Some say that curses are all in your mind. You know, it’s not really ‘real’ it just turns out to be real because you believe them. For the longest time I was of this opinion. I was certain that what someone told me was a curs upon me was just someone’s delusion. I’m not so sure any more.
Growing up I was more or less a loaner. I think that’s not all that unusual for geeks. I didn’t spend all that much time with other kids. Well, we lived almost a mile away from the nearest family for a long time, and the closest family was a very religion centric family of a different faith than ours. So I spent a lot of time reading, exploring on my own, and that thing that all siblings do, fighting with each other. Who can get their music to play the loudest? who knows the best wrestling moves, and so on.
I didn’t have all that much in common as a result with people I played sports with. I wasn’t interested in a lot of the discussions going on on the bus to and from school, and beyond that on extra curricular sports activities. I played Basketball one year, j/v, third string. I think I got on the court 4 times through the year. Everything else was ‘team’ only in the sense that we were all doing something for the school. Cross country, track, and of course Band. No band camp stories. Marching band went to the worlds fair in Nashville, was about the most ‘impressive thing we did there. I did spend a year in a drum and bugle corps, we went to nationals, I stood in the corner, ‘guarding’ the American flag. I wasn’t exactly on the ‘high achiever’s list,’ and wasn’t dating the prettiest girls in school. Oh the girl I was interested in was very pretty, but I would hardly call all that we ended up doing together dating.
From there I went into the army. In Germany I met and ended up marrying a woman I thought was beautiful. Should we have married? Well if you go by the fact that we ended up divorced about 4 years after we met for the first time, probably not. After we married, she left the service as a result of a medical discharge because of our daughter. I joined her just about a year later, but in the interim I was told of my ‘curse.’
Of course I ignored it, and attempted to forget it, but of course it was always in the back of my mind.
It happened in an out of the way place. it was not unusual for me to go out riding my bicycle from time to time. The part of Germany I was stationed in has plenty of hills, up and down along the rivers. Every few weeks when I didn’t have some other duty I would pick a compass direction, and go out and ride. As sometimes happens when you are not intimately familiar with a path, it is not difficult to get lost, or end up in trouble. You start up a hill, and well, it turns out to be longer, or steeper than you expected. So you get near the top, and you put that little bit of extra push into the pedal, only to discover that the road turns suddenly, and suddenly your not on the road. Or your bike. Yea, it hurts.
Fortunately this day I ended up on the ground next to an old lady who oddly enough had a vegetable stand along the road. Who knows, perhaps I had passed out. In any case the next thing I remember was her spreading some ointment on my hands where the knuckles had been abraded. Of course I didn’t understand what she was saying. I learned a little bit of German while I was there. ‘Eine Bier’, Velan Dank’, Bitta, simple stuff that is supposed to get you by, but you know, never really does. Her grandson was there though and in somewhat broken English he explained that I needed to be a bit more careful. Beyond the treatment for the scratches she was chattering away. And while I didn’t know all that much German, I could recognise that what she was saying wasn’t German.
The part of Germany I was in did have a lot of ‘Turks,’ but that label really applied to any immigrant or migrant worker. Her grandson did explain a bit. He said that I would never suffer any serious injury, but would at some point need to start taking meds on a daily basis. And I do. But the important part was the ‘curse’. Oh, she didn’t cast one, or anything like that. But she did rattle off something in an even stranger voice than everything else she had been saying.
Grandson appeared a bit shaken. He explained, “There is a curse on you beyond that of original sin.’ You will never find long term happiness with someone you are intimate with, and if you take a significant interest in someone outside of your marriage ill will befall that person.”
It’s been true so far. I looked into it a bit later, and there is a safety net for those who I take an interest in, and that’s if they are already seriously involved, or become seriously involved with someone else, that ill is forgiven.
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It’s been over 20 years. My daughter, and then son have both grown to be adults. My marriage fell appart as I noted earlier. I have tried dating over the years. Invariably one of two things has happened. Either I’ve discoverd that she was already involved with someone, or. Well, I suppose the rest of this is about ‘or.’
The first woman who was not attached who I was interested in after our marriage started falling apart was manic depressive. We did go out a few times, but, no it didn’t get very far.
I ended up getting focused on school, raising my kids the best I could, and getting my career going.
