I don’t know what inspired it, but I took a walk down memory lane last night.

I was remembering my 20s. They were odd, fun, dumb, strange, tiring, confusing and full of adventure. I was firmly rooted in the “old enough to know better, but young enough to still get away with it” camp.

I’d been dating a guy and spending quite a bit of time with him. He was in the market to buy a place, so we’d go condo hunting on the weekends, and had more than our fair share of dinner-and-a-movie nights. For the purpose of this story, we’ll call him Joe*. 

Walking into the office one Monday morning, I heard someone behind me in the elevator (who also knew Joe) ask another coworker if he’d heard the news. The news, it turned out, was that Joe had also been dating someone else, gone off to Vegas with her over the weekend and gotten married.

Hm. Alrighty then.

I think the thing that bummed me out the most wasn’t that it had happened, because I get that people have feelings for other people all the time and that those feelings can’t always be helped. It just bummed me out, given the time we’d spent together, that I didn’t have a heads up. Or rather, that I wasn’t worth a heads up. I wasn’t worth the truth, an explanation. To this day, I still can’t figure out how someone would think that just turning up married would be the better route to take; since that day, my guard is constantly up. I suppose a lot of things in this world don’t — and will never — make sense, no matter how much we try to think them to death.

They say that comedy equals tragedy plus time, and I was eventually able to see the comedy in what happened with him (and in what didn’t happen with me). Today, for the passing of time that often doesn’t make things less confusing but does bring enlightenment and a better, more productive way of thinking about things, I am thankful.

*Name changed to protect the not-so-innocent, but hey…I’m nice like that.