What we could have had, by Andrew, c++_guy.

I live on a small island on the East Coast, one of the most beautiful places in the US, I believe.
Two days ago I was in a small grocery with an old friend doing some shopping for a late dinner. This little grocery is on the water and its back door lets out on to a pier or dock, which, if the dock were not there, the back door would let out right into the water.
On the dock in back of the store are set up tables and chairs for morning coffee drinkers to use. Imagine, living on an island, going to a little country store to buy a coffee and being able to sit out on the dock watching gulls and boats and smelling the sea air while the Sun comes up over the horizon. It is incomprehensibly beautiful.
There is a house, high on a hill, and from its front yard one can look over the bay from Shelter Island to Southold and see where Einstein spent Summers during his later years. Amazing.
I live in nearly the geographic dead center of my little island and when I go out into my backyard for my morning coffee I look out onto a forest of oak, maple and poplar, which, if one did not know better, one could think stretched for miles and miles. The birds sing and I can smell the new leaves from this year and the decaying leaves of last year while squirrels dart from branch to branch, playing tag. A gift from God.
In Fall I can walk along roads covered in red, gold and brown leaves fallen from all the trees lining both sides. I can smell wood fires burning as families gather for supper to talk of the events of the day.
Where I live, there are salt marshes and bays and inlets and creeks unchanged since before European settlers pushed Natives off the land. I can hike through a 4000 acre preserve and convince myself that I am actually walking through a forest of 500 years ago and soon will come upon my village and warm, loving family.
I hate my job, but there are moments, just moments when I am coming down from the pilot house and can see a snow-white crane spear fish against a backdrop of the most beautiful sunsets on the entire planet. Those moments are priceless to me.
I grew up 100 feet from a grass airstrip. On bitter winter days I would go out on the strip and could hear God tell me of the beauty of the world as I listened to each step crunch the frozen grass beneath my feet.
My stbxw and I own a house together and we are now selling it. If we had stayed together, we could have still sold it, paid off every cent of debt we had in the world and would not have had to work, except as we wished. We would have still worked, but we would have not HAD to. Living on an island paradise, walking our pups, scratching our kitties under the chin and living any sort of life we chose.
This is what we could have had; this is what we could have shared if my wife had not left me.
It is all shattered; all destroyed; all made [censored], and all because a poison fog moved in killed all of our dreams and hopes and desires.
Anyone interested in a broken dream….hardly used?

Hi ++cguy,
I read your treads and I am so sorry. Your world sounds so beautiful! My Granddad came from Canada NS and it also was very beautiful. I am in the country on 5 1/2 acres. I also have a multitude of animals. I have a kennel. H did not like them and wanted me to give them up. I bred and have shown Collies and Shih Tzu's for 30 years off and on. Hard to do and work which was expected of me. H now gone and no Idea if he will ever return. After being in A plan for 5 months I moved to B as I found the evidence of the A H is having. I just could not hurt that much anymore so I sent him a no contact letter and I have not heard from him. I do want this marriage to work and am willing to do most, but not sell my sole! I believe in God and will also pray for you to find the life you deserve! Your treads made me sad as how can some people be so in love and loose so much? I am not a bad W just worked to much and lost site of important issues and needs and of course was not receiving any either! Affection in this marriage was not good and I really think that is where it all started. I need lots of hugs and feeling needed. Oh well maybe God will help to get this back together or maybe he has other plans! Well it was a great story about your world and just wanted you to know that life goes on so be happy and still rub them little ones under the chin as they have no one else! God Bless you and keep the faith! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

EVERYONE PLEASE READ HERE....OPINIONS NEEDED FOR C++ GUY

(Note: I posted this with c++'s permission)

c++ guy,

I am sorry for your pain, I really am, but your world is not dead, not if we believe those words above, regarding your island. Sometimes in our pain we forget the good things about ourselves, or worse, we do not recognise them. So I have a little something to share with you:

I am telling the world what a beautiful writer you are.

Did everyone read that wonderful description of vb's home? Go back and read it again. Did you feel the way I did when I read it, smelled the coffee and the ocean? Longed to sit at the back of the grocery store too? Heard the gulls and the crunching leaves and ice, and saw the colours of the autumn landscape?

Look at this vb, from GIIC on your other thread:

On a brighter note - you had a just beautiful description of your island.

vb is one of my cyber friends and has been a great support to me. I have often told him what a wonderful writer he is, but he doesn't believe it. I think he is good enough to publish.

When I read this prose, I was reminded of Steinbeck and Hemmingway......the way they use descriptive prose is very similar. Take out the part about the WS and it is a wonderful setting for the beginning of a novel. That is my honest opinion and I would like (and so would vb but he is too shy to ask) others to comment on his writing...(please!!!!)

Love and light,

Jacky

You still can have it all. Not with your W but that doesn't mean you can't have the life you mentioned. The place sounds like a true paradise and one that most of us would give anything to share with the person we love. Your life hasn't ended only your marriage has. Leaving room for you to find someone new, someone who will truly cherish you. Love you and treat you the way you deserve to be loved and treated.

Enjoy the beauty, enjoy life and know God has wonderful plans ahead for you.

God Bless You <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

C++guy:

Your "painting" inspires me to try that kind of thing again with my WW.

We met for the first time when I was frantically trying to change a broken exhaust manifold on my dad's 1966 Dodge Van, so that my friends and I could go backpacking in the Grand Canyon (aka Golly Gully) over easter break. I was covered in grease when my sister introduced my future W to me. She was beautiful. I can still remember exactly how she looked, even though I can't remember what she was wearing that time.

