sometimes you don't get to decide

I met a guy named X in 1994. He was this (at the time) geeky captain in the air force. I was working at the time for a general and he brought X over to my office to help me install Oracle database software, which, at that time, was a major undertaking.


I was kind of rude to X because I had a million other things going on. I didn't realize that the general had invited X over not only to help me install software but because he thought we should start dating. At that point I hadn't dated anyone in over two years and was spending most of my time in the office or the gym.


X called me a day later and when I answered the phone I was like "who the hell are you again?". He was taken aback by my rudeness but decided to persist. X invited me to a happy hour. We started becoming good friends. I even started to like him as more than just a friend but couldn't bring myself to date a military guy.


Then I met my boyfriend and even though I hung out with X a lot, and he kept trying to hook up with me, I was more interested in my boyfriend. But when I had an emergency appendectomy X came to see me every day, where as my boyfriend, who worked on wall street, didn't have time for me. When I was getting ready to leave for Central America I spent my last night CONUS in a bar with X. When he dropped me off at my house that night he cried and begged me not to go. I told him I would write to him.


I never wrote to him. When I got back from CA I was pretty fucked up. My employer put me on a project at the JFK library in Boston. One night I was sitting in my hotel room and decided to call X. The number I had for him had been disconnected.


Then X called me a month later because he had heard I was back. His dad had just died and he was calling me driving home from the funeral. We made plans to meet up the next day.


X and I started dating, and the relationship was good but he was dealing with a lot of shit because of his dad, and I was dealing with an ex-boyfriend. Also, I had left my government job and was transitioning to working in the real world, which was confusing. X left for three weeks to go to Israel. I didn't think I should see him again. While he was gone I decided to take a job back with my old employer in Athens, Greece. I was supposed to be gone for three years.


When X got home I told him that I was leaving. He was really upset and said he thought I should stay in the US so we could be together. But I left. His parting words to me were "you'll be back in two months".


A few weeks after I arrived in Greece X sent me an email saying his best friend wanted to visit Greece and that X had told him that he could stay with me. I was furious. But, I ended up marrying X's best friend, that being a long story of its own.


I got a horrible email from X calling me a cunt and a whore, and saying I should have just found a discreet piece of ass over there instead of getting into a relationship and that he loved me and thought we were going to get back together when I got home. I was confused because I hadn't left on great terms with him, and he had been sending me emails about dating other people. I thought he didn't care about me any more and had decided to move on with my life.

X tried to stay involved on the periphery. When my husband and I were planning a trip to Israel for our honeymoon, X invited himself along. We didn't end up making the trip. When we relocated to California my husband went to work for a company that X and I had started before I left for Greece at X's insistence.

X was dating a girl he dated on and off. Their relationship became more serious as mine was falling apart. X and I emailed each other occasionally but it was awkward since I was married and we mostly talked about the company. And then X got engaged to his girlfriend.

Around that time my husband and I decided to divorce, but we weren't telling anyone. When X finally found out I got an email from him. We started emailing each other frequently though the situation was obviously complicated. But one thing I realized is that I really wanted to be with him. We started talking on the phone too.

X decided to come out to California to see me. We were going to spend a day together and then see what happened. I think both of us were confused about our feelings and whether or not the situation was anything more than just remembering the past.

The day before X flew out, a Sunday, he called me to make arrangements for the day. I said to him "I don't believe you will really come". He said "There is nothing in this world that would keep me from coming".

The day he was supposed to come, Monday, I was driving into work with my soon to be ex husband. It was 530 in the morning. Planes crashed into the world trade center towers, the pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. X's flight got grounded in Chicago. I couldn't call him because work was crazy, and it was hard to get through to anyone that day.

After that I decided the universe had made a decision for me. I never contacted X again. He got married and has kids. I don't know where he is or what he is doing now. My life ended up going in a completely different direction than if I had stayed with X. And although it took years to get past that, I'm happy now that things worked out the way they did.

The most important thing I learned from this is that you don't always get to decide what's going to happen. Any relationship involves two people and you can't control what the other person does. You just have to keep living your life, doing what you want to do, and not put everything on hold in the hopes that something will work out. I don't believe that things are "meant to be" between two people. I think that situations occur, and if the timing is right they work. If the timing is wrong, even if every thing else is perfect, the relationship will never work. There isn't some over arching "grand plan". People are fallible and fuck things up. And that's the way it should be.