I Fell In Love With A Man Who Saw Me Grow Up
Hey! I’m Bethany, or Beth, for short. And my life is full of drama, the most important and hurtful part of this is that I really love somebody, but we have so many obstacles to being happy together. Right now I’m almost 19 years old, but the story I’m going to share with you started when I was much younger.
I was born in a tiny town into family of a military officer and a housewife. As people sometimes say, occupation determines the lifestyle. This was so true for my parents. While my dad was carrying out his duties, my mom was raising me and looking after the house, in other words, doing what any good wife and mother usually did. But as soon as my dad retired and settled at home with his small car painting business, one of his old army buddies started visiting us on an annual basis.
I called him Uncle Owen. When I first saw him, I was 5 years old, I think. He was very tall and extremely handsome. I mean, even though he was only a couple of years younger than my dad, he looked really young. He came to our town every winter and sometimes stayed for a couple of months. He wasn’t lucky enough to have a family and never had his own kids, so he said he really loved me as if I were his own daughter. And I remember that he always brought me lots of presents. I still have most of them today.
Uncle Owen lived in a big city and when he’d come to see us, he would often tell a bunch of wild stories of the life he had there and I was totally amazed by them, literally sitting with my jaw wide open while I was listening to him. I even abandoned my friends when he'd come. They were a little offended by that and I ended up apologizing to them after my Uncle Owen left. But as long as he stayed at our house, I had this feeling inside me, you know, that small children usually have on the eve of their birthdays. And I also thought back then, that as soon as I grew up, I was moving to that city to live there just like Uncle Owen, and to become just as happy and interesting as he was.And he was never like my other parent’s friends, you know. When other adults came to us, they usually sent me upstairs to stay in my room or, in the case where they brought their own children with them, they told us to go and play outside, so that mommies and daddies could have a nice talk. But when Uncle Owen came, he insisted on my parents allowing me to stay and listen to whatever they were talking about. And he loved to spend time with just me, you know, playing toys or making a snowman outside. He always said that I was innocent and for him, this was a way for him to become at least a little bit more innocent himself.
I remember, once he and my dad went on a winter fishing trip and Uncle Owen insisted on me coming with them, while dad was not really that up to it. It was really fun, but pretty chilly outside and I spent almost all of my time in the car and eventually caught a cold. It got worse once we got back home and I was lying in my bed with a fever. Uncle Owen spent the whole night next to my bed giving me hot tea and reading books to me. I guess I was 7 or 8 back then. Now you can see that even though it was a pretty bad illness of mine, I still had warm memories about it thanks to him.
But one year changed everything. I was 12, and after another phone call, my dad announced that this time Uncle Owen was going to visit us and bring someone special with him. It turned out that he had met a woman and married her after only a month of being together. And only now did he decide to have her meet us, huh! As soon as I heard that, I strangely felt that I already didn’t like her, and when they actually came and I saw her, I was sure that I’d never be able to like her, ever.
Susan, that woman, was like 10 years younger than Uncle Owen. She was the kind of a woman who would dress defiantly and totally inappropriate for the occasion. Let me explain: when they came over for the first time, it was snowing outside but she was wearing a pretty short dress under her down jacket. And the other day, I found her dressed in a leopard print blouse and leggings that were pretty tight. Honestly, if I were her I would hide those curves, at least while I’m a guest in someone else's house.
Anyway, she didn't seem to be a bad person, she was just tremendously dumb. She laughed at everything that Uncle Owen said, even if it was not funny at all. And when she tried to talk to me directly, she either used baby-talk, like I was 3 years old, or asked extremely stupid questions, which made me embarrassed for her.
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LearnAndRecord
2015年2月8日
2019年10月23日
第1719天
每天持续行动学外语