Not long after we met, in summer of 1974, I was working on the Navajo Reservation in a small town called Rock Point. Beautiful red rock sandstone cliffs and canyons. I taught kids science at the BIA boarding school for the summer. Used to go for hikes up the canyon nearby in the afternoons, when the temperature dropped below 100F. Then, up at the head of the canyon, there was this mound of sand piled up, and a spring at the head, and a pool of the freshest, sweetest water. I used to go up there with coworkers or alone, and sit there and watch the sunset. In the mid summer, we'd get afternoon thunderstorms, and so the sunsets were truly magnificent - the most beautiful I'd ever seen.

I worked there about half that summer. At the beginning, I'd started keeping a journal of my thoughts each evening, sitting there watching the sun go down and the bats silently swooping down and drinking from the pool while in mid-flight.

About 2 weeks into the program, I was in class teaching, when I saw my STBW peer in the doorway and say "hi". My heart literally raced. I was totally surprised. She'd come out with a gal that had worked out there the summer before. She told me later that she "wanted to see if there was anything between us" Well, for me, there was (and very definitely still is! <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> ). I couldn't wait to get off work for the afternoon.

When I did, we talked a while, then I took her hiking up my canyon, and we watched the sun go down together, with the clouds all flaming-orange from the sunset. We walked back in twilight. That was the first time I held her hand. I can still feel the sensation I felt that night. I still get the same thrill to this day when we hold hands walking through the swap meet.

After she left and went home, I shifted from writing in my journal to writing letters to her from that spot at the head of the canyon. I'd usually walk out there with one of my coworkers, but I always let them leave first, so I could have some quiet time to write to my future W.

My W and I had saved all the love letters we'd written to each other in that year and a half that we were "dating" before we got M'd. I believe that her letters from me survived the fire, but mine from her were all in the attic and were destroyed.

I think I need to recall some of those experiences, or create new ones, and write love letters to my W again.

c++guy, I'm so sorry that your M doesn't appear to be surviving this terrible experience. I don't even know if mine will. I can only hope that, through the support of like-minded friends on this forum, that we can all look forward to promising futures, either with our current Ss or with family and new Rs down the line.

Thanks for sharing your story with us.

Well, Andrew, I'm afraid I'm going to have to do some editing on your work. Your prose is fantastic. Really, really smashing stuff. However, in this day and age, with the markets going haywire, terrorists around every corner, and divorce lawyers circling like sharks, people don't need to be reminded of negativity!

So like any good Hollywood studio would do, I'm changing a few things about your post...hope you don't mind (changes in italics.):

What I still have, by Andrew, c++_guy.

I live on a small island on the East Coast, one of the most beautiful places in the US, I believe.
Two days ago I was in a small grocery with an old friend doing some shopping for a late dinner. This little grocery is on the water and its back door lets out on to a pier or dock, which, if the dock were not there, the back door would let out right into the water.
On the dock in back of the store are set up tables and chairs for morning coffee drinkers to use. Imagine, living on an island, going to a little country store to buy a coffee and being able to sit out on the dock watching gulls and boats and smelling the sea air while the Sun comes up over the horizon. It is incomprehensibly beautiful.
There is a house, high on a hill, and from its front yard one can look over the bay from Shelter Island to Southold and see where Einstein spent Summers during his later years. Amazing.
I live in nearly the geographic dead center of my little island and when I go out into my backyard for my morning coffee I look out onto a forest of oak, maple and poplar, which, if one did not know better, one could think stretched for miles and miles. The birds sing and I can smell the new leaves from this year and the decaying leaves of last year while squirrels dart from branch to branch, playing tag. A gift from God.
In Fall I can walk along roads covered in red, gold and brown leaves fallen from all the trees lining both sides. I can smell wood fires burning as families gather for supper to talk of the events of the day. Where I live, there are salt marshes and bays and inlets and creeks unchanged since before European settlers pushed Natives off the land. I can hike through a 4000 acre preserve and convince myself that I am actually walking through a forest of 500 years ago and soon will come upon my village and warm, loving family.
I hate my job, but there are moments, just moments when I am coming down from the pilot house and can see a snow-white crane spear fish against a backdrop of the most beautiful sunsets on the entire planet. Those moments are priceless to me.
I grew up 100 feet from a grass airstrip. On bitter winter days I would go out on the strip and could hear God tell me of the beauty of the world as I listened to each step crunch the frozen grass beneath my feet.

All things considered, I'm not doing too bad.

Get the idea? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Great cjack!!!!!

He did say he needed an editor!!!!!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Nina too:
[QB]EVERYONE PLEASE READ HERE....OPINIONS NEEDED FOR C++ GUY

c++ guy,

Dude, you had it made! It's such a shame your wife REFUSED to share paradise with such a KooL Guy! You are right - she really is in a poison fog. God made all of us to be together - beginning with Adam n Eve and He has someone special for you. I thought I had it made, till I got divorced also. "You gotta go thru hell to get to Heaven." Hang in there, C++ Guy - that Ms. Right could be just around the corner. Folks would kill to be in your position, living in an Island Paradise like you do. I guess if an old Fart like me can find love, then certainly a young person like yourself will too! Trust... and pray!
God bless you.
Harold

Andrew,

I read. 1 of things STBX held against me was I read too much. I read lots of bad writing, some average & a few good.

Your words paint a word picture that instantly transports me along with you. I could see what you wrote, that is a rare gift. Use it please for all of us out there who are desparte for good quality writing.

Also enjoy your world, it sounds like pardise.

<small>[ July 25, 2002, 07:39 AM: Message edited by: sing ]</small>