Every once in a while you’re afforded a view of what your future might have been like if you had taken a different path. Sometimes it’s one of those moments like the final scene of The Way We Were. “Your girl is beautiful, Hubble.” It could have been great. If only. But this isn’t the movies. Mostly I find that in these situations I react with a huge amount of relief and a heavenward glance that says, “There but for the grace of God go I.”
That’s what happened to me yesterday. I was informed that someone that I lived with unhappily for 16 years is now engaged. The final straw with this guy was a blatant demonstration of lack of integrity, so I exited stage right. You should never be in a relationship with someone who sits idly by while you get thrown under a bus.
Even so, it is a weird feeling when you see that someone has moved on without you. That throws you into a When Harry Met Sally kind of mood. “What’s the matter with me?”
Then I remembered that I was expected to do all the heavy lifting in the relationship while he coasted calmly through it, so I got to be the bad guy. And his sisters treated me like crap and talked about me behind my back, and went out of their way to make me feel unwelcome. And it was years before he kept up his financial end of things. And I remembered how lonely I was, even when he was there, and how I used to cry myself to sleep.
So now I’m really happy because he just became someone else’s problem, and I am looking at it as a pleasant reminder that I’m free. Cue the music! Boooorn Freeeee…
Honestly, though, if he’s happy, then I’m happy for him. But my God, I could tell his fiancé a few stories that would curl her toes. I wish her luck.
Born free…
The View from a Drawbridge 
Uh… didn’t the guy who wrote born free end up dying because he was mauled by a lion?
Er… no.
I think he did
The book was written by Joy Adamson. The screenplay was written by Lester Cole under the Pseudonym Gerald L.C. Copley. He died of a heart attack in San Francisco at the age of 81. The book was written by Joy Adamson. According to Wikipedia: On 3 January 1980, in Shaba National Reserve in Kenya, Joy Adamson’s body was discovered by her assistant, Peter Morson (whose name has sometimes been reported as Pieter Mawson). He mistakenly assumed she had been killed by a lion, and this was what was initially reported by the media. She was several weeks shy of her 70th birthday.[3]
The police investigation found Adamson’s wounds were too sharp and bloodless to have been caused by an animal, and concluded she had been murdered.[4] Paul Nakware Ekai, a discharged labourer formerly employed by Adamson, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to imprisonment at President Daniel arap Moi’s pleasure. He escaped capital punishment because the judge ruled he might have been a minor when the crime was committed.[5][6]
George Adamson (her husband), was murdered nine years later in 1989 near his camp in Kora National Park, while rushing to the aid of a tourist who was being attacked by poachers. He is credited with saving the tourist’s life.[7]
she was murdered… by a lion…
Er… no.
ok… fine