I was married once upon a time, or two. I had met a woman I found quite amazing. She, for some reason, found me quite amazing. That happens in life sometimes. More for some than others, to be sure. We were together for a while. For a while things were, amazing. Then? Then they simply weren't.
It's an old story. Many have lived it.
We split up. It wasn't pretty. She was, however. It wasn't. In fact in some ways, she wasn't. I was miserable. she was angry. And no, I didn't do anything anyone would say is something. What happened can be understandable. But any adult would see that what happened was unethical, immoral and fattening. And not in a good way.
The thing is, what is important is... after she left, after it was all over, other than the fact that we had a daughter between us, I continued living in our house. I wanted continuity for the kids. And maybe for me some, too. After a while the kids were fine and we really needed to move. But I didn't. You see, I didn't get that. That they needed to move, that I needed to move.
Finally I tried to sell the house. But the housing market bubble burst. This was back in 2006. That's when it started to go south for me. The house dropped $140,000 from where it was. It had doubled from where I had bought it, and it lost a lot that next year or so. Eventually, with two mortgages, I was under water. I couldn't sell. It sucked. Ten years later I tried to sell it again.
And it sold this time. I didn't make much on it but at least I got out from under it, I got out from under the second mortgage, I got out from under living in the house my ex wife and I bought together.
During the week I moved out, my SUV broke down. Back in 2000 I had bought her the SUV. She'd had a Ford Ranger truck for years and it was falling apart. The paint was peeling. She had used it all up. She was an internationally certified horse trainer and riding instructor. She used up that truck that she had gotten before she had even met me. She deserved the SUV. It was nice, fancy, dependable. It looked nice, it had the extras package. And it wasn't cheap.
When she left it surprised me that she said she didn't want any of the cars. So I got them.
Long story short, during the time when I was moving after having finally sold the house, during the week I was moving to a new house, the SUV broke again. Several hundred dollars later, it broke again. A few hundred later it broke again that same week.
I finally had it. I parked it and called the dealer where I have taken my cars for years (and shameless plug for Liberty Bay Auto in Poulsbo, WA). Another long story short (I was actually able to get it started again and simply drove it the whole mile over to their shop), I traded in the originally $32,000 1998 Nissan Pathfinder LE to them for $100 and got myself a nice and much newer little car that I love now oh so much.
My point in all this being?
I'd had my heart ripped out by my ex. I lived for years in the house we had decorated, had remolded together and had bought together. I had two of her cars, both of which broke down before I moved and one had to be towed, while the other had to be traded cheaply in on another car. I had also had another car too. A turbo, vroom, vroom. What a car! But the engine blew.
So I finally moved out of that house we had bought together.
Finally I had a new house, new car, and no more old cars breaking down anymore. I also have a 2006 Harley which I bought a few years ago and it's mine, all mine. I have no major remembrances of my ex any longer swimming around my mind. I had a house in the woods, on a couple of beautiful acres. I now have a house on maybe an acre, with an awesome view of part of Puget Sound.
Nothing about this place reminds me of my ex.
And then after we moved in, across the street from us, in the house on the water with a dock, a new family moved in. At first I thought, fine. Good for them. And then it happened.
They pulled up and parked a horse trailer out front on a road too small so that it was technically illegal to park it there. It sat there, day in and day out. We live on a tiny paved road with not lots of room for cars parked on either curb (no curb anyway) and two way traffic still needing to be able to amble along. I checked the law. Parking on this road is illegal. You need to have a driveway. Odd. I know.
So it's extremely obvious it's sitting there when we come and go. Or I look out a window.
See, I have a huge picture window with an awesome view. And right there, right out front, day in and day out, unable not to see it... is that horse trailer. Which by association requires that the people, or at least the woman wearing riding gear type clothing must be another "horse person".
Did I mention my ex was a horse trainer? And riding instructor? That when we were first living together I had moved into her apartment in the front of a huge modern horse barn with over sixty-two horse stalls, a round pen, an arena, washing stalls, offices, a couple of modern apartments, etc., etc., etc. It was a sizable horse farm.
My ex had worked so hard, before sunrise to long after sunset, that on Sunday mornings at 5AM I would get up in my bathrobe and even in the frigid winter air, in my bathrobe and slippers, push along the wheelbarrow and feed all of the horses for her so she could sleep in one day a wake. Myself, I had to commute an hour each day into Seattle and it was a brutal commute.
We lived upstairs in the barn. So I could go out through our back laundry room into the upstairs part of the barn above all the horse stalls. I could go to each stall above it, drop down hay, timothy, grain or whatever the horse needed according to its note on the stall chute, and then go to the next horse.
Then I'd go back to the apartment, crawl back into bed, freezing in the winter, next to a lovely warm and attractive naked body that would appreciatively snuggle up next to me to warm me in appreciation. Something I always found amazing, as I was freezing at times I'm sure. But such was the appreciation she felt for my efforts. It was just one of those experiences that both found incredibly rewarding. That made life just a little bit better.
And now, all I have is that horse trailer that simply won't go away.
UPDATE: About a week after I wrote this, they sold the horse trailer! And my new experience in my new life finally, continued on.
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