Here there be monsters

I awoke early this morning. An hour before the alarm. Upon awakening, sometimes I have the clearest thoughts about life. My daughter is going through a difficult time with her boyfriend and it brings back many painful memories.

For some reason, I was reminded of a time when I was about twenty-seven years old. I was living in the Virginia Beach area in the mid-eighties. It was a booming time for building. I worked in a lumber company in the office, my boyfriend worked in construction. There was oodles of work. What I didn't know, was the work was seasonal (for my boyfriend).

I recall one very desolate Sunday morning. We were in the process of moving from one small rental house into another with friends. Winter was coming and the construction business had slowed dramatically. A co-worker had given us her old bedroom set and I did not have a way to pick it up. I only had a small Pontiac Sunbird. (God, I loved that car). Bright yellow. Hey, I am straying off the subject.

Anyway, my boyfriend decided he didn't want to look for a truck to help me move the bedroom set. He wanted to party with the couple we were moving in with. We didn't have the money to keep our place. I left my boyfriend with his new friends, and I drove south on route 168 towards North Carolina. I was searching for my boyfriend's old boss who had a truck. I found him at his girlfriend's house (not with his wife). They were drinking and smoking pot. I was depressed and began drinking with them. Since he wasn't with his wife, I didn't want to ask him for the favor of using his truck.

I made my way back sometime later to our old little rental house to continue packing my car and moving things. There was the wife of my boyfriend's old boss at her Mother's house next door to me. She came over to talk to me, and I was a bit wasted. I told her about her husband and his girlfriend. I remember her just sitting on the couch and staring into space. She had suspected him. Now, she knew for sure. My co-worker eventually got the guys in the lumber yard to bring me my bedroom set. I felt defeated, unable to do things for myself. I did not like the feeling.

This was how life was for me in my late twenties. Broken hearts, broken dreams and unreliable men. Total losers. My boyfriend never helped move once. I did all the work. These are the type of men I chose during my twenties. I didn't seem to be able to break the pattern. I appeared to be drawn to my polar opposites. I was too serious, the dependable one. I was attracted to their irresponsibility, their carefree ways, their light and easy living. I wanted some of that.

As I lay in bed this morning thinking about getting up, I tried to drive down that same route. I get to Great Bridge and somewhere the scenery becomes hazy. I have forgotten. I get to a certain turn in the road and - nothing. It reminds me of the old maps when the world was flat. In the margins, where the old time mariners had no idea what lay beyond the borders of the map, they would write:

"Here there be monsters"

Oh, yes. There be monsters alright. Beyond this point in memory are monsters galore. I fear that my daughter is only beginning to draw hers.