I lost my way that night — and it seems I never found my way back

By David McElroy · August 24, 2019

It was around 4 in the morning. My head was spinning and I was confused. I didn’t recognize anything around me as I drove these dark residential streets. I was trying to get home, but I was lost.

It’s been 11 years, but the emotions and the confusion are still crystal clear. It had been easy to get to the place where I had met this woman to talk, but when I finally left — eight or nine hours later — I mistakenly started down the wrong road and became dreadfully lost.

I have no idea why that confusing night is on my mind right now. An hour or so ago, I noticed a horrible ball of emotions in the pit of my stomach. Before I knew it, I was seeing fragmentary images from that night — and I was feeling those terrible emotions.

Fear. Guilt. Shame. Loneliness. Confusion.

Getting lost that night as I left is deeply symbolic of what I did to myself that weekend. I came on a straight and clear road to meet someone that night, but I made a wrong turn and got lost. In some ways, I’ve been lost ever since.

I was meeting a woman that night to break the news that I was going to marry someone else. I had dated her in the past, but I had broken things off with her to date the other woman. She had promised to wait for me to come back to her. Even though I knew she was wrong for me, it felt good to be wanted by both of them.

I was happy with the other woman. She was brilliant, funny, curious, competent and attractive. She made me feel alive in ways that the woman I met that night never could. When we agreed to marry, I felt happy, even though I still had some doubts.

All I had to do was break the news to the woman who had been waiting and hoping.

I feel guilty when I can’t give people what they want from me, and that’s the way I felt that night. She begged and pleaded and cried. She asked me to give her another chance. She couldn’t give up — and I couldn’t just firmly tell her the decision was made and leave her behind.

I didn’t love her. I wasn’t going to love her. But I couldn’t bring myself to do what I needed to do and let her just get over it in time.

I made the worst possible decision. I backed out of marrying the other woman. I hurt her badly. She waited for me for awhile and then gave up. The woman who had begged for another chance eventually realized she would never really have my heart — and she gave up.

Because I tried to sit on the fence and avoid the decision, I lost the woman who could have been a perfect match — and I also lost the other choice, too.

These emotions I’m feeling tonight aren’t about either of these women. Each one married someone else in time. I assume each one of them is happy. I haven’t spoken to either of them in a long time.

But I can’t get over the wrenching realization that I blew up my future by my unwillingness to do what I knew I needed to do.

I eventually got home that night, but it was a confusing trip through neighborhoods which felt utterly unfamiliar. I felt lost and alone and confused.

I feel as though I’ve been on that lost and confused journey for 11 years now. It’s as though I made a wrong turn that night and I’ve never made it home. I feel as though I’m a lonely soul traveling alone through unfamiliar territory and there’s nobody around.

There was one year — about six months of that year — when I thought I had found my way out of the confusing fog. Maybe it was just the mirage of a lost traveler who sees what he needs to see. For that short time, I felt as though everything made sense. I was back on a straight and clear road.

But then I was in darkness again.

We build our own prisons. I didn’t know it then, but by refusing to accept the love I was offered — by someone I loved at the time — I started building my own prison. I hurt her and then I ultimately hurt myself. And I’ve been in this lonely and solitary prison ever since.

My emotions tonight aren’t about either of those women. They’re about a variety of things.

Regret. Loneliness. Hurt. Need. And fear.

I fear I’m stuck on this lonely road. I fear I’ll never find my way. And I fear I’ll never have the love I need. I fear I will spend the remaining decades of my life wondering why I got myself lost that weekend.

We all pay a terrible price for some decisions we make. For 11 years, I’ve paid a terrible price for what I did (and didn’t do) that weekend.

I’m still lost in that confusion — and I see no end in sight to the nightmare I started with that wrong turn.

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I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

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After I wrote last night about being happy, I thought of an old song that mirrored what I was feeling. After listening to the entire album, I found it remarkable how well the emotions of that music match my own heart at this point in my life. Bob Bennett’s “Matters of the Heart” came out while I was in college. Even after all these years, it holds up really well, and you can listen to the entire album on YouTube. The specific song which matched my feelings last night was “Madness Dancing,” but I still find every song on the album to be strong with the exception of the eighth and ninth. (The song about his parents, called “1951,” is especially poignant.) In fact, the opening and closing songs paint a picture of my heart at its best now in these lines: “A light shining in this heart of darkness, A new beginning and a miracle, Day by day the integration of the concrete and the spiritual.” It’s old music that you’ve probably never heard, but it means a lot to me.

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