My Forbidden Love Story

We were young, there was a sweltering Chicago summer, and then fifteen years fell between us….

Under the shade, it was cool, raising goosebumps on my arm, but a slightly warmer breeze brought a hint of the days to come.

I laughed with my friend as we smoked our cigarettes and chatted, both in our blue utility uniforms, tucked under the cover of the designated smoking area outside our barracks at the Great Lakes Naval Station.

I was but a few days out of boot camp and stretching my legs with freedom. Our world was in insane turmoil; we were basically waging war in Iraq, the nation was still reeling from the 9/11 attacks, and I was beginning my four-and-a-half-month training for my designated rate in the US Navy.

I was young. The world was big and wild but back then that was exciting, not really scary. [I should have been scared, but that’s another story.]

The sky was bright blue with dots of puffy white clouds. I heard some people approaching from the barracks, talking, and I turned to see if I knew them.

He was right there, behind me, and for just a moment he was silhouetted against that bright blue sky and then I saw his eyes as I heard one word:

“Hi.”

Love at first sight?

I was stunned. I was a bit speechless and probably fumbled before saying “Hi!” back. He introduced himself. His Long Island accent was thick and I was swooning.

His smile was beautiful. His eyes danced, framed by long dark lashes. He had light freckles and dark hair. I wasn’t sure which end was up.

I stopped and tried to compose myself. He grinned. I swooned again.

What was happening here?

I felt myself blushing, heat creeping up my neck and cheeks. I chatted with him for a moment and then felt my roommate next to me. She smirked as she turned and headed inside, and I followed her.

I turned back to look. He was watching.

I was in big trouble.

Heading back to my room, I felt my roommate watching me as I ripped off my cover [hat] and pulled my hair out of its bun. I was aware my face was still burning and I had to take a moment to breathe. My hair got caught in the diamond on my left hand and I yanked it loose and flopped on my bed.

I was in big… big trouble.

When life goes sideways

I had met and dated my fiancé in a whirlwind. Between meeting him when his band played at my local watering hole and leaving for boot camp, only a few months had lapsed. We were young, partying several times a week, going to house parties and me tagging along to his band’s gigs in small bars around town. Nothing felt super serious.

Nothing felt permanent.

I’d been “on hold” with the US Navy for going on a year when I met him. I knew I was shipping out, it was just a matter of when. So many people enlisted after the attack on 9/11 that there was a significant wait time for a female space in basic training. I was in line, but it was a substantial wait.

I will never say I didn’t love him. I did. But I loved him in that fun, friendly way that you love at 20. When you can’t see past the nose on your face and nothing feels forever. I was also just barely beginning to crack open the enormous mess that was my childhood trauma.

I’d only been on my own for a scant couple of years and was enjoying freedom, real freedom, for the first time in my life. When I met him, it was easy and fun and sweet. When I left for boot camp, we kissed in the rain and it felt oh-so-cinematic. Like Pearl Harbor. Like Armageddon.

Like it wasn’t real.

Basic training was a kick in the face. I was prepared for some of the aspects of the physical experience, but I was wholly unprepared for the grueling experience of training in that environment: subzero Arctic blast, every day, shoveling snow, hearing snippets of gossip about the war brewing in the Middle East.

Things felt like they could grow into something really crazy, and I felt myself yearning for something familiar. Familiar was my boyfriend, and I wrote him letters and got letters from him. We shared sentimental nothings, promises, plans.

Even with that, I was genuinely surprised when he came to my boot camp graduation and afterward, dropped to one knee and proposed.

I froze. I nodded numbly, I smiled, I said yes, and I was also preemptively freaking out.

I had just gotten my freedom. I was just feeling my own space, enjoying my own life, making my own decisions, but — this is what people do, right? They get married.

My adopters were 21 when they got engaged. His parents were even younger, 17 and 18, I believe. It wasn’t unheard of.

It just felt like I couldn’t say no, even though it really freaked me out. My adopters had driven up to Milwaukee to see the graduation, and, I believe, to essentially oversee the proposal.

The energy between us was different; a bit awkward and strained. We chalked it up to being in such a different environment. We laughed. We had dinner in a restaurant near the base, and then I returned to pack my belongings to head to my training school. It was early May.

By the beginning of June, I was trying to figure out how I had fallen in love with someone else.

The summer and the fall

The more I got to know this person, the more I liked him. He was funny and smart. He could write. He read, ferociously. I didn’t know what I liked more, his casual good looks or his brain. We could, and did, talk for hours, walking around the streets of Chicago.

It was complicated. There were long phone conversations with my fiancé when I told him I had met someone and I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. He echoed a similar sentiment about someone in his life, but to this day I don’t know if that was true or something he said to balance the picture.

I was getting frustrated with the whole thing. I was too young for this heavy of a situation. I felt an incredible pressure to go through with the wedding — I say it was a pressure from my adopters but I doubt that was entirely true; they didn’t have the first clue about my life or my meeting someone. I was still operating under the lingering pressure to perform my life to the standards left over from my childhood.

I wasn’t honest with them. I wasn’t honest with him. I wasn’t entirely honest with myself.

