A Lifetime Special Part - III
Love is fascinating. It’s less of an emotion and more of an ability. A skill set emerges after lots of practice. One of those skills is discretion. For example, when she told me she had divorced her husband of ten years after he had an affair with another woman, I did not say “Did he come home with gonorrhea and crabs?”
No, the mission now was the less known about her the better. Which is sad. But I haven’t spoken yet of the small hurts over the years that accumulated. And they did, and weren’t dealt with immediately. Small but painful digs in letters: me becoming secondary, vestigial. It’s those things we don’t talk about when we think if we try just a little harder we might be able to make it better.
It was wrong not to fix it back then, but we were twenty-year-olds. With fewer skills and lots of pride. And ambition. Her would-be profession, you see. There could be no distraction or deviation.
So at this reunion, after a few small acts of kindness toward her which went unnoticed, I needed to withdraw for sanity’s sake so I interacted with her as little as possible throughout the several days of the reunion. I wasn’t about to be re-decapitated.
She was blithe and dismissive of the past, as if that were a virtue. I felt I’d been compartmentalized. Her curiosity about me as a footnote was a little painful. After grieving for years over this I’m down to the last three elements: anger, depression, and acceptance in heavy rotation.
So much is lost on her. Lost.
And now she was gone — this was one true thing.
It is difficult to accept “gone.” I’m not Catholic but it may be wise to cozy up to the Patron Saint of Lost Causes.
The burden is the weight of memory. Indelible. Undeniable. Disremembered? Did she make a choice or simply fade? When was that choice made, when and why was the fade begun? I don’t know. And I won’t know. EVER.
It’s hard knowing that I won’t know something.
Over the years I’ve made several efforts at re-engagement as a friend, but I’ve been kept at a distance. She hasn’t told me where she lives — even after asking for her address and phone number what I received was the location of her business. There can be only guessing at what remains.
One true thing — I loved her with all I had.
And that’s all I need to know.
Mayan ruins indeed. And only the tip of the pyramid.
dailybridgerton
yousharknotpass
titsay
ellievsbear