I was interested in a couple of people at work, that didn’t turn out very well. An old addage is don’t shit where you eat. Asside from the hygene issues revolving around excrement and food, it applies to work in the sense that if you end up in a relationship with a co-worker, and the relationship goes south, you have to look at the person every day at work. And that’s the ‘nicer’ side. All too often the result is charges of stalking, or sexual harrasment. (While they are not the same thing, they amount to the same problem.)
I never lost a job because of an interest in a co-worker, but at the same time I never got intimate with one either.
That leaves non-work related activities. As my history amply shows, I don’t tend to be a very social person. That’s not to say that I’m anti-social. It’s just a recognition that my social skills ain’t what they could be. That being the case I have been involved with a couple of community activities, as well as some hobby related events. And along the way I’ve encountered some absolutely beautiful women whom I’ve had an interest in at one time or another.
For the longest time I thought as many guys do that I was encountering just two types of women: Involved, or Insane. But that really wasn’t the case. Oh I met a lot of involved women. Many of whom are stunningly beautiful. But the alternative being insane, really isn’t true. Oh there are a few who may be certifiably nuts, but it’s not a large percentage. Far more often the situation has been that something went wrong between us. In most cases that something wrong was probably me. Whether I dropped the ball, or didn’t get her mind ‘involved’ or just happened to be boring and not funny for that person doesn’t really matter. we didn’t hit it off.
Music has been a part of my life all along. The honest recognition that there was something going on that involved me involved two different women who were both musicians. I would like to say that I had gotten intimate with one of them, or the other. But by now you probably can tell that didn’t happen. But each of them were people I was very interested in, and who I still think are some of the most beautiful women I’ve had the pleasure of encountering.
Shortly after I graduated from college I started dating Mary. She played the violin. Beautifully. We chated from time to time. I treated her to a couple of dinners, things were begining to go well. Then disaster struck. I had dropped her off at her house, and was walking back to my car. The next thing I know, I’m flat on my back with tubes sticking out of my arms, and there are bright lights all around. Saying that was what I ‘knew’ might be a bit of a misnomer. I realized that there was an ‘I’, but beyond that, I wasn’t sure what was happening.
I found out later, that there had been a gas leak at Mary’s place. Kitchen stove or something, they never were very clear on that.
apparently Mary had turned a light on in the hall way and a bulb was loose somewhere such that a spark ignited the vapors. The police said that she never felt a thing. I believe them as I certainly didn’t feel it. While I was recovering, and in rehab, before I even was awake, they held her memorial service.
Tabitha was more recent, and not quite so easy to define as ‘me. Oh, I was interested, but we had some differences. She wanted children, and since I had already had children I did not want to get in between her and that dream. But yes, I remained interested. She plays the piano like no one’s business. Jazz is he personal favorite, though she loves Boogie Woogie as well. That said, she can play classical, rock, country, and hip-hop. Some of her compositions have provided background for Rap musicians and she playes a mean blues. If you’ve listened to the radio in the past couple of years, you’ve probably heard some of her bits as transition pieces for some of your favorite talk radio.
As much as I would love to say we were an item, because of the question of family desires, we have pretty much gone our separate ways, but she has been in my thoughts at some level ever since I met her 8 years ago.
This year she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
You can figure out why I think that is worse than losing Mary.
This world is full of strange things. Perhaps you’re wondering about those two specific medical predictions for me. No major injuries, and that I would be on medicine at some point. Well, a couple of years ago I was diagnosed with heart disease. I’ve almost a bucket of medicines that I have to take every day now.
And that time spent in the hospital after Mary died? I went back and checked the records. The doctors never found any actual injury beyond some cuts and scrapes. Oh, I’ve broken a toe bone, twice, and twisted my ankle a time or two, but all the tests the doctors performed on me? Clear. Not even a concussion. No one knows why I was out for so long.
I still am not sure about this curse business. To me it seems like entirely too pat of an answer. Similar to my early diagnosis of Involved or Insane. There are places on earth where people go to great lengths to put a curse on someone who has done them wrong. And other places where people believe in witches, and hexes. Arthur C. Clark pointed out decades ago that any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. The idea of a curse that exists on you and someone can detect but did not place there, sounds too much like ‘Magic’ for my tastes.
There are side benefits. I get to enjoy watching other people start their dances of intimacy. Some might suggest that this is a recipe for jealousy. I suppose for some it would be. A long time ago though, I recognised that being jealous of someone else’s situation did me no good. I know that no matter what, people will be people, and love will exist between many of them. And it’s always amazing and encouraging to see people in love.
But unless something pretty spectacular happens, I’m not going to be looking for any for myself.
