day before. Literally nothing changed each and every time.

It finally ended shortly there after. And by "it", I mean communication. We did not have sex, there was nothing like that going on. He was begging me to leave my husband and move in with him, offering to pay for me to go to school and everything. I look back now and I wonder, why didn't I do things like this? I've always been a daring person, I've always gone against the grain. So why didn't I go with my heart instead of worrying so much about what other people would think of me? Why didn't I care about myself for once? I married while I was 8 months pregnant because I was so worried about what people would think, why didn't I take my chance to get out of the situation that I got myself into?

Don't get me wrong. From the outside looking in, we have a great life. We have a wonderful home, two beautiful healthy children that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world, husband has a great job. It's the little things that matter to me- the rudeness, the lack of respect, the things that TRULY count to me.

We moved to Florida, and I truly hoped for a fresh start. The guy that I was not with, ironically moved back to WV from SC, and said that he did it for me. Things didn't work out like they were planned obviously. I had hoped that moving here would give me a fresh start, mentally. But nearly daily, I wake up and at some point during the day, I think about what could have been. It's not the way I should be, but it's the way I am. There are things that I smell, places and things that I see that remind me of the past. Songs that I hear remind me of nights that we drove around with my head on his shoulder listening to him sing, and being nothing but content.

Something this past weekend at Disney reminded me of how things used to be. I can't remember what it even was now. It's been over 3 years since I've talked to my ex, and that last communication was a friendly one- he, telling me about his fiance, and I, telling him about how we were expecting our second child. So imagine my surprise tonight when I log into my messenger and I see that I have a request from him for me to add him to my chat list. I don't know why, there was no message attached to it or anything at all. Just there he was, reminding me that he does exist somewhere other than in my mind.

Why do I say all of this? For starters I haven't said enough. I could tell story upon story that has a fairy tale feeling. If you've never been in love, I can tell you what it feels like, and sometimes I'm afraid that I won't remember before too much longer. If you want to know whether to take that leap of faith, I can say with certainty, DO IT, because you may just spend the rest of your life wondering what would have happened it you had.