I start this blog at just now 73 years old, and will try to cover the high points and low points of the 73. I have had some great highs and very, very regrettable lows. I sincerely apologize for the lows.
I could be what I am writing applies to lots of people, I don't know, but it applies to me in any case.
As I look back there were things I did I regret, some that could have included jail time. The Statute of Limitations doesn't apply because no one knows except me what I did to be a legal matter, like a 10 or 16 year old shoplifting.
I have been married 40 years and have learned the heart & mind are key to doing the best for a marriage, teetering between good deeds, bad actins, and mistakes I made.
I owe many apologies to people I hurt, deserve a couple apologies for people who hurt me,, and owe many thanks to people who were kind to me and treated me well.
I appreciate the LUCK I have had in my life, like surviving a spin out in an open top MG Midget after drinking too much!
I once turned down an invitation to a Super Bowl party by a couple we were getting to know. They were very nice people. Gertrud liked the wife and they asked us to come to their house just after I bought a big, new TV. I told Gertrud I wanted to watch the game on my TV, but I should not have done that. I feel bad about that bad choice often because not long later Gertrud's friend got terminally sick, AND the couple let their friendship toward us wane. My bad! We should have gone to that Super Bowl party. I can be a real dick!
I want to be sure to talk about running. I think I am a little agoraphobic, and like to be alone a lot. Running was my alone time as I mostly ran alone. I ran 12 marathons, a bundh of half-marathons and many, many 10Ks, and a few 5Ks. I ran some 15Ks too.
Taking a risk here, writing about relationships. Passionate about Sociology, I studied relationships, and almost wrote a thesis that hypothesized "similarities attract people to each other, and complementarity maintains a relationship over time.
The starting point is who we have become when we get married I think. That's why you'll see me write about my life experiences, mom, dad, brother, sister, travels, university degrees and classes, Air Force, Raytheon, philosophy, the 1960s.
My life started in Watsonville, CA in 1947, when that twon was famous for iceberg lettuce and strawberries.
MY dad was a prime mover in high school, class President, played football and basketball. He was handsome, checked all the boxes. He married my mom and in those days ladies quiet their job.
Mom's job was singing on the radio, awesome singer. I have a picture of mom swinging on set with flowers in her hair. Mom was a beautiful lady with dark, almost black hair, and she was very sensitive, and vulnerable.
As I said, I was born in Watsonville, and my most vivid memory was being at home alone while mom got groceries. I looked out of hat we called the "picture window," a big window in the living room in those days, 1951-ish.
Ricky, 8 years old, and Melody, 6, were at school. Mom was not gone long, but to me it felt like forever because it was one of the heavy rainy days in Norhtern California. Maybe she wasn't even gone and my memory is wrong. I was maybe four. It was Ok in those days to leave a kid at home alone I think.
Dad was in the Army then. He had joined up for his first real job I guess. We never talked about it. I was a dumb kid who never asked his dad a lot. I am not sure dad would have told me anything though. He was a stoic in his "Dad years," meaning while I was living at home and going to high school.
Dad spent a couple years as an enlisted cook in the Army, and got out to work at a Watsonville furniture store. Dad re-joined the Army in about 1940 or so, probably 1941 due to the Pearl Harbor surprise attack.
I am guessing the re-join date based on his retired year, 1967 after 27 years in the Army as a paratrooper and infantry man. It was rough duty jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.
I recall going to Japan at age 4 though. We stayed 1 year as an "occupation force." Read yur war history, you'll see what the US Army was doing in 1951.
Ft Campbell
Dad retired to San Jose
Germany - Billie Blanks boy stuff, dads naked girls books, hit head, fights, firecrackers in Fryer Circe, Sheridan Heights, at school fights, Ricky runs away, golf started, movies and Baby Ruths - Creature from Black Lagoon, science fiction scary movie every Saturdays - touch people they turn to stone and space octopus, Garmisch, hooping cough as dad watched boxing on TV, skiing in Garmisch with very long skis, castles in Berchesgarten, General Patton Hotel, Bb gun in Georgia (Ft Benning?),
My wife of nearly 40 years may read something into my words, interpret my words wrong, trigger in an unintended way. I don't know if I should write this or just keep it inside, I can't say. I am nervous about writing, but feel I need to do this.
Most important, I love my wife and have committed my life to her, know that.
I have lived to age 72, loved my wife of 39 years, brought up two daughters with my wife, and now think I can offer some insights into how to make relationships last. I am NOT claiming any special wisdom, but I can share experience that may be useful to one of more couples. For one, this is useful to me and my relationships.
My bottom line is relationships last based mostly on to two elements, your love for your partner, AND using your intelligence to be sure you have the best relationship for you.
You will say there are other elements like where you are born, luck, illness, and money. Timing in relationships is a big factor, for sure. Variable are many, and I believe different people are affected differently, so anything I say has to be assessed that way. Your heart and mind can manage any and all of them.
#1 I have concluded you have to be you, be honest about what is good for you, and recognize the person in the mirror is always your best friend. Then, as #2, you are your spouses best friend.
