Tolerate

Last night I went out with some friends that were in town just for the night. Rod and Don. Now, let me back up... I just know Rod and met Don for the first time last night. I met Rod through my work. I'm an assistant manager for a resturant/bar in town. We are located right next to a hotel. Needless to say, we get a lot of travelers in to eat drink and be merry. Well, Rod happened to be stuck in this little town for about 3 months because of his job. His "home-away-from-home" was the hotel across the parking lot. Rod came in at least 5 nights a week while he was here. Hey, we have great food, drinks and hell we are just plain cool people. So, of course we all got to know Rod pretty well. Great guy, smart guy and loads of fun. He is married and has two kids. Now, during the time he graced us with his pressence, home life wasn't looking so good. You'd only catch glimpses of it, he was pretty good about dealing with it on his own. I could get some out of him, sometimes when I was bartending and he was there and we were slow we would just get talking about stuff. Me and my boyfriend (now the ex) and him and his wife... blah blah blah. He had good insight and I was an ear for him. During this time I could see him struggling with cheating on his wife. Now, that sounds funny to say... but first I've been in this business way to long and secondly, we are right by a hotel. It is a very interesting spot to be at. A hotel bar (kinda) that is hugely popular with the townfolk also. We are quessentially the neighborhood great place to be at. Good food, good people and alcohol! Perfect! & with fresh faces all the time added to the mix. I've always been amazed at how close we get to the travelers. Most are here for a few days, weeks or months. We tend to become their second home. It feels good to us and to them. Many many return year after year and we all remember them or we remain in contact with them after they leave. Now, it is also fun to watch the different types of personalities that come in. You definitly see the married guys looking for a "good time". You see the young single ones looking to nail anything they can get their hands on. You see the ones that need acceptance. You see the ones that just need to be somewhere because they are lonely by themselves. You see the ones looking for a distraction. You also see the ones that are the nice average joe that just goes along with life. What I always find interesting and what always happens is that you can watch those nice average joes change before your eyes. Case in point... Rod. Now, I don't mean change into something else, what I mean is you can watch them loosen up and have fun. And, slowly they start to think about their life and where they are in it, and how they feel about it. Suddenly, they are having fun again. Meeting different people and doing something different. Breaking out of the everyday mold that they live in. They are stimulated. In Rods case, he started hanging out with us alot. After we would close down, we'd take him with us to the other bars and then sometimes he'd end up going to someones house for breakfast after a long night of drinking. I personally only went out with him and everyone else about 5 times. But, he hung out with my boss and her friends more than that. A girl can tell usually if someone is "interested" in them, and I honeslty felt that all I had to do, or my boss had to do is give him the go ahead. He started to let down his guard, and if a cute girl would come by while we were out, he'd make a comment or whatever. No big deal! We would all laugh, hell we were all "just the guys" hanging out. She (my boss) and I started to pick up that they (Rod and his wife) werent' doing so hot. Now, both of us have had an affair with a married or "taken" man before. By our choice. But, neither one of us wanted to "do that" with Rod. Rod was tall attractive smart and nice. Perfect, too perfect. I was very attracted to him, and so was she... but we were the good girls this time and decided that we weren't going to go there with him. He had never cheated on his wife before. We were not going to be the selfish people we knew we could be. Both of us had not been that type of person for a long time. We also knew all the shit that goes with an affair, the guilt... the shame... the lust... the paranoia... the anxiety.... the naughtiness... and so on. We didn't do it. I purposly kept myself from hanging out too much, and she ended up on his last night here telling him that he didn't want to do that. That he didn't want to live with that guilt the rest of his life. He agreed. Well, to make this hugely long story a little longer... Rod ended up coming back after about a month for a meeting yesterday and he brought his friend down so they could golf a bit and hand out with us. So, of course we all are still friends and he came to the bar to eat, drink and be merry while in town.

Okay, sooo I'm getting tired.... I'm going to finally get to my point of the story.

So after drinks at work, and then moving on to another bar... Rod asked me if me and (whats-his-name) are still together and I said no. He started to drill as of why, and I told him that we (meaning both Rod and I) knew (and had talked about) that we (ex and me) were not a true item. It wasn't ever meant to be. And I asked him about his relationship. He said that he was going to tolerate it. I said why? He said that if he divorced, it would cost him about 300,000.000. I said so the money matters more than your happiness?

now I'm not so stupid as to think that if I had to pay that amount of money to someone that it wouldn't make me freak out, choke, puke or make me want to shoot myself

But, I am an optimistic to a degree in thinking that "there just has to be a way" to make it all work out.

He said no. But that if he can tolerate it, than why not stay. I, of course, argued that he wasn't really happy. His soul wasn't happy. He was just going to be content. He said not content, but he was going to tolerate it. So I sat there a bit, and finally said to Don "it must just be my age". He said it was. See, the idea of tolerating something that isn't me or tolerating something that doesn't make me "soul" happy is something that I don't want to fatham. But, that is just my age and my quest for happiness. I realized that I tolerate a job I hate. I tolerate people that I don't particually like. I tolerate a town I don't like.

I really don't want to just Tolerate life. I want to live it, and love everything and everyone in it with all of me. Wonder if I'll ever find it.
Is it just my age that hopes for a rosy future? Am I blind?