The Ashley Madison Adventures of a Regular Guy Gone Bad: Ryan's Repeats - There Used to Be a Greying Tower Alone on the Sea

Or "Guess I got what I deserved; kept you waiting there too long, my love...." (Badfinger - Baby Blue)

Before I let you re-read this mushy gooey post I'll let you know I'm not a very emotional type of guy. But over the past decade through marriage turmoil, marriage counseling, and of course the experiences that represent the content of this blog I have certainly gotten more in touch with my emotions so to speak. Much like the mathematician in me I find it very therapeutic to analyze emotions and derive the source of the feeling. If I feel good or bad I like to figure out what exactly it is that has me pensive or giddy. Once I understand that I get ahold of my emotions or at least understand them and feel much better.

This post was theraputic in that exact same vein. As I conceived of this post I wanted to figure out exactly what it is I feel for Shannon. Just like working a break-even analysis on a new project at work I wanted to know what I felt for her, why, and from where did that feeling emerge and grow.

You'll see the way I approach a problem. Here I thought of certain words that I felt described my feelings and then I googled them to make sure I had the definition just right. Those adjectives led to synonyms and helped me drill down to just what I felt. In the end I think I got there. Well, I know I got there because what I got to in the end was pretty fuzzy which has always been the nature of our relationship - fuzzy, not sure where we are going, but pretty darn sure the alternatives are not so great either, too afraid of the unknow, so let's just stay on this runaway rollercoaster a bit longer and see if perhaps Einstein was wrong when he said "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a difference result." Darn Einstein and christ that was a long sentence! :)

Of course in the end you have to ask "who tries to derive one's feeling analytically? Are you some sort of crazy person?" And you would probably be right. Maybe that is why Shannon thinks I'm such a pompous, hubristic, jerk! Geesh! :)

More Badfinger:
"What can I do, what can I say; 'cept I want you by my side. How can I show you, show me the way. Don't you know the times I've tried..."

"That special love you had for me, my Dixie dear."

Ryan's Repeat
from July 6th, 2012........

Today's post is a lead into my Monday post which will be a part of Kat's Blog Chain. I figured I have talked about my affairs through Ashley Madison and in the past month talked a lot about women from my past. I guess I should say a little about the woman who has shaped the past 18 years of my life more than any other. And if you are putting 2 + 2 together you can assume that I'll talk a little more about her on Monday in a more alluring way! :)

enchanted [ɪnˈtʃɑːntɪd]

adj

1. under a spell; bewitched; magical

2. utterly delighted or captivated; fascinated; charmed

I have written a lot about my wife Shannon over the past year in this blog. I have mentioned a lot about the trials, tribulations, and failures. In a lot of ways we were doomed from the start and yet are still here held by some spell or enchantment. But in life it is rare that things are singularly bad (or even good). For instance we have two lovely daughters that we both adore. We have a nice home and both have good careers that I think have been driven by one another's successes. And I have to admit I still have a sence of pride when I walk into a restaurant with her. How many men I wonder have stared at her and then thought "god that guy is so lucky to get to have sex with that beautiful woman," even if reality is that that rarely if ever happens anymore.

More than anything she is a beautiful woman for whom I am still deeply attracted. Sure you hear that from a lot of guys; who wouldn't say that about their wife. But when I say that I mean by beautiful that she is in fact my fantasy more so than any movie starlet I have ever seen on screen. I know this because the things that attract me to her are not simply the traits of grocery store magazine racks. It's her beautiful shoulders that give her the perfect silhouette and make cloths hang so well from her body. It's her long delicate neck that is the perfect transition from her beautiful face to her elegant body. It's her immaculate skin, her soft hands and her regal and long thin fingers. It's her "stormy blue-grey" eyes that are so frightening to look at as is a storm over the ocean when she is angry and yet so easy to drown in when she is happy along with that little crinkle next to her eyes that sets them just so.

Anyway I seem to keep coming back to Shannon on my blog; maybe it's hidden meaning as to why I keep figuratively coming back to her in real life. I am even thinking about doing a "prequel" to my Shannon story down the road.

But for now a song the other day reminded me of a few short times when things were good. I guess every couple needs a song and our's (for me at least) has always been that Seal song "Kiss from a Rose." I think it is very telling because it is such a melancholy song that in fact reveals much of our life together. "My power, my pleasure, my pain" the singer of the song tells of the woman he loves with an almost glorious sadness as if he needs to ration his feelings lest he become completely overtaken with her. I think that is often how I felt about Shannon.

lone·ly/ˈlōnlē/

Adjective:

Sad because one has no friends or company.
Without companions; solitary: "passing long lonely hours looking onto the street".

Is it possible to be lonely as a couple?

I think it is. We married too young (for her) and lived in a very small town. I worked too much and she was in graduate school and so we were too occupied and didn't connect emotionally. Yet in that small town we were young strangers that didn't exactly fit in so we were as a couple alone. And so we did out of necessity connect in ways such as counting on one another, leaning on one another, being one another's confidant. As a result of that connection we became indelibly intertwined in ourselves yet disconnected from one another's heart. Our love was one of camaraderie and perhaps the distant love one feels for a painting that moves you emotionally but for which you can never enter.

But at times it was good, if not glorious.

I remember one weekend I didn't have to work. We traveled out of town for a football game. It was about a 2 hour drive. Whenever we left that small southern town it felt like an escape. Along the way we heard that song by Seal as we drove down the highway on a gloriously sunny day in the fall. That song had just come out the past summer on the Batman soundtrack and was popular.

The imagery of that song touched me. I felt as if I was some knight traveling to see my lady who waited for me in some keep by the grey ocean.

These few times when we escaped that small town were when we were in fact alive. It did feel like we were the only adventurers riding along perhaps the green hills of Southern England or the Coast of Britannia even if reality was just a stretch of I-10.

And those were the times when it was good. Just she and I and nothing else. And back then I was her knight.

And at the end of the adventure no woman's body ever felt so good and so right underneath me. Her small frame and her soft porcelain skin fit so well. Her mouth the perfect size and shape and so delightfully soft. Often at the end and after a collective orgasm I would linger in her and sometimes we would even fall asleep still connected. For that brief moment we were alone in our grey tower on that lonely island and we didn't care.

We were married about the time this song was popular. I remember going to see Batman the summer after we were married and "Kiss from a Rose" was on that soundtrack. This song could have been the soundtrack to our life.

A lot of time when I do these little snipets of info about songs on the blog I'll take a look at wiki or one of the many song meaning websites. I did so with this song and this is what I drew for it

mel·an·chol·y (m