The reason for this sequence is that if you don't like yourself, you cannot like anyone to the best of your ability.
I studied relationships, meaning reading, during the 17 or so years after I was 16, and since then, I did more reading and thinking, reflecting. I drafted thesis at Trinity University grad school, a thesis on what I called, "Mate Selection, Similarities and Complementarity." I planned to ask a local Air Base cohort of military spouses how they made their choices as a reasonable sized group for my study sample.
My expectation was similarities attract, what the people have in common, and complementarity, the differences we discover after your wedding day, and during your time together, maintains relationships.
In my experience as noted above, heart and mind make the work of a relationship, and the separation between these is minimal, sometimes one dominating the other, necessarily. If you think it is too hard or too much trouble to stay in a relationship, your mind says leave, it's possible your heat will over-rule and say stay.
I never got far interviewing or writing that thesis, so I'll never know what I might have found for my thesis. But 39, 40 years of my own marriage, and observing others gives me an idea what I might have found. I also have ideas about how life before marriage affects us, and everything comes together to form one's ability to maintain a relationship for many years.
Heart + mind doesn't always lead to obvious or common solutions.
Here's an example of what I have learned.
Demanding your significant other to change for you or give you something, can be OK. It can be fine for that significant other to grant that demand, treat is as a wish, not get ruffled. The thing is, sometimes demands go too far.
I had an Air Force roommate who was pretty wild, we both were, as 23yo bachelors in San Antonio, TX. He married, then divorced after about 5 years, for reasons I know, but will not disclose. Suffice to say he was not overly religious at the time of his divorce, but now, married to a devout religious girl, he is now a devout Christian. I suspect he chose to meet his wife's "demand" for a greater role of religion in their lives.
We make changes we feel are important.
END
In closing, I have a need to ask for forgiveness from anyone who knew me between 17 and 33 years old, because I was angry. This apology is for my soul, and also is not to say anything to reduce any of the love I have for my wife. My one and only wife is the best thing that as ever happened to me, bar none. We are a sympathetic love lasting to the end.
I treated some people badly, I think. Maybe they treated me badly too. I look back now and would do things a lot differently for so many people.
I behaved badly often. I think I was mean, hurtful. I was deceptive in some ways, but more blunt and mean, but for sure I was stupid.
I was not a good person I think, in the years from 1966 to 1980, a lot of years and a lot of mistakes.
I say "I think" because perhaps I am not remembering accurately, and also, maybe they did not see things like I do now. Maybe THEY used me and I was too dumb to know, or maybe they didn't feel used or hurt. There is the other side of the coin, and I recognize some people were cruel to me, but that is not the point in this passage.
If I was hurt by someone, that's OK because my eyes were wide open. Perhaps if I was hurt by someone it was Karma, I deserved it, the "books were balanced."
No one likes to be hurt. I hope no one holds any hate or grudge against me, I hold no grudges. In getting to 72, nearly 73, I look back and realize every experience led to where I am not is a totally committed relationship. Relationships are not easy, you have to use heart and mind to make them work. That's what I learned.
Grudges, or hoping for a "do over," or seeking some sort of explanation, all these are pointless. You gain nothing by revisiting old relationships.
More important to me now, at my age, is to apologize for anyone I hurt, if they can be better for receiving an apology.
Since my marriage I have tried to be better, and for the most part, succeeded. My partner has made mistakes too, but, again, that is not the point of my apology. My loved one in marriage is an incredible woman, and I give her all of me. I have lapses. I am human. But when I die I hope she has gotten whatever good there was in me.
Heart + mind keep working to sustain the relationship by choice.
I did a lot of introspection in 33 years before marriage, and went thru many variations of myself. There's a lot I do not like about some of those variations. I cannot erase the bad, I suffer remorse, but I can work for the good here after.
This passage, these thoughts, for whatever reason lately, goes / go thru my mind every day since I wrote it. Reflecting and recognizing the apology is too late and too obscure to matter
I am sorry for relationships in the past where I was not a good person, not my best self. I relate to Willie Nelson's song,
"To All the Girls I've Loved Before
Willie Nelson
To all the girls I've loved before
Who traveled in and out my door
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the girls I've loved before
To all the girls I once caressed
And may I say, I've held the best
For helping me to grow, I owe a lot, I know
To all the girls I've loved before
The winds of change are always blowing
And every time I tried to stay
The winds of change continued blowing
And they just carried me a way
To all the girls who shared my life
Who now are someone else's wife
I'm glad they came along
I dedicate this song
To all the girls I've loved before
To all the girls who cared for me
Who filled my nights with ecstasy
They live within my heart
I'll always be a part
Of all the girls I've loved before
The winds of change are always blowing…
The winds of change are always blowing
And every time I tried to stay
The winds of change continued blowing
And they just carried me way
To all the girls we've loved before
Who traveled in and out our door
We're glad they came along
We dedicate this song
To all the girls we've loved before
To all the girls we've loved before
Who traveled in and out our doors
We're glad they came along
We dedicate this song
To all the girls we've loved, before
Source: LyricFind"
