Born on the fourth of July....

Yesterday, I remembered.

I remembered an ex-girlfriend, whose birthday was July 4.

Born on the fourth of July. Now who can forget that?

I miss that girl. Unfortunately, it was never meant to last.

It was about six years ago. I was unofficially single at the time, since my ex-wife and I parted ways two years or so earlier, and court proceedings dissolving our marriage hadn't yet concluded.

I met this girl at work. She was about six years younger than I, and she was quite a character. Intelligent, articulate, independent, strong-willed, but with a hint of innocence and naiveté. I wasn't attracted to her at the onset however, that followed.

Her charms were noticed by some other people at work, including a old, high-ranking officer, and a colleague from a different department, and even a officemate that I used to consider a friend. The officer and the colleague from a different unit were both married, yet that didn't seem to deter them from at least making an attempt. The former friend was at least twice as old as the girl, and made his advances behind my back, which earned him the status of former friend.

I made known to her my intentions, and I actually crashed and burned twice before she finally decided to return my affections. For a while, all was good, but like I said, it wasn't meant to last.

Her family hated me. And that's an understatement. Somehow, they prejudged my character on the basis of the fact that legally speaking, I was still married. Her mother was a fanatic religious zealot, who considered me a sinner who would burn in hell for pursuing an "adulterous" relationship with her daughter. I tried on a couple of occasions to reason with her mother, especially since I truly had nothing but good intentions, but it was all for not.

It became even worse. I received harassing calls at home, and calls were even made to my boss, other officers, and even the HR department in the place I work, accusing me of immorality and other serious shit. Thankfully, no one who knew me believed the poisoned calls.

We kept our relationship a secret and even tried to keep it low profile for a while. She started making up pretenses to her family so we could see each other, but as it turned out, lying wasn't such a hot idea. It made her family even more suspicious, and even after days of not seeing or talking to each other, the harassing calls would still come, especially if the girl would go somewhere without her family knowing. They would always assume that we had gone to meet somewhere, even if I haven't seen hide nor hair of the girl.

Things became so bad that the girl wanted to leave her home. I had to talk her out of it, fearing the consequences for everyone involved.

After a while, we finally decided to part ways. It was a hard decision to make, since we never really had any problems with each other. Always it was with other people. Her family hated my guts, and the harassing phone calls have earned the ire of my family as well, who normally never intervened in personal matters.

So, after one last phone call sometime in 2001, I never saw her again.

Just like that.

Then several months after, we got to talk on the phone again. She was in a new relationship. The clincher was, she told me that the guy she was seeing was, legally speaking, also still married. And the guy was even still living with his wife. And somehow, according to her, her family was okay with it. You can just imagine my dismay when I heard this. I could only shake my head in disbelief.

We lost touch again after that, this time, for good. None of my colleagues who were mutual friends seem to have had contact with her again. I guess she cut us all off. I suppose she had her reasons, and it probably is all for the best.

Ironically, I've learned on more than one occasion, that it never seems to be a good idea to be with someone who would lie to other people just to be with you. While it may be touching and flattering at first, it almost always leads to a heap of trouble later on, as the lies spin out of control. After a while, you just don't know what to believe anymore. And so does everyone else.

So, charge it all to experience. I can take small comfort in the fact that I was always true to her then, and to myself, and that I never lied to her about my feelings for her. Well, just like as it was said in the Patty Smyth and Don Henley song, sometimes love just ain't enough. Ain't that the truth.

Wherever she may be now, I hope she's okay, and doing well.

And belated happy birthday.

Postscript:

In case you're among the few who know the people I've mentioned above, out of respect, let's keep their names to ourselves now, shall we? :-)