Bucket and Earl

 A buddy of mine had posted something rather shocking the other day.  It was quite simple, it said "BRB getting married".  This shocked me and others, since when was he attached to any woman at all let alone tying the knot with someone?  I sent him a PM saying "Are you kidding?"  He said "No, I really am".  After some time had progressed and he had a few minutes, he told me the story.  He told me part of the story when we left on a cabin in the woods weekend a few years ago.  He told me the story of this woman, that they had dated for four years, ending when she moved away to another state for a job.  He said she was the love of his life, he moved on as he had no choice in the matter but to do so.  In the fall of 2023, said woman moved to Cincinnati for another job, then apparently they reconnected, then they decided they were going to get married after all.  And she insisted that they do it quickly, so batta boom, batta bing, they did so the other day before a small group of friends and family.  She will finish out her lease until the end of January, then she will move to our city to live with him.  I replied to this, saying well, I certainly wasn't expecting to read of all of this. Unusual to say the least, but congratulations if this is what you want.  This blog, however, is not about him and his new wife, but also of a tale that I am still in mourning of, the tale of Bucket and Earl...

My best buddy M told me the tale of his Granny who had two beaus in her lifetime, by the name of Bucket and Earl.  Granny and Bucket were very passionately in love, it was obvious to one and all who were before them.  It did not happen for her and Bucket for reasons I won't get into here, but she married another guy named Earl.  She and Earl were not as in love as she and Bucket were with each other, all around them could see that.  So why did she choose Earl?  Earl was the more practical of the two and she felt that Earl would always be there.  So she and Earl had their practical life together.  What became of Bucket?  I don't know, but Bucket was her lost love, and Granny would always mourn the loss of him.  I bring this up because I had, as M likes to point out, my own tale of Bucket and Earl years ago...

I met Bucket on a blind date.  My old guitar teacher and Bucket's mom had been friends since they were kids; and, one day he was telling his mom of me.  She suggested that he and I meet, which we would eventually.  It was January of 2001, my guitar teacher had a blues band that was playing out at some local bars around our city, and said he had arranged for us to meet there.  I walked into the place and saw him on the stage, I waved and he nodded my way.  I sat in the corner, and I was approached by him.  We chatted and then we eventually began the relationship.  I introduced him to my friends and acquaintance, some of it didn't go so well and I quickly ditched some of them (but there were many issues going on in those relationships that it all came to a head with his introduction, and that was that with me and them).  Others liked him, and we had some very fun filled times together.  We were very passionately in love with one another, and then things began to change.  Essentially what happened was that Bucket had never been in a long term relationship before and didn't know what to do with himself once the infatuation period had worn off.  He didn't want to commit, the passion that was once there began to fade away into a more comfortable boring and he didn't know what to do with himself.  Eventually, an Earl came into the picture.  He and I had a long distance relationship, we had a disreguard for one another as appropriate for two people in a long term situation.  We didn't have the same passion for one another that Bucket and I did for each other, that was very obvious by others' behaviors and observations of us.  Soon, Earl, like most men, didn't want to commit to it after we had reached the two year mark.  He ended it in a rather immature and abusive way.  We had four phone calls afterwards, then he met and married another woman barely a year later.  His marriage would end in divorce a scant three years later.  Earl's ex wife would eventually marry her lover who she was cheating on him with through most of their marriage who became her fourth husband, and barely a year later she would divorce her fourth husband.  Earl was so eager to have someone in his life that he rebounded into the wrong situation.  I Google him from time to time.  He never remarried after his divorce, I think he's doing alright these days.  He's really alone now, but I think divorce does that to you.

Bucket?  Bucket moved away to a small town on the east coast and remains there.  He lives in a village in the middle of nowhere, with no people around and not much to do.  He chose to do this, of this I accept.  It's not like missing out on going to a certain party or event that you chose not to attend but later regret not doing so.  On my part, however, I was in a deep denial in the years leading up to his moving.  I knew deep down that someday I was going to lose him, so I took my frustrations out in food and my weight ballooned because of it.  I would loose the weight the year after he left, getting down to the middle range of my high school weight.  Bucket tried to come back - One day out of the blue he called and said he was in town and wanted to see me.  I refused.  I let it out in a blog, which he read, and he blocked me.  And that was the end of that officially.  Yes, that was my fault, but I was tired of being the doormat and letting others just do and say whatever they felt like while I had to take the high road and be the adult.  None of us are perfect beings, I am certainly not one of them.

Many things have happened since, and will continue to happen to me and others.  It's not the end of the world, it just feels like it from time to time.  And I am not jealous of my friend, he married his Bucket after thinking it was a lost cause and he'd never love again.  If anything, it gives us all hope that someday, somehow it too can happen for all of us.  And Bucket told me that someday I would find love again when I found him on Facebook years later.  He said after all these years there are too many, but I would always have a place in his heart, someday I would find it.  I wish I could, as my luck has been beyond bad.  I can only hope to be happy.