This is going to be a difficult blog to write, so please forgive if I end it abruptly today. (in fact this may turn into a series of blogs about Brit, just so I can get it off my chest.)
If you’ve read my blog before, you might recall me talking about Friend. We were best friends in high school (20 years ago now) and had fooled around quite a lot back then, but he was basically my first love and I truly do still love him dearly. He and I have found ourselves emailing each other again recently and we had lunch. The sparks are still there, but we’re cautious. Too cautious really, flame is dying down now.
But Friend was not the first person who has made me consider a man other than my husband. In fact there was one I almost left my husband for.
I guess I’ll begin with what was going on when I first met him. November 1999, I had just gotten a full time job basically just to get out of the house. I’d had a nervous breakdown that summer since I was cooped up in the house with a 6 yr old and also 2 kids in diapers, one of which was like the spawn of Satan. In addition, I felt like I was the only one who cared about the house and trying to be a normal family with the dream of the cute house with the white picket fence etc. Of course now I know for a fact that DH doesn’t care, but back then it was just occurring to me. Basically I was seriously depressed.
In Nov 1999, we got the internet in our house. Had an old 386 computer with dial up. I went to the website of a company I liked to see what they had up, and I saw they had a chat room, so I signed up. I had no idea what to expect, but the regulars there were very nice and friendly and showed me around. There was a main chatroom and there was a an area where people could role play character in a medieval tavern setting with magic and dragons. Like King Arthur or Lord of the Rings stuff. So, I thought I’d check it out. Now it’s all done by text, no pictures or avatars or anything. So it wasn’t like WoW or GuildWars. You just had screen names saying what they were doing and what they were saying and you had to imagine it in your mind.
“Sitting at a table” was a guy who was playing a half elf wizard type fellow who conjured me a rose out of ice. Hokey, I know, but for someone who felt trapped and depressed, this was like an escape where I could pretend to be someone like Galadriel. Well, to keep this from being 50 pages long, I’ll just say he and I hit it off well “in character” and talked a little bit in private chat. It was his first day on that website as well and in the chatrooms. He loved dragons and collected them. He lived in England and I had dreamed of visiting England since I was very little. My sister had lived there for a few years and sent me things. Also, he was only 19. I was 29 then.
As time wore on, our characters fell in love and he and I became really good friends. In fact I could easily say he’s the best friend I’ve ever really had. I felt so comfortable talking to him. Maybe because he was so removed from my life, that I didn’t feel threatened by him knowing everything. By the following spring, I knew also that I had fallen in love with this young Brit. He admitted he felt the same about me.
In August of 2000, there was a big gaming convention in Wisconsin, and Brit decided he wanted to attend it and then come see me and my family. By this time, he’d also been chatting with my husband who also liked going to the chatrooms where they discussed the fantasy stuff he liked too. So Brit and DH were friends too, and Brit wanted to see me in person and meet my kids. DH had no idea there was more than friendship between us.
I remember the day like it was yesterday, August 14, 2000 – he was riding the Greyhound to the nearest big city, 90 minutes away. I drove down there by myself to pick him up. This was way before text messaging, in fact I didn’t even own a cell phone, and his didn’t work in the US. I had to just wait there and hope he made it OK. I remember feeling so excited and so nervous. I’d known this guy online for about 10 months, we’d sent letters with pictures, talked on the phone, told each other our secrets and grown a really strong friendship I simply could not make other people understand. But more than that, he truly cared about me. And I was about to see him in person for the first time. I sat in my van at the bus station for a while, since I got there really early, then finally went inside. I knew which bus he’d be on and when it was due. The board said it was on time… then it pulled in. I could feel my heart beating against my ribcage. I couldn’t really see much, thre was a brick wall with no windows, just the glass doors that led to the parking lot and they were blocked by people waiting to get on another bus. It was quite busy and crowded. I kept looking and then I noticed a lean fellow get off the bus in a blue baseball cap and head for the luggage area, I knew it was him. I went to the other set of doors to see if I could get a better view, but didn’t see him, then I turned around… and I think I stopped breathing for a moment. … there he stood with his backpack and suitcase, wearing his ratty old baseball cap, looking quite disheveled from the bus ride. I remembered how to breathe and walk and smiled at him. Then he said my name as a question, making sure it was me, and I nodded. He smiled so big, and that was when we had our first hug…
(to be continued)
2 Comments
November 14, 2008 at 1:39 am
Are you doing okay? You haven’t posted in a while. Just checking….
December 19, 2008 at 5:43 am
[...] about my Brit Jump to Comments Back in November, I started telling the story of My Brit . Today I feel the need to talk about him [...]