Steve, my Sunshine

"Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted"

Original post on 30 TRUTHS

The truth is .........I never want to let anyone go , and I drift ........a lot.

I remain friends with most of my friends and family and when I don't it isn't because I didn't try.........and it usually ends in more like a "rift" than a "drift."    I have "drifted" in some relationships because of my gypsy ways and some of the relationships I had / lost because of my movement if you get my "drift."

Steve M.  I didn't meet him first, my husband did.  He was actually enlisted with him in either boot camp or "AIT" I am not sure which but I met him and his wife very shortly after I moved to GA.   

I was still fat and my self-esteem was in the toilet, you see I went from 98 lbs soaking wet to 162 lbs when I gave birth to my first child.  I went from a girl that had trouble gaining weight to a horse.   I was young, 18 years old and I still believed almost any thing that anyone told me......... including "your ass is as big as a side of a barn and you won't ever lose it , so you might as well get rid of all your old clothes."    this comment was told to me not by an enemy or someone that I didn't know but straight out of the mouth of someone that was supposed to love me.........that was "family."   I did exactly what that person advised me to do, I gave them all away to a girl named, "Sue" that I met in GA too.  A tiny girl who had never had children and her sister - inlaw (whose name escapes me)   gladly took my wardrobe.

Steve.  He and his wife were there in GA and hung out with my husband and I.   They played with my baby and most of all made me feel good about myself.  His wife was named, "peggy" and appeared to be very much in love with Steve.  They appeared to be friends more than they appeared to be spouses.  There was very little affection shown between them publicly but they both showed other people public affection readily.  Namely......... to me.

Both of them were very nice to me......... I became attached to their friendships, they didn't know the "skinny" me before and were amazed at how I was losing my weight on a daily basis.  I was eating 1x a day, drinking unsweetened Kool Aid and played badmitton everyday in my backyard with the neighbors (sue and family) every chance I got.  I stayed outside in GA it was so warm (in every way)

compared to the cold VA that I came from.  

Steve.  He came from New York.   He and his wife were high school sweethearts, they married before he enlisted in the U.S. Army.   She moved to GA to be with him, but she readily admitted she didn't like it here.  She didn't like being away from her roots, her family , the roads she knew etc etc.   She couldn't wait until he got his orders so they could move again.  But Steve?  never complained, he enjoyed the warm sunshine and basked in it.  He always had a warm word to share with not only her, who he reassured constantly but everyone around him. Namely Me.

One day I returned home to my trailer with my newborn daughter , now almost back to my original weight, after going out to buy some new clothes at the thrift store, as I had given away all of the clothes that had once fit me, remember?  I remember this so vividly because Steve always said things like ,  "you should go buy yourself something nice, you deserve it" and offered to give me the money when I would retort something about not being able to afford to.  Ya see, we didn't collect WIC or FOOD STAMPS etc that we qualified for on an E2 military salary because we were always of the thought that we would be taking from someone else that really needed it.    We didn't realize and didn' t have anyone to tell us that it didn't work that way.   I am glad now that we didn't know better because those tough , tight times taught me how to make it, the hard way.    I never took Steve up on his offer to do this but when he did offer it warmed me inside just as if I had stepped out into that Georgia sun.  I don't think that anyone ever had made me feel "deserving" in my life.


It was that ............that drew me to adore my friendship with Steve , more so than his wife Peggy.  I liked her .. But Steve and I connected.  

Steve.   That day I found a cooler and a note on my door I was crushed.  You had been located and left to some state in the middle of the country. How in the world could KANSAS need you more than I did?  I read your note over and over again, you had come to say good-bye to me and I wasn't home.  Your words in the note I never shared with anyone..........until now............. how could I have missed it?  How could I have known that you wished you could have told me face to face that you loved me?  I am not sure if knowing that fact would have made me feel or act differently towards him or not........ if this fact would have ruined the images that I have carried around all of these years or what.  I do know that he kept this information to himself until there was no way he or "we" could act on it.  He promised to get in touch when they settled in and keep in touch but that day never came.........

It was the wrong time and place and wasn't meant to be......... obviously...... but I always thought in my mind "what if?"   No I didn't want to let you go....... 

we just "drifted."


My daughter now lives in a military town and she has met some wonderful friends there.  The funny thing is...........one of them.................reminds me so much of Steve.......... Steve M.   I may have even caught myself staring a couple of times, not AT HIM , but through him.