The Choice Point

Be careful what you ask for -- you just may get it. Or so goes the conventional wisdom. Well, it seems that the conventional wisdom is not that far off, at least in my case. Why? Oh, wait until you hear this one.

When we exchanged Christmas gifts, Sally told me that she had a special gift in mind for me and it was a great one:

She would cook a meal for me and would spend the night somewhere with me.

Needless to say, I was very excited at the prospect of doing this. The only real problem that we had was considering the logistics of it. We knew this would be a challenge, as the opportunity to do that would not come along all that often.

As it turns out, Ranger Rick had to leave town for a few weeks for work. Sally managed to find a way to clear off the calendar and the plan was to be together this afternoon for the rest of the weekend. This would have meant essentially a full day and a half together. I was getting so excited... you can already tell that this isn't turning out well, right? Yeah. Exactly.

So, all of the prep is going on. She's shopping and preparing the meal that she is going to make for me. We are coordinating our activities. We exchanged text messages a few hours ago and she asked if I wanted her to cook breakfast for us too. I quickly replied -- if you're offering, I'm accepting. Her meals are legendary. I have always wanted to taste her cooking and was never shy about telling her that.

OK. So, I get this call just about an hour ago -- our weekend is off! She is not going to be coming down.

I'm sitting in the chair at my computer absolutely dumbfounded and in shock over what I am hearing.

As it turns out, Ranger Rick was obviously paying closer attention to things than she gave him credit for. Why? Because he called and confronted her on it. He could smell that something was not right and took action. As it was related to me, this was the point at which it became a deal breaker for him. She could tell that instantly. And it was in that instant she made her choice:

Keep the status quo in place and jettison me.

Am I surprised? No. Am I shocked? Well, clearly. I didn't see this coming (at least) today and neither did she. This wasn't even close to what we had in mind.

So we used the opportunity to talk a bit about it and get the various pieces up on the table. I had the chance to say the things that I needed to say and try to hold on to the future that I was playing for. And I didn't hold anything back. I said what I had to say and did my best.

She said that she wouldn't leave Rick for another man.  I told her that I didn't want her to leave for me -- if she were to leave, I wanted her to leave for her and because it's what she felt was the right thing to do. It just so happened that I would be here for her. She told me that she didn't know whether that was the right thing for her or not. That as long as she was dividing her time between Rick and I, she'd never really know.

There is a certain logic to this thinking. It's what I talked about in my last post and my last comment to Gayle. As it turns out, the day where that choice would be made was moved up a lot closer than I had ever anticipated. I knew this day would come, I just wasn't sure when. Turns out that today was the day.

Today is the day that I discovered what it was like to be expendable/disposable. It's not a good feeling. Rest assured, I won't be getting any rest any time soon.