Love men or travel

I’ve been single a long time, it seems like three hundred years of solitude. And life goes so incredibly fast. It was only today though that I had a light bulb moment about why. I was standing looking out over the ocean, standing on the deck of a small beach house a friend of a friend had loaned me on the west coast of France. It’s winter but today the sun was out and I took the opportunity to let it warm my face while I could hear the Atlantic Ocean wash up on the shore. It was during this that I thought about my first husband and first love, Brendan.

You see over the years I have dated more men than I could count. I’ve been married twice and obviously divorced twice. Ive lived with a few partners and been engaged five times but none came close to working out. Except one.

My first husband, first serious boyfriend and first love, Brendan.

Brendan came from the better side of town than me, he had a well known family who were wealthy and social, not that I knew any of this.

I spied him one night at a party in a country town in New South Wales, Australia. While I stared at him across the room, without turning my head I asked ‘who’s that’? to which my girlfriends replied, ‘that’s Brendan, but don’t bother, he goes out with Stacey’. I didn’t think more about it until I ran into him again week later at work of all places.

I was completing my degree at UNI and he was an apprentice electrician both working nights at a local canning factory for some extra cash, he was always good with money, me not so much.

I made it my purpose at meal breaks to sit in the same area as him and get to know everyone. He used to eat like a horse, but was super slim, I learned later he was trying to bulk up and did a lot of weights so needed the energy. I thought he was gorgeous, soft brown eyes, dark short hair, square jaw and cute nose. I had never heard him speak though, my friends said he was quiet. I was also doing aerobics at that time and couldn’t believe my luck when I saw him at my gym as well later that week. Maybe he was just on my radar now.

I think you know the rest. He ended up breaking up with Stacey and we went on to have a very quiet but romantic meal at the local Mexican restaurant. I remember that night so Cleary, he had borrowed his dads car and dressed sharp, I was in love.

I even broke my light in my lounge so he could come and fix it, I recall staring at his long muscled legs with his tool belt hanging low while he was up the ladder, I needed to break more electrics pronto.

Not long after I moved in with him and his parents, as he was saving to go skiing in Canada, he was a gun skier of course. What couldn’t he do? I instantly invited myself even though I had no money to go but where there is a will there is a way, plus I had never been overseas.

Little did I know it, that that trip would change everything. It was my first real trip away from reality, an escape from life, my childhood, my surroundings, where I could be anyone. The trip sealed our fate, that trip would one day be one of the factors that ended our beautiful relationship.

Now that I had seen what escape looks like I never wanted to do anything else, everything else was unfulfilling.