Does this make me a bad person?

Ok, now that I've got a little touch of blog fever, let me lay some other general nonsense out.  See I normally don't blog (even on MySpace) because I really never figured I had anything all that interesting (at least to strangers) to say.  I still don't, but it seems like a good way to get things off your chest.  Plus it saves space on the Off Topic board.  :D

Back in January of 02 I was a different person in a different situation. No, I haven't entered witness protection (of course if I had, its not like I could tell you here) but the following 4 months from Jan 02 changed my life dramatically...and a bit horribly.  For starters, I was a good 60 pounds lighter than I am now.  In January 02 I was engaged to a woman who I loved more than words can describe.  I trusted her implicitly, I wanted to have children with her...the works.  Know that saying "Same planet, different worlds"?  Apparently that was the case here.

We had been together for 3 years, engaged and living together for a year and a half.  I had my son from my previous marriage, she had her daughter from her's.  I loved her daughter as if she were my own.  The only hangup seemingly at that point of Jan 02 was that she wanted to start having children, and pronto.  I was all for it, but I'm a bit old-fashioned and I wanted to get married first.  Once we were married, let the procreation begin!  Also at this point the company I had been with for almost 12 years, Helene Curtis, had announced awhile back that it was shutting down all Chicago operations and moving its business elsewhere.  We actually had been acquired by Unilever (note to all: If Unilever buys your company, get your resume warmed up) so it was them closing us, but nonetheless I was about to be unemployed.

So back to January.  We were renting a duplex with an option to buy (once married) in a small Chicago neighborhood on the South Side.  The furnace went out and our landlord hired Bobo the retard to fix it.  Seriously, it took him over a week.  Meantime we had no heat and my fiancee took her daughter and stayed at her parents' house which was about 5 minutes away.  She wanted me to stay overnight there with her (I got home from work at @ 2:30am) and I would have, but Bobo left a bunch of space heaters going at our place to keep the pipes in the floor from freezing, and I didn't want to leave them unattended.  So eventually the furnace got fixed...but she was still at her mom's.  I was working a part-time job in the mornings and would usually give her a call at her work when I got into my morning job.  The one day I called her and it suddenly occured to me...so I asked her simply "Did you leave me?".  Silence for a moment, and then simply "Yes".

I'll spare the details of the next several years, because frankly its too depressing and it would require way too much typing...plus I may need blog material down the road.  ;)

Lets just say that I was massively fucked up.  I couldn't even date, I wanted to be alone.  All these years since I have carried a lot of emotional baggage and a lot of pain.  It was was worse than my divorce.  I obsessed over her a lot internally (yes, guys do that too...well, I do anyway) and was so depressed for over 5 years it almost ruined me entirely.  And the thought of even talking to a woman was hard, let alone going out with one and risking the same thing happening again.

So earlier this year (things took a bigtime turn for the better in general life quality about a year ago...again, maybe another blog about that later) I was being pathetic and googling her name.  See, all these years I'd had this vision of her being all happy and everything without me.  I had figured she probably left me for someone else, had a great husband, a great job, more kids, the works.  Plus I missed her daughter terribly.  So I was googling her name, and what do you know?  I found it...an online photo album even!  Now she was always big with pictures.  She had boxes of them from the years and was constantly taking new ones.  I figured this was a natural fit, a way to show her pics with the least amount of effort lol.

So then I'm thinking...better not click on that link, dude.  I knew fully well (in my head) that if I clicked that link I would get a glimpse of her last 5 years, which compared to my last 5 years would be puppies and sunshine.  I knew I would see pictures of her husband (who would be a huge upgrade over me), her daughter that I missed, and probably 2 or 3 other kids...all smiling, all happy.  All mocking my misery and pain from the last 5 years.

So of course, I clicked on the link and opened the photo album.

First thing I saw was her daughter.  She's 9 now, all grown and so beautiful.  Looks just like her mom, really.  Then I saw her sister, her bitch-ass brother, and...wait...who is that...wha...

She was huge.  Enormous.  She had gained easily as much weight as I had, if not more.  No other kids in the pics (they were recent), no signifigant other.  And from what I could see, she still lived with her mom.  I would say her parents, but I did a little digging since I didn't see her dad anywhere and discovered her parents had since divorced.  Woah.

So let me get this straight...aside from the pain normally associated with the breakup of a relationship like this, everything else I put myself through was...bullshit?  At that very moment it was like a giant cloud lifted from me, like all this weight lifted from my shoulders.  She was EASILY as miserable as I had been, if not more so because she didn't get along well with her family and there she was living with them.  Plus then going through all the fun of your parents getting divorced?  Oh wow. 

So that brings in the title of the blog...does this make me a bad person?  Its not so much that I'm revelling in her misery, its just that I finally have closure I guess.  I now know that she was hurt too, and she's been miserable too.  I even started dating again a few months ago (didn't go anywhere, but its a start) and I feel...well, I feel a lot better.  And the thing is, had we still been together and had she put on that weight I wouldn't have cared.  I mean, perhaps from a health standpoint but as far as it affecting my feelings for her?  Not even a little. 

So just because I'm a vengeful bastard, I registered at that photo site and left a comment on one of the pics of her daughter.  No cute screen names, no alias'...just "Tom".  She would know who it was.  The comment was true enough, that her daughter had gotten so big (she was always kind of a runt when we were together) and was so beautiful.  But I wanted her to know that I now knew.  That I had seen her, seen her misery, and that I just knew.

The photo album has been since taken offline.  :)

Anyway, thats my latest little story.