Silver Anniversary #1

Twenty Five years ago today, I got married for the first time. What I realise now is that I am as old as my Dad was in 1987 when my parents had their own silver anniversary celebration. It is a sobering thought that the deed was so long ago. The marriage did not last 5 years, and in the intervening 20 odd years since the decree absolute was issued, I have no regretted it for a moment.

We could have had a good life, Andrea and I, but that would have required her to be a nice person, not vindictive and selfish. Sadly, it took me a few years to see what she was like as a person, and finding yourself married to a person you don't even like and yet you love, is an odd one.

Then one May Day, the straw on the camel's back was broken, and by the end of the day I had moved out into the barracks, and life was never the same again. She stayed on base for some twenty months after I left her, and the last time I saw her was the day before Dad died, I passed her and her only friend as I cycled home one day from work. I can't remember if we spoke, it don't really matter in the long run as the next day my life changed forever, and after the dust settled I was posted back to the UK and never saw her again.

I did hear from her about 15 years ago, through a friend she got my e mail addy, and wrote to me, I guess in the hope to persuade me to take her and her children back. She denied this, but, she was and still is shameless and will do whatever it takes to achieve what she wanted, no matter who it hurt. I said no, and I would be mad to have taken her back then after the hurt she caused me, and would not take her back now of course.

She did teach me many things; about life, and about cooking. And we still have some of the recipes she brought from Jugoslavia and taught me. I thank her for that, and for the lessons in life she taught me, and that I had the inner strength to see the divorce through, despite the heavy pressure put on me by the RAF and killing my career in the process. It was worth it. And I would have fought even harder had I have known then what I know now.

So, happy anniversary, not missing you at all.