Hi Christine!
Thank you for having me this week. I’ve enjoyed reading your posts as we’ve meandered along on our blog tour. Lots of good reads out there now on my TBR too!
You asked me what would like to have known as a teen that you did not know. A lot. If I knew then what I know now about so many things I would have lived my entire life quite different from what I did.
I think what I would change or wish I knew centers around my mother and the man that I not only fell in love with but who was, until recently, the barometer I measured every other romantic relationship in my life with.
My mother was a narcissistic (she met the DSM criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder), manipulative histrionic personality who believed that lying by omission was just fine if it kept her in control of everyone’s life. She’d feign support by saying, if I decided on something “Well if you really think that’s the thing to do…” in a tone that implied it was the most ludicrous thing she’d ever heard.
So, when at the end of a New Years Eve party shortly after I turned 16 one of the guys there asked me out and her immediate response was “you aren’t going out with that creep are you?” My response was “that’s the man I’m going to marry.” We did go out a few days later and started to see each other. Our romance, for what it was, continued until he volunteered for the Army. He was 21 at the time and while a brilliant artist (which he is to this day) and in art school, off he went. In today’s world my mother would have definitely used our age difference and that I was still a minor, to get her way, but somehow she missed that. I entered my senior year with a boyfriend preparing to go to war – I wrote him faithfully every day, waited for his few and far between phone calls and dreamt of a future with him.
On a train to Washington, D.C. over Thanksgiving weekend he asked me to marry him and I said yes. It was the day of my life. In many ways I still feel that that was the happiest day, my dream of marrying a man I loved, of being a wife and mother, was right there. In the course of our conversations he suggested that because he’d be overseas for the first part of our marriage I should go to college for at least a year. I hadn’t thought about college – after all, I was going to get married, be a wife, a mother and have a little part-time job where I could be mindless while I planned our dinner for that evening. But he suggested it, so I applied.
Now in high school I wasn’t the best student. I had an undiagnosed learning disability and the guidance counselor wasn’t interested in looking beyond the fact that I have an extremely high IQ and just needed to apply myself. He suggested I attempt the local community college because, in his words, I probably wouldn’t make it there so there was no reason to try for a university. Well when I learned that if you went to one of the college meet and greets you could get out of class, off I went. One of the people talked about a local university so I applied. A few days later I mentioned it to my dad and that I had an interview. Well dang if my dad didn’t take off from work to go with me! It was huge to him that I was even thinking about it. While we were sitting with the Dean of the drama department my dad, ever so casually, mentioned that I not only sewed all my own clothes but designed them as well. In fact, he said, I made the three piece, hand tailored suit I was wearing there in the interview. The Dean asked if I was interested in the school, of course I said yes, and he picked up the phone and called admissions. Apparently they had a costume department but pretty much no one majored in costuming – they needed me. I left the campus that day with my admissions letter.
My guidance counselor was stunned. My peers who had been waiting for months to hear from colleges were stunned. I thought it was a great joke because I was going to get married, have children and work a mindless part-time job.
I started college September of that year, the reality of it not hitting me till I was actually sitting in a classroom. Suddenly it wasn’t so funny anymore. It got even less funny when the man I loved cut off communication with me and someone sent his younger sister to get his ring back from me. It was devastating and for a long time I was mired in depression, wondering what went wrong.
Every man I dated from then on had aspects of what I thought I’d lost in this man. The first man I got involved with was born on the same date and year as my soldier—12 hours apart. He too was an artist, but no where near as talented. I dated military men, artists, Aries were very popular with me because he’s an Aries. I measured each man I dated by what I thought I saw in this one man.
Fast forward to 2007 and I was looking for some ideas for cover art for a book and I stumbled on some drawings on line. The style was so distinctive so I looked further at the art work – it was my high school boyfriend! Taking a deep breath I emailed him and he wrote me back telling me he’d often thought about me and what had happened to me. He was married, lives in Virginia and is the art director for a security firm. He also loves and has cats. A little over a year ago his wife died and he was and is devastated – she was truly his soul mate. In the course of our conversations since essentially finding each other again I’ve come to see him as he really is. He is an incredibly talented and sensitive artist. He’s had some art shows and I truly wish his work had a much wider base because he is brilliant at what he does. His paintings evoke so much emotion. He is creative, sensitive, intelligent and he is one of the best friends I could ever have. As a friend he is truly a gift in my life.
We would never have lasted as husband and wife. Our personalities would have never meshed long enough for us to have made it in a marriage. I met some really great guys along the way and fell in love with one – a Marine – who except for being military was nothing like my artist. There is a huge difference from being in love and being in love with the idea of love.
If I could go back and talk to my younger self I would tell her to ignore our mother—she was a jealous, manipulative windbag who didn’t deserve the time of day. Go ahead and go to college and enjoy the drama department, but pick a more substantial major. And be open to the idea of marrying someone who isn’t our artist.
Of course, had my life not taken that path, I wouldn’t have met my Marine.
Or would I?
A Bit About Regan:
Regan Taylor
From earliest childhood Regan was an avid reader and upon discovering Alexander Dumas and Charles Dickens she was hooked on books that carried the reader away to a different time and place. Preferring the quiet of her room and a good book she traveled far beyond those four walls.
Her first foray into writing, aside from tedious English assignments in high school and college, were two non-fictions intended to be of assistance to people with disabilities. Both were a struggle and convinced Regan she was most certainly not a writer. She did continue reading anything and everything she could get her hands on and in 2003 “discovered” reviewing with Love Romances reviews. From her first reviews she became involved in interviewing various authors as part of the site’s interview feature.
When her “day” job with a local police department in Northern California became far too burdensome due to internal management, rather than escape into her reading, she began to write. Much to Regan’s surprise, the words flowed and eventually led to Spell Across Time: The Pentacle which was released in February 2007.
Regan's Newest From Awe Struck Publishing:
Mistaken Bride
Regan Taylor
Hastening west with the information that will clear his brother's wife of murder, the last thing Deputy U.S. Marshal Kendrick Parker expects when he arrives in St. Louis is to come face to face with the notorious Black Bette Barclay. Knowing the San Francisco Marshal's office has a warrant for her arrest, Kendrick arranges to bring the dastardly woman as far as his brother's home in Adler Creek, Wyoming where he will turn Bette over to fellow lawmen. To avoid bringing undue concern to his fellow wagon train travelers, Kendrick concocts the story that Bette is his wife, Mandy.
Journeying to St. Louis to take a position as a school teacher the last Amanda Davis expected was to be arrested for crimes she did not commit. Well almost the last thing. The absolute last thing she expected was to be loaded on to a wagon in a train heading west and told she must pose as the wife of the too good looking Marshal. Prim, proper and a tad prickly she quickly learns nothing irritates the Marshal more than using her extensive vocabulary. While her verbal jabs tend to mostly irritate Kendrick, he cannot help but notice how Amanda is with the children on the wagon train, taking time each night to give them lessons.
After nearly drowning in an icy river, Kendrick takes ill and is forced to stop at a homestead to heal. He soon realizes he has the wrong woman...or is it the right one?
AVAILABLE NOW:
http://tinyurl.com/4yvbd6p
