. . .continued

I lied! It's been two days, and now you're all waiting with baited breath to hear how on earth a choir bus trip could lead to nightmares of my husband's infidelity. All in good time, my friends.

Where was I? Right, I was a self-righteous prig in high school, and I liked to hold hands by starlight but would not "date" any boys. My refusal to commit to a relationship resulted in my being abruptly dumped-but-not-really-because-we-weren't-dating-anyway on more than one occasion, with no explanation whatsoever. Or my special friend would just mess around with other girls (perhaps at the 'drinking' parties that I wouldn't go to) and then tell me about it (or not).

Which leads me to the choir trip connection. It was my first big high school choir trip to a music festival in one of our beautiful national parks (I was 15). My 'kindred spirit' somehow found time, between our chastely frolicking up mountainsides and holding hands past curfew, to get very friendly with one of the other girls in the choir. I had no idea at all. The hand-holding just went on as usual on the bus ride home.

A few months later, he was feeling guilty, and told me that he and whatsername had done some particular things together. I was VERY naive, and I knew what those things were, but I couldn't quite fathom what that entailed, or how it might have transpired. I had absolutely no frame of reference for such naughty deeds. I was hurt, and probably made my pillow all soggy over it, but I really didn't get it.

NOW I GET IT. I think there's a part of my brain that has been reeling for a while (especially since I gained a frame of reference for those particular things) at how unoffended I was at the time. And there's another part of my brain that responds with great suspicion and fear wherever choir bus trips are involved. I can't help it. It's probably my amygdala, and its job is to make me freak out about those kinds of things, right?

So when Daniel came home from the choir trip, the 15 year old and the 20-something parts of my subconscious got together and said, "You know, apparently things can happen very easily on choir trips. We should be afraid."

But let me tell you, if there's one thing Daniel hates, it's having to deal with my bad dreams. Especially the part where he has to defend himself against the nasty Daniel in my subconscious, who cheats on me with much older women, and doesn't bat an eyelash. He doesn't humour me much, and I can't get him to swear that he's never slept with a 50 year old. He's pretty sure that he won't do it any time soon, but he's never as convincing as I want him to be.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? A gem of truth that can be taken away? I'll tell you one thing. My friend who actually dated boys in high school did not deal with the ridiculous situations that I got myself into. And she still got to hold hands in the park, and received way more poetry than I did. That's about it.

Wait -- there's more. I should trust my husband a whole lot more (you hear that, Subconscious?). The commitment of marriage is worth far more than the fickle star-gazing of youth ever was.