Starting Over

After two ex wives, one son and a couple of long term relationships I realized I had been single for nearly 15 years and had learned to be pretty happy that way. I had a decent job making above average income. Over my career in sales and project management I had managed to visit most of the United States, Canada, Mexico, England, Germany, Switzerland, Venezuela many of them more than once. After my last long term relationship ended I decided that I wanted a part time job to occupy my free time...something unusual and totally different. Well, I ended up working in one of the biggest nightclubs on the east coast as a "bouncer". Yes, size does matter ! At six foot and 240 pounds with the right clothes and attitude I am able to intimidate small childred and most drunken adults.
To say this time was interesting and fun would be an understatement and I doubt you will ever see all the stories I can tell here on this blog.
At this time I had quite a rep for lovin and leavin em.....I was at a great age for meeting divorced women whose kids were grown like mine and were free to play.
And then this girl named Mary came to work as a waitress in the restaurant side of the club.
I didn't think anything about it, I gave her a few pieces of advice on how to work the system when she substituted in the coat room...we chatted a few times. Nothing unusual, she was younger but at the time I guess I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have...you'll understand as you read further.
One night, I subbed as a bartender during the night and she was the waitstaff....we hung around at the bar and never had the first customer on that Wednesday night. On a whim and trying to be "cool" I put on entirely too much cologne on a not so disguised trip to my car and in the end we went out for dinner after we closed the club at 10 PM.
She was 23 and I was 45 at that time.....Only later , much later did it dawn on me just how much of a gap that could be and what it would mean for the future of our family......