I was absolutely in love with this person and couldn’t figure out how to handle it. So I didn’t. I let things roll until August when I told him, under the same blue sky, that I couldn’t go on. I was going to go home and get married.

That was that.

I watched tears fall from those stunning eyes and I felt such a deep pain, a shame, and a disappointment in myself. How could I possibly hurt so many people at once?

I flew home hanging my head, marched through bridal fittings, showers, and right down the aisle. On an unseasonably sweltering September day, I numbly nodded, exchanged rings, and became a wife.

I really took the whole ass cake that time.

Time kept on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’… into the future

And so life began. I became a mother. The inevitable divorce came. We tried to handle it between ourselves when bitter in-laws were sniping, and we had sort of a divorce party. We were trying to be friends, trying to be cool about it.

I had hurt him out of my really unhealed and chaotic life. I was ashamed. I was trying to figure out how to find the first steps to getting myself the therapy and help I needed.

Years passed. A lot of therapy. Lots and lots of self-reflection, growth, and work. I married again… and divorced again.

Still more growth. Still more therapy. Still more hurt. Still more work.

Before I knew it, it was 2018. I had just made up my mind to exit my current situation and go back to the single mom life when I took a business trip to Denver with a group of clients.

The first night in the hotel, I looked out the window at the Rocky Mountains. I rarely got time alone without my children, and even more rare was that time in another city. The silence in the hotel room was nice, a welcome reprieve.

I could hear the hotel mini-fridge humming and suddenly, I thought of him. I wondered what he was doing right then, what it would be like if he were there.

If he’d been there all along.

I picked up my phone and found his profile on Facebook, clicked his profile picture, and then the Messenger icon. I hesitated over the keyboard, and then impulsively pressed the little phone icon. It rang.

It rang again, and again. Call ended. He didn’t pick up.

I deflated. I felt silly. I began to lean back on the bed when my phone vibrated.

He was calling back. I instantly picked up. Across the years, through all of time and space, a little deeper and more gravelly but unmistakably him, I heard, once again…

“Hi.”

Truly the happily ever after

I knew I couldn’t let this slip through my fingers this time. The many years in between that summer and that trip to Denver had taught me a lot, and it had also revealed that I never, ever felt about someone else the way I felt about him.

It had been love at first sight. It was love forever. I never stopped loving him; that love became a part of who I am.

We talked for hours that night. And the next. And for the weeks following.

We caught up. We shared what mistakes we’d made, what awful things we’d done, and also what we’d accomplished. We talked about our kids and how we love them and are so proud of them. I could feel him beaming through the phone when he talked of them. It made me see him in a different light.

All those years ago he wasn’t a dad. He wasn’t a baseball coach. He wasn’t driving a daughter to a pop star’s concert. This was a new layer, and with that came even more reasons to love him.

We pondered if we met in person again, would things feel the same as they did back then? We were older, more tired, more round about the middles, more gray hairs.

We knew there was only one way to find out.

When he walked through the doors of that airport and I saw him once more, I knew. It was clear he knew. He hugged me, and it was clear that everything was about to be very, very different… and very, very right.

Suddenly the world was righted again.

One October evening…

I gripped my bouquet and looked through the huge window, but the guests and trees obscured my view. I wanted to see him. I wanted to pinch myself.

The bridesmaids and groomsmen all scurried into place as our host signaled that it was time, and slowly they stepped forward and down towards the waterfront, the arch, the music.

I looked at my youngest son, who was escorting me, and I smiled a big smile. He smiled back and held my hand. As Tracy Chapman crooned her Promise, I stepped into the grass. I stepped past all the years of hurt, the abusive relationship, the pain, the loneliness, the shame, and the frustration.

One step after another, around the big oak tree, and then I saw him. Handsome as sin in his dark suit, those dazzling eyes with the impossibly long lashes. That smile.

My forever love.

I never felt more sure of a thing in my life, and I stretched my legs out, taking steps that felt too long as I reached for him, as I pulled myself closer to the officiant and my broadly smiling bridesmaids, who all saw what I saw and who knew that this was the real deal, I felt an unspeakable peace.

We exchanged vows. Our children bound our hands in ribbons and ropes in traditional handfasting, and before we walked back down the aisle as man and wife, he looked over at me, those endless eyes, that boundless heart, and he whispered…

“Hi.”

This is my Valentine’s Day tribute to my unfailingly amazing husband and twin flame. I have left out some personal details, names, etc. as a lot of complicated feelings and situations were involved. Life isn’t straightforward, and it’s not easy. Sometimes we hurt others with absolutely no intention of doing so. This piece is not about that hurt. It’s about the unlikely love found in the strangest of places and times. It’s about love that doesn’t quit and never lets go. It’s about not settling and holding on, for however long it takes, for the one who makes your soul sing. I love you, Keith, and I’m glad we’re on this journey together.

My name is Melissa Corrigan, and I’m a freelance writer/thought sharer/philosopher in coastal Virginia. I am a mom, a wife, a veteran, and so much more. I deeply enjoy sharing my thoughts and receiving feedback that sparks genuine, respectful conversation.

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