No one can tell you what drives some people to hurt the people they love. No one knows. People could maybe hazard wild guesses, but apart from that, it is up to the perpetrator to keep those secrets to themselves. When you're a child, you assume that adults do everything for a reason, when you're an adult, you assume the same thing of the older generation. And so, I had always known these people called 'adults' in my life. From the moment I was born they instructed me what to do; fed me, kept me clothed, took me to the park, and tried their best to instill some kind of morality into my being.
One such adult was my grandfather. At 88, he celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary with my grandmother when I must have been about 11. She sadly passed away a few years later, in the summer of 2006. And so, while she was alive and I was still very much a child, I saw their relationship purely through the eyes of a child. How simplistic. If only I could stay dowsed in that childhood ignorance, I might not think about people as I have come to realise them today. After my grandmother's death, her sisters stopped talking to my grandfather. Despite his best efforts, they just didn't let him back into their lives. When it came up in conversation, and I asked why, I didn't ever get a straight answer. My mother tried to phrase it as simply as she could, telling me that relationships were complicated, and that even though you love someone, when you confide in people 'they only hear the bad things'.
It wasn't until many years later, after hearing a phone call, that I heard of my grandfather's numerous affairs. Whenever my grandmother would go away, he would have other women in the house. It's not like you can hide an affair from seven children, so perhaps he didn't even try. I must admit, even now my ignorance of what has, and is still happening with my grandfather's 'needs', is still more present than not (and I prey to God it stays that way), for it is better to remain in the dark about things that you have so little control over, than to be clouted with an irreversible truth. Cheating is what it is, and I am pretty sure that my mother is not innocent of it - I even heard of one of my aunts having an affair.
Now, as I creep closer and closer to 20, I can't help but be constantly reflecting on the lessons that I have learned, or have yet to learn, about adult life. The truth remains - I have never cheated and never want to cheat, and the phenomenon of other people having affairs (people I once seemingly knew nothing about), is still a mystery to me, and I hope it stays that way. Ignorance is, as they say, bliss.
