Kathy and Throwing Caution to the Wind

 

Throwing Caution to the Wind

Kathy

Counting my high school girlfriend, I have been in eight romantic relationships that have lasted more than a year. Three of those relationships resulted in a marriage. Kathy is the 5^th of those 8 relationships. Kathy became my second wife, but it is the relationship that I least understand and the one I have a difficult time explaining to myself. All my relationships between Donna, and Kris were effected by my holding on to Donna. I was not still trying to get Donna back but it was in the way of deeply loving someone else. I loved Dottie but she followed Donna and it was just too soon. Plus, Dottie was too easy. The relationship was never quite balanced. I need someone to challenge me and keep me honest. I truly loved Cyd, but Cyd was young and still finding herself and I was a little past that point. I wasn't in the best place to go along for the ride and like I said, I was still holding on to Donna. Then there was Kathy. My relationship with Kathy is still sort of a mystery to me. Looking back I really don't know how I decided to marry her. Why did I think that was a good idea?

All the stories on my relationship with Kathy will reflect my looking back and trying to make sense of that time. It focuses on events and incidents that I think help me understand and explain why we got together and why it didn't work out. Much of these stories will included signs I failed to picked up on as well as incidents that I did not handle as well as I could have. Reviewing our relationship through this one-sided lens unfortunately and unfairly puts Kathy in a less than a good light. So I'd like to caution the reader that this is about me, not her. So let me start by saying Kathy is a very fine person. She is a very encouraging person who has a good heart. At the time I was very taken by her. She was very good to me I wish I could say I was as good to her, but that would be a lie.

By November, 1979, I had moved to Sacramento. The decision to leave San Francisco was a difficult one as I loved living in that city. What I had not considered was that leaving San Francisco also meant leaving all my friends in the city who I closely identified with, the ones who came from a more counter-culture, anti-establishment subculture. I worked for the profit-focused private company world whereas most my San Francisco friends worked for non-profit organizations. In Sacramento I was only meeting people through work, either the office or through the customers. They were largely the mainstream professional type. I kept mostly to myself when not working. I'm good at being by myself but with no contact with others of my ilk, I was feeling a bit isolated. I missed my SF friends. My sole social activity during the week was going out to the bars with the guys from the office on Fridays after work. I did not meet anyone in my apartment complex likely because it was winter time and everyone was staying locked up indoors.

Kathy and I started dating regularly before I moved to Sacramento, regularly enough that we were a couple. We talked about the position offer in Sac before I took it. Kathy encouraged me to take it as she saw it as a real “step up” for me even though it would also mean we would be a good distance apart. The “step up” wasn't a real big selling point for me as I had little interest in climbing the “corporate ladder”. On the other hand I certainly didn't mind the large increase in salary. The people in the company, trying something new, and the fact that they wanted me enough to create a whole new position was what convinced me to accept it. Kathy would still live in the Bay area but we concluded that my moving to Sacramento was something we could work out. Kathy hinted she'd relocate as well but not without a commitment. I was not ready for that so we decided that we would give the long distance relationship thing a try for now. After all, it wasn't that far, as we were less than two hours apart. We figured we'd see each other on most weekends and that would not really be too much different than what we were already doing. We just wouldn't be seeing each other at work.

Kathy ended up coming up to Sacramento more than I went down to the Bay Area largely because I worked longer hours. She would usually come up Saturday morning and leave early Monday morning. I looked forward to spending the weekends with her and as we continued spending the weekends together we started to become more serious. Kathy met people easily and had a very positive attitude. With Kathy being more extroverted and me being more introverted we matched up well. Kathy's parents had immigrated from Korea but Kathy was your typical “All American” girl, probably more so than any of my other girlfriends. Kathy just seemed to get along with everyone.

Kathy came up for the office Holiday party in December. She already knew some of the staff, particularly the managers. The party was on a Friday evening and held at the office at 555 Capitol Mall. One room was cleared out and had music playing for dancing. It was at the height of disco music and evidently, I was the only guy at the party that could, or maybe that was would, disco dance. Not that I was an accomplished disco dance but I was at least good at faking it. After Kathy and I danced a couple of songs some of the women from the office wanted me to dance with them. Being a good guy, I obliged. Kathy left the room and headed over to the room with the food and drinks to socialize. I found out later that she was not too pleased with me dancing so much with the other women. She was particularly unhappy that I danced with Laurie. Laurie worked for me and, let's just say, she was the kind of woman most men noticed. Laurie was dating Bruce's (one of my co-workers) and it was he and Bob who said she wanted to dance with me and asked if I wouldn't mind dancing with her. I didn't think it was a big deal but evidently Kathy did. I sort of ignored it and she was over by the next morning. We didn't really talk about it and I didn't think too much of it at the time.

Me Dancing with Kathy

On Kathy's next visit she indicated that now I'd been up in Sacramento for awhile she was thinking we perhaps needed to re-evaluate our situation. We were seeing a lot of each other and Kathy thought we should move towards a more permanent type relationship, you know, the kind that came with a ring. We talked about it for awhile. I was not too sure about that but I agreed to give it some thought. A few weeks later the subject came up again after which Kathy let me know that there was a guy in the Bay Area who was interested in her. He was someone she had liked and dated in the past. Now that I was gone, or rather in Sacramento, he was pursuing her again. She said she was torn about what to do but she was starting to think she should explore her options given our current status, my failure to commit.

After she left I started thinking. I was about to turn 31 and feeling this was probably as good of a relationship as I was gonna get. I loved her, I thought, but it was not with the same intensity that I had loved Donna. I knew I still missed and loved Donna, but I figured that was always going to be the case. Donna was now eight years and two relationships ago. I was coming to the conclusion that the kind of relationship I had with Donna was a once in a lifetime experience and perhaps was partially a function of it being the experience being in love for the first time. I thought everything over for a few weeks and finally decided to offer to marry Kathy. She gladly accepted. It wasn't as bad as “OK let's get married” but it wasn't the get down on my knees proposal either. It was more like we talked about it and somewhere in the discussion I said “Let's get married.”

I know, that doesn't sound very romantic. It wasn't the big stars in the sky, bells ringing ecstasy as depicted in the movies. Looking back I don't really understand why I did it. Was it being in Sacramento and missing my San Francisco connections? Was I was just ready to settle? Was I a victim of “triangular desire”? Beats me, but I was happy about it at the time.