Origins 3
02 Sep 2019Marlfan1
In school I had always done well, grade wise. I loved to read and math was actually kinda fun. Freshman year, I was in an Algebra class. Met a cool guy, Jimmy. He was way smarter than I could ever hope to be, but at the same time, he was lots of fun, always able to make those who hung around him laugh. Somehow, it became a friendly contest between us to see who could get the class work done the fastest with the best grade. We would even sit in class as everyone else was goofing off and would finish our homework before the bell.There, in the same algebra class was a very quiet, shy girl, cute looking to , but she was a sophomore, so out of my league, (or so I thought). One day, about two months into the school year I was walking out of class with Jimmy when, in the hall, she was standing, watching the door. As we walked out she came up to us and with her head down slightly, asked if she could talk to me. Jimmy grinned, punched my arm and walked away.
She wasn't doing so well with the algebra, and mid term was coming up, so she asked if we could study together. That was it. We became inseparable all through High School, and, right after graduation, we married.
All through high school, as the math classes progressed, I became enamored with the math problems. To me, they were puzzles I just had to solve. I so wanted to go to college, but we were dirt poor. Jimmy went on to college, got his CPA and opened his own accounting firm. I got a job working for an engineering firm conducting surveys on back water worlds that didn't have satellites yet to establish boundaries for settlements, farms, mines, etc. I loved the field work, calculating angles, elevations, and knowing each planet I worked on had MY mark on it delineating forever what went where.
My wife and I had it great for 20 years. She gave me four of the greatest kids in the universe! To this day I do not know how they turned out so great when I was so screwed up. Well, I wasn't so bad in the beginning, maybe. Survey crews can be rough people, crude and crass. Heck we were sometimes the first people to set foot on a newly terraformed world, conditions could be rather rough. It started out with the crude jokes and the drinking. We were a salty lot, and so very few females worked in our field.
You work with the guys for so long, and living in close quarters, you talk a lot when you have down time. As soon as the guys learned I had only dated my wife and married after high school there was no end to the virgin surveyor jokes and stories of wild parties and wilder women. My wife had started complaining about how my wages were barely covering expenses and how I wasn't taking care of myself, letting myself go, getting fat. Over the years it started working on me, getting under my skin. What had I missed out on? Finally, on one of our break periods, we were on a Coriolis station, I don't even know which one, and they guys talked me into going to one of the more, "adult" entertainment spots.
God, I blew it! What an idiot! What an ass! I didn't realize they guys weren't egging me on because of what I was missing out on, they wanted to destroy what I had because the couldn't have what I had! Oh how the mighty have fallen.
I felt so horrible, the only thing I could think of was confessing to my wife and trying to make up for what I had done. She didn't take it too well. Every time I left for work, when I got back she wanted to know how many "questionable" women I had been with this time, did I bring home any diseases?
It was only once, but once was one too many. A year later, we were divorced, and I was living in a hotel room when I was "home" spending as much time with the kids as I could, trying to get the Ex to trust me again, maybe start dating me again. It never happened. The kids were devastated, but were forgiving as only your kids can be.
Shortly after the divorce, I got promoted, no longer on a survey crew, now I was running the crews. My Ex got remarried a couple of years later to a pretty decent guy. I never dated. Never wanted to go through that again. When I turned 53, my youngest daughter graduated high school, and I got itchy feet all of a sudden.
I had heard stories of folks piloting ships out into the black, getting lost in the vastness and never looking back. That had to be me. I retired from my position, bought my way into flight school in Eravate, and, other than checking in with my kids from time to time and following their stories, feeling my chest swell with pride at their accomplishments, I poofed. Vanished. Faded into witch space.
My dad lives with my sister, I go see him every once in a while. I keep up with my kids but don't get to see them as often as I would like. I am a TDOG now, flying with GrendelShogun and the guys, doing my best not to screw this up too and having the time of my life.