Dad was right. He called back within the week. In fact, he called back within 18 hours. Quietly apologizing. Not effusive or explaining much. Just that he was wrong. He shouldn't have said it. He doesn't want it to end. He isn't angry at me. He always gets what he doesn't want... that I'll walk away. Dad says, "Dump him. He has no class." Dad wanted me to dump T too... and had his hand in that all those years ago by giving T a book about Judaism and telling him, "You'll never get my daughter."

I was a girl back then. I had tons of opportunities, many boys vying for my attention, affection, eyeballs on them, caring. I was a teenager caught up the hype and drama of being a student leader. Older folks impressed by me. The youth in awe of me. My peers jealous and respectful... those were my days then.

Now I'm a woman. I chose to not marry. I chose to not reproduce. I chose not to get tied down.

I'm a woman who explored her options, who walked down paths others never would have ventured onto. I danced with men international and unique as well as local and common. So this one is local and common. But he is universal in his having been disappointed by life. He is just like so many others around the world who had life deal them a handful of cards that don't work. Rare and unique is the person who can make lemonade out of lemons and be happy about it when they really wanted wine.

I'm a woman who has been more interested in core questions than in building community domes. I've been more alive when alone than most people are when they are intoxicated. Most people do what they must and only live for Time Off...  They don't live for the moment, only for the few moments when they can call the shots. Others who can call the shots for many others, need others to abuse them, dominate them, make them feel what they can't feel when in positions of solitude atop the structure society told them was theirs to build.

This man has no class. This man is part neanderthal, part impatient dolphin, untrained, just wanting to bump up against something that will bump him back and help him to feel alive again. Alive again when legal and necessary drugs for years have dampened his ambition, intentions, and any abilities he ever had to accomplish in this world. He took his licking and kept on ticking, but slower, sadder; angry at an enemy he can't see, can't fight, and a condition he can't change.

I understand that energy, that emotion. I've dealt with a similar situation for five years and felt my life force slowly ebbing away. Suddenly I was alive again, with arms wrapped around me, with a sharp rib poking me, and a mouth that could be with my toes without tickling them.

I don't regret that I left the local classless one back then. I was able to go out and be in the world, meet men with class who carved their lives into compartments so they could fit it all in.

I'm still not ready to dump this one... I will set stronger boundaries so he can't hurt me as easily. I will still love. But Dad, I'll do it more carefully.