Tuesday 01 July 2003

One thing true about me surprises most people... I began smoking at age 38. Just weird!

In August 1999, I left my teaching position at The University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley and moved to live with someone who loved me. Yvonne and I had met in a chatroom, talked all the time, and I'd come to visit her twice during that year. She'd divorced the year before and had broken up with her boyfriend in June. Life was supposed to be "happily ever after."

What I didn't know at the time was that the boyfriend never understood the message about the break-up. So, over the next two months as Yvonne and I were trying to start our relationship, the boyfriend wrote letters every day. After a while there was a stack of over thirty of them on the living room table. I found it quite disturbing to see them in plain sight, whereas Yvonne thought she was making a statement to me that the letters didn't mean anything as they remained unopened.

In October I had to go back to Wisconsin for a court date settling child support and to visit with my daughter for a few days. I was gone two weeks. In the two weeks away, Yvonne went out with the boyfriend five times. When I returned to her home, she said it was just to make sure there was nothing left between them. Yet, on her birthday, I watched her open a huge box full of gifts from him... including a hand-made knife with the birthstones of her children and his, and with an infinity symbol on the blade.

I lasted there another two weeks. When I would go into town or out in the garage, she would state it would give her time to call him. It was more than I could take.

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