When did you know? When life smacks you in the face, do you realize that you saw it coming all along?

I spent five years in an on-again/off-again relationship with a very successful lawyer. We lived 3000 miles apart most of the time, so it was good that he could afford to fly my poor student self around the country and world pretty much at whim. It also helped him as he was a pathological liar. He led many lives, and it took me years to unravel the truth.

But I was not surprised. You see from almost day one, I knew.

I knew the afternoon he came to the restaurant where I was working to ask me out for a dinner date. I was a cocky 19 year-old art student out on my own for the first time and he’d sat in my section a few weeks earlier. He asked me to dinner. I responded that lunch would be preferable because I knew. But then he picked me up in his white Porsche 911 and took me to Umberto’s. I knew, but I wavered.

We had five more dates before I packed in art school in disappointment and headed back home to face my mother’s interminable, “You can’t be a waitress all your life. When are you going pick something and stick with it?” He never did anything beyond kissing me goodnight; he was a perfect gentleman. I left in the mid-fall after six solid weeks of soul sucking west coast rain. I was in the middle of making new plans when I received his Christmas card a couple of months later. He wrote, “I fell in love with you the first time I saw you. I am doing business in New York these days, and I’d love to show you the city if you are interested.”

I was flattered, but I knew. I called to thank him for the lovely card, and I mostly declined the offer. I kept the door open a tad, but I knew.

While waiting for another school year to start, I worked in a new hotel. The young restaurant manager took a shine to me. We started dating, and he moved me from wait staff to bartender. There were lots of reasons for this move, but I knew. It became a 24/7 relationship—not at all my style. He coordinated our schedules to maximize our time together, and even when he was off shift, he sat at the end of my bar and watched, not at all pleased, at how I interacted with customers. I knew, but I didn’t have anything else to do while I was waiting for September to roll around. I let it pass, but I knew.

The first day back at school, I took the train in and expected to take it home. It was exhilarating to be back in school. At the end of the first day, my new friend Mike and I walked through the front doors of the Business building into the sunshine laughing and talking. He was waiting to drive me home. He walked rapidly towards us, and the look on his face told me what I already knew. He was following in his daddy’s footsteps.    

I ended it that weekend. In a dramatic flourish, he left his car outside my parent’s house that evening and disappeared until the next morning. I knew. When he returned obviously unscathed, my father who had barely met him more than once went out to speak to him. I never spoke to him again. I knew.

Later that year, even though I knew, I took up the lawyer on his offer to go to New York. I was feeling pressure to have a relationship; to tick another item off the list; not to be alone at Christmas. But I knew. This started years of lies and deceptions of staggering magnitude. An elegant room in the Grand Hyatt and a week of enjoying the high-life around the Big Apple can be pretty blinding to young eyes. I knew, but the waver became a full scale stumble into self-delusion.

That summer, I moved to Vancouver to live with the lawyer until school started again. I was there maybe three weeks before he was called out of town one weekend. I didn’t know he had a race horse that he co-owned with his ex-girlfriend’s brother. And I didn’t know what could make it so suddenly ill and near death. I knew that he had never mentioned horses before in any way shape or form. I knew that Yakima, Washington was not that far away, and I pretended to know why I couldn’t go.

When he returned, I don’t know why he left the motel receipt paid for with his ex-girlfriend’s MasterCard in the suitcase he left on our bedroom floor; the bag I dumped when I was looking to add clothes to my laundry loads. I called a friend and emptied out my side of the closet into the back of her TR6 with the promise not to return. But I knew.

This was just the beginning and far from the worst of the tangles he wove, and I knew; always I knew.

After finally extricating myself from that mess, I found myself still with that list full of life items. (liftems?) You know the ones; the one’s that start from childhood—education, job, car, spouse, house, children in some sort of order. I had the education, the car and the job. I had a decent apartment in Vancouver’s West end. I needed a guy, so I picked one with a good job, his desk was 10 feet from mine, and a good sense of humour. That he had a live in girlfriend was of no more importance to me than it seemed to be to him. I knew, but he was attainable, so I wavered. I convinced myself I loved him.

When we moved in together, I knew. When we visited his family at Christmas, I knew. Four years later, when, after a year of his unemployment, we moved back to my hometown, I knew. Every Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and birthday that passed without a sparkling commitment, I knew, and I cried. When I finally came home from a business trip and announced that I felt we were done, I knew. Two years later, when the house was finally sold, and all the discussions avoided and the boxes packed, he finally admitted it. He’d known all along too. Ten years gone; we both knew.

It wasn’t just relationships. When I landed that first big job in sales, I knew. And with every new sales job I landed, I knew, but I wavered because I needed the money. When my future harasser called me about a job, I knew instantly. But I hated where I was so bad, I wavered. When he invited me to accompany him on a sales trip across the country, I knew. But I needed a break from routine, so I wavered. I paid a big price for ignoring that one, but it set me in a new direction.

When I finally had the courage to change course, I knew I’d always known. Strangely enough, this knowing wasn’t age related. When I was about eight, my mother sent me to the store alone. As I approached the store on my bike, there was a car parked nearby, and two men stood and watched me as I rode past, and I knew. They were still there when I came out, and I knew. I rode like the devil to avoid them because I knew. I think it surprised them more than a little that I knew.

Even when I ignored what I knew, I never wavered so long that I ended up bolting from the altar at the last minute, but I did throw more than a couple of job opportunities into the bin in the middle of the second or third interview because the knowing was too loud.

So, it is this knowing that makes me wonder. Am I special to know? Is knowing something you are taught? Or is it the opposite? Is the knowing something we are taught to suppress? I think it is the latter. Hindsight is 20-20, but do you ever realize you knew all along? And when you realize that, do you listen to that little voice harder the next time?

I read people’s life stories here on OS. Some have no problem taking full responsibility for their choices, and they learn and change. These people, I understand. But others seem to make the same choices over and over and still, they seem unable to take any responsibility for their choices. They seem to learn nothing about why they made the choices they did. I try not to judge, but I know. And then I waver.   

When did you know?