The beginning.....

I told you that I would tell you the story of when I lost myself for an entire decade.  It's not an easy story to tell, made more difficult by the fact that I've conveniently misplaced some of the memories that help the story hang together.  They say that hindsight is 20/20 but in my case hindsight is like looking in a rear view mirror while someone's headlights are blinding you.  As much as you try to make sense of the details, your head is aching and you stop looking that hard.
I know the basic statistics for the story and can probably drum up the "who", "what", "where" and "why" answers but the real analysis is lost to me.  The insight that I do have and can articulate was gained much later after friends and family confronted me with their recall of that dark time. 
Shame and regret have played havoc on my ability to make sense of it all.  There's an aspect of my personality, one that Big Dog is always challenging me about, that makes it very easy for me to simply "put my head in the sand" rather than face an uncomfortable truth.  I attribute this special gift to my Canadian Dutch CRC upbringing.  As Canadians, we excel at seeing the best in people and things and genuinely expect people to behave decently.  As Dutch Christians, we are stoic and reserved and very likely to avert our eyes when something is uncomfortable or embarrassing.  I hate making excuses for myself and find it kind of "small" when people don't "man up" and accept responsibility.
I would like to accept responsibility for that last decade but can't seem to come up with a convincing package that makes loved ones and family members believe that I know what I'm talking about.  Anything I say or have said sounds trite and disingenuous.
Let's start with facts.
(1) I got married less than 3 months after I turned 21 years old.  I married Asshole (the name is appropriate and was used often after the Split.  I should come up with something else now that is clever and takes our distance into consideration, but I haven't yet.  So, Asshole it is.).  Asshole is two and a half years older than I am and we met in College.  (If anyone has read Jane Smiley's "MOO U", that is my College to a tee.  More on that later.)
Asshole came from a small town outside of Philadelphia.  He is an only child of two very doting but very conservative people.  He went to private Christian grade school and high school, just like I did.  He was accepted to my College (because they have very LOW standards) and somehow decided to attend there even though it was a 24 hour drive from home.
I met Asshole because I knew all of his roommates from being in school plays and choir together.  His roommates were a great group of guys ~ funny, active and from good families.  Asshole blended well into that group.  That is his special skill ~ the ability to blend in like a chameleon.  He can shift shape so well that for a while you don't have a clue what his real character and personality are. 
What I was immediately attracted to was how different he was from me.  Prior to him, I had mostly only known Canadian Dutch CRC people.  He is American, German and English mix Orthodox Presbyterian.  And an only child.  I am the oldest of 5.
At one point in my 20s, I read "The Birth Order Book" by Kevin Leman, which states that an Oldest and an Only should never date or marry.  No good can come of that.  Boy, was he right.
But the idiocy of youth is that you are sure that stereotypes won't apply to your life or situation.  In your 20s, you tell yourself things like, "we are different", "he is different" and (the worst by far) "I can change him".
So there we were, far away at College.  I was dating a guy with a car and a bank account.  sigh.  It makes me cringe just to say that out loud, but there it is.  There was security that I didn't have at that time.
I was on scholarships and grants with no money left over for a food plan.  I could have gotten more student loans to cover a better meal package but I'm Dutch, and therefore wired to believe that "I can make do without that".
I feel some instinct to defend myself here.  I didn't date him just for the better meals or the last minute trips into the city or the excitement.  I did love him.  I think.  I know, at the very least, that I loved the idea of him.
Isn't that where many women go wrong, after all?  Isn't that something that happens all the time?
Women over-think, over-analyze and do real damage in the process.  We talk ourselves into the myth that I can change him and no one else sees him the way that I do and My love will show him that there's another way to be.  Classic mistakes. 
gulp.
I never changed him.  He only got worse.  Sticking my head in the sand never made my problems go away.  My love didn't even once show him that there is another way to live.
Back to facts.  I do know the facts.
He graduated before me and then stayed off-campus to do student teaching.  He was getting a BA in Education.  The semester before my graduation I went to Chicago for my internship.  And he moved home.
He proposed a month into that winter semester.  He came to Chicago.
He was excited on the phone when he was telling me his travel plans.
He told me that he had something he wanted to give me.
Duh.  No big surprise.  I guess i'm getting engaged on Valentine's weekend.  I should be more excited.
He got off the plane, hugged me and we got on the train that took us downtown from O'Hare.
He was excited, like a little boy who has to go pee.  There was an annoying juvenile feeling to it. I was not excited.  I just wished he'd do it better.
Trying to control the situation, I made a reservation for dinner at a small, intimate restaurant.  I told him this.  I was trying to control this.  I was thinking "please hang on.  Do it there.  Don't jump the gun".
Here's the lesson for this part of the story.  Trust your instincts.  If it feels weird, it IS WEIRD.  Do not accept weird.  Don't allow weird to be your new normal.  That's what I did.
He jumped the gun.  We got off the train, walked into my tiny apartment, put down his suitcase, said hi to my roommate (she was heading out in a few mins).  I left him in the living room so that I could use the bathroom. 
Deep breath
I walked back into the living room to find him on the floor.  He said "I think I have lint in my belly button".
"Can you come check?"
OMG.  ARE YOU SERIOUS???  I CAN'T BELIEVE HE IS DOING THIS!!
This is how he proposed.
Let me say it again, if it feels weird.  It is weird.
My roommate walked in just as I was fetching a diamond ring out of his belly button.
I don't think I said a word.
She said, "Oh.  um...  Congratulations?"
sigh.
What will I tell my kids?
Then we went to dinner.  It was a fixed menu. For normal people this is an annoyance but you deal with it because there are bigger things to get upset about and heck, it was your decision to go out for dinner on Valentines Day.
I'm silently hoping that we will save this debacle by having a very nice, grown up dinner where he says amazing things and erases the memory of a ring in his belly button.
That didn't happen.  What did happen was a panic attack.  I didn't recognize it for what it was right away.  The ability to name it as "panic attack" came many years later.  Not helpful in the moment.
In the moment it looked like a grown man (actually a child trapped in the body of a 23 year-old) was having a temper tantrum in a nice quiet restaurant.  The trigger for the tantrum was an order of filet mignon prepared medium rare.  The man-boy ate a few bites and then started to choke, spit out his food (a NICE, quiet restaurant!) and started yelling that he was going to be sick because the meat was bloody.  Not bloody, Man-Boy, just rare.  Get a grip.
I didn't say that to him.  I was mortified but supportive of my 1 hour-old fiance.  OMG. What are we going to do?  We left.
We left. We didn't say another word to our server. We walked out.  I was just trying to get out of that situation so the Man-Boy's temper tantrum could de-escalate on the sidewalk inside of at the table where 12 pairs of eyes were on us.
If it feels weird, run.  Don't walk. Run!
I didn't walk away.  I didn't run away.  I stood silently by as Asshole explained himself.  None of his empty words made any sense to me but with my head stuck so firmly in the sand, I couldn't really hear him. 

And that's how it started.
I hate this story so much.  I hate that girl, that stupid girl who didn't listen to her own instincts.  I hate the girl who didn't tell anyone the truth that day, or the next day, or the next month.... or the next 10 years.
I hate her.
I am her.