Requiem For a Date

On this day, 18 years ago, I got married. No, don’t congratulate me. In fact, for the entire first half of today I had completely forgotten about it. It’s actually been a few years since I’ve even remembered that fact. You’d think it would be the most important day of the year to me, but it’s merely the answer to an obscure trivia question now.

It was raining that day, 18 years ago, when we went to the Knoxville City Hall, a modern building that somehow still exuded age and decay. I neglected to mention to her that I was on the rebound, having recently been rebuffed by another, and she didn’t ask. That should have been a red flag, but it wasn’t.

Yet time was of the essence. I needed a place to stay, so I married a woman I had met only two months before that rainy day at the Knoxville City Hall. Every shred of common sense told me it was a bad idea, but at the time I was between a rock and a hard place, an area where common sense fears to dwell.

And for the next three years I celebrated the day, like people are supposed to do when it belongs to them. Even though I never felt like it belonged to me. Because I realized pretty early on that I wasn’t in love with the woman I had married, because she had only been playing a role when we met. So this day, October 19th, became a time of dread, even as the celebrations commenced.

Then it was over, but memories don’t just go away. I’ve never understood how people can go into a new relationship and simply forget what existed before. Perhaps they never do. Maybe they just pretend they do because they think it’s healthy. But I disagree. I think it’s important to remember the past because that’s the only way we can truly get past it, the only way we can learn and not repeat it.

So I’ve remembered on and off these past 15 years, ever since the death of the relationship, but I feel like I’ve learned all I need to learn from it all, from that tortuous time in my life. I’m ready to lay this date 6 feet deep where it belongs, to give it some new meaning other than the last sad gasp of a relationship that never should have been, but one that changed me nonetheless.

I’m ready to cleanse it again, to make it just another day, like it used to be before that rainy day, 18 years ago, at the Knoxville City Hall. So rest in peace, October 19. May you find contentment in knowing that others will use you as their reference point from now on. Just no longer me.

Sam