No News is Good News

I found out today from a friend that an ex-boyfriend of mine was going to be having a kidney transplant today. I'm not sure how to feel about it. It was a surprise, but I do remember him having some vague health problems even in high school. I was too young then to know what was going on; he never had to go to the hospital, but he did miss a lot of school a few times, so as an adult looking back, I guess it really isn't that surprising that he had *some* problems as an adult, but still, this is pretty big.

J was my big love, the person I loved more than anyone other than DH. We didn't part well. I cheated on him, actually, but that was oddly enough because I *did* love him. He was sweet, cute, funny, and he loved me right back. Deep down, I was terrified that he would leave me, like my father did, and I needed a backup plan to make sure I would still feel loved somehow. I did love him, though, very much, and I have had dreams through the years that I saw him and apologized, and he forgave me, and we were OK after that, as friends.

Isn't it funny how things can follow us through the years?

He found out that I had cheated on him because my "best friend", who always was anxious to try and pick up my exes, told him in an effort to make herself important to him. (I really don't know what it was with her - she literally tried to date every single person I ever broke up with. It was sick, and was what eventually ended our friendship the first time. Yes, I gave her another chance years later, stupid me, and it ended badly, again. Duh.) Since he was having alcohol problems by that point, he took out his hurt and anger by throwing water balloons filled with cleaning fluid at my bedroom window - thankfully I lived on the third floor, and they didn't reach. He would drive by my mother's apartment - in my friend's car - and yell insults. I know, I know, not someone I should remember fondly, right? In truth, I was afraid of him by then, but I knew it was the drinking more than anything, and between that and my guilt I never really held a grudge about it. I was in college by that time, it was my last summer living at home, and he was still living in his mother's house on the 'wrong side of town' (yes, he was That Guy), and things had moved on. I knew I would never see him again.

Except in my dreams, where he was not drinking, and doing well, and happy.

Apparently, that's not how things have turned out for him. He's married with two kids, the oldest a few years older than Josie, and they still live in that shack-like house on the not-good side of town. My friend said that his wife had visible cavities in her front teeth, and he must be in renal failure to need a transplant. His life is no easier now than it was when we were kids. It makes me so sad. Why are some of us so much luckier, and escape, and others are just bogged down, dragged further into the mire? His kids are now probably having an even tougher time than he did. I got away, and my children are way better off than I was. This does nothing to assuage my guilt over the past, let me tell you.

I will probably never know the outcome of his surgery, unless it goes horribly wrong and there's a notice in the paper. I know, that's morbid, but really, it is. My friend only knew because she ran into him by accident, which is the only reason I know. So, I guess I will be hoping not to know.

Hope that you never see anything on this topic from me again. Because no news is good news.

And the teenager in me still loves the teenager in him, just a little.