Oh. I�ve sort of determined that I still have a bit to talk about these days in this here journal.
Namely, my marriage, and its end.
I go back to the beginning..and it�s beautiful. What happened to us? It doesn�t seem fair that my daughter never got a chance at having a family that was all together. We were young, but we loved each other. At least, I loved him for who he was.
************************************************************
After my graduation from boot camp, I got on a plane in my dress whites and headed to California with about 10 other sailors. We proceeded to get falling down drunk on the plane and were not carded once. Patriotism at its finest, bless those stewardesses! It�s one of the few times I can remember flying and not being petrified.
The plane ride took about 4 hours. I sat next to a really hot blondie named Chad Petrie. Man, he was gorgeous, in a Southern hired hand sort of way. Boyfriend looked like he�d been baling hay on Old Man Johnson�s farm for the last 18 years. Yum. We bonded pretty quickly. We even decided to date once we got to San Diego, and you know what? We did, for just a little while. My friend Cherie eventually hooked up with Chad and I only suffered brief sadness.
We landed in San Diego about 2:30 in the afternoon. I immediately headed for a little store and bought cigarettes. We all snuck outside to smoke before the bus got there from our new home, our �A� School. Ooh, we were high as kites that day, not having had a cigarette for 3 months.
I think back to that day and it�s always been infamous. I can�t forget the feeling I had that day. I knew my whole life was ahead of me and I was anticipating it with all of my being. I wasn�t scared, or depressed.
We 10 sailors waited outside in the heat and smoked our brains out. I think we went through a couple packs of cigarettes in an hour.
The bus was there before we knew it. We all threw our bags into the back of the bus and we were off.
Never have I since or ever will be so happy to go to a military installation. Freedom awaited us. We had just lived through 3 months of not even being able to pick a booger without permission and now we could just do our jobs and be left alone.
Sort of.
We got to the base and I was taken aback by the beauty of the buildings. It was totally beautiful, Mexican inspired and paid attention to the surroundings: San Diego, California. Palm trees and Stucco roofs.
We quickly became accustomed to our surroundings. For the time being we were given odd jobs around the base to do: painting, cleaning or otherwise busy work. We didn�t care. On base we had everything a person could need: a department store, a McDonald�s, a galley where one could eat free, a bowling alley and a bar.
Not to mention we had some pretty nice quarters to sleep in. It was open bay, meaning, you had no doors in the sleeping area, but we all had nice bodies from boot camp so we weren�t too self-conscious to change in front of other people anyway. Sad but true.
We had the convenience of a laundry facility on our floor. We really didn�t care as long as we got to wash our uniforms.
I chose a spot to sleep near the middle by a window so that I could spy on people out in the courtyard socializing and if I peeked a little bit further, I could see into the men�s barracks. Hee!
Quickly I adjusted to busy work during the day, having to stand duty and watch every other night, and running out on the blacktop for PT. I don�t know if you�ve ever seen 100 people exercising in unison but its pretty neat to watch. We did it every day. Thank God California had dry heat, we didn�t get overheated even in September.
After a week or so, we were told we could go on Liberty off base and that we just had to be in by the time roll call was called in the morning.
You bet your sweet hiney if I wasn�t on watch or on duty, I was off seeing San Diego. I did a lot of shopping in San Diego.
I was in San Diego for two weeks before I was given a job. Section leader. I was suddenly put in charge of Section 2, which happened to be 45 guys and 10 girls. My friend Eric was co-section leader, more about him another day.
That job was a huge change, but I got used to it, and besides, I didn�t have to stand 4-hour watches anymore. I was too busy making up schedules for my people, with Eric�s help of course.
I looked forward to every day when we�d get some new recruits in from boot camp.
One day, I got a group of 15 guys in. I was standing there indoctrinating these �greenies� when I noticed that one had fallen asleep right in the chair in front of me.
I let him sleep. I told the other guys where they�d be sleeping, eating, and the work that would be expected of them. After our little meeting was over, I woke up the sleeping guy.
Immediately I was struck by these blazing blue eyes. I mean, blue-sky blue. He apologized profusely and I could see sweat pop up on his upper lip.
Ooh. This one was mine, only he didn�t know it.
The next time I saw him, it was at roll call that evening. He knew my name but I didn�t know his. I read his nametag, but only his last name was on there. I still didn�t know his first name.
Later, I found some silly reason to talk to him and asked him what his first name was.
�Allen� he told me.
Allen with blonde hair and blue eyes and perfect cheekbones, not to mention his physique was perfect. Meow!
And that�s how it all began. We became great friends and we hung out a lot. We shared an ice cream every day while sitting on a picnic table and talking. It wasn�t too long before we were romantically involved and sneaking hugs and kisses on the stairs.
We started going to Tijuana on the weekends. And if we weren�t at a hotel, we were sleeping on the beach. I felt like all I needed was him.
We classed up finally and started our classes for Radioman school. It wasn�t easy learning about transmitters, transceivers and frequencies, but somehow having someone to help me study helped me get through 9 weeks of schooling. Allen was good at this stuff.
Frequently, Allen would wait until I was off duty, even if it was the middle of the night, and he�d quiz me with flash cards so I wouldn�t fail my tests.
And like that, we were married at the Justice of the Peace in San Diego on a November day. The best man was a grandson of the famous Judge Lewellen. The maid of honor was my boot camp friend Lily, who cried the entire time of the wedding, and forgot to turn the flash on so no pictures of the inside turned out. It was an omen, but I didn�t see it then.
For the first time in my life, I didn�t feel so lonely. When we got our orders to go to Jacksonville, Florida, I wasn�t scared because he was going to Mayport, Florida and I wouldn�t be alone.
It wasn�t what we hoped, and Jacksonville proved to be our undoing. Four years after we got married, we divorced. Jacquelyn was two years old.
I was talking to Rene� about it yesterday. He mentioned how traumatic divorce must be (since he�s never been married) and how it affects who a person is.
I told him, �It�s everything I am today� which was probably the most honesty I�ve ever bestowed upon anyone. I think when I was going through my divorce was when I started feeling bad about myself. My self-esteem took a nosedive, and I�ve never been the same. My weight started to control me, instead of vice versa.
I began, back then, to eat to soothe myself and continue to do so today.
I�m embarrassed to say that sometimes I don�t think I�m over the divorce, because I�m still affected by the way I felt about myself during that time. I�m eating to get rid of the pain of being alone. Maybe in some way, I�m still punishing myself for not being perfect enough.
I�ll never forget my husband telling me that he just didn�t love me anymore, and then he really couldn�t give me a reason why. He did hint that the weight I gained with the baby seemed permanent and that I just didn�t do it for him anymore.
I want to move on, but I need to make peace with this first. Now's as good a time as there ever was.
2:13 pm - May 03, 2004
Recent entries:
What you missed - January 16, 2012
%%older_entries%%From hell - October 19, 2010
%%older_entries%%a rant from a few weeks ago - August 17, 2010
%%older_entries%%Tired - June 20, 2010
%%older_entries%%A beautiful lie - March 11, 2010
%%older_entries%%
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