WARNING: this is a long one. If you have the patience to wade through all this muck, you’re probably a better person than I am.
Flashback to Fall, 1997. I was just about to start my second year in a master’s program, and my roommate (Sean) and I were hard up for a place to live. Our lease had run out a couple of months before, and a friend of ours kindly let us take his apartment for the interim, because he was, for all intents and purposes, living with his girlfriend in her apartment. But his lease was running out as well, so we had to find a place to live, and fast. We heard that the languages department was having a hard time filling slots in the German House, and since we were both German speakers, we decided to give it a shot. Now, Sean and I were not in a German Master’s program, but we filled out our applications, promised to attend German classes (on top of everything else,) and were accepted. Quite a relief, but Sean was flying back to New England just before the start of school to see his family, and would not be available to move. I agreed to move his stuff as well as mine. I arrived a day early, so no one else was around, and I moved our stuff the whole frickin’ day. By the end of the day, I was bone tired, and I didn’t have the energy to shower, much less to make up a bed, so I just flopped on my mattress and went to sleep.
The next morning, I was awakened by the sound of the door opening, and a gasp. I looked around, and there was Lisa. I had heard that we would have at least one very attractive female roommate (there were 6 of us in the house,) but I instantly fell in love. She was gorgeous. Blond hair, clear blue eyes, an unbelievable body, and a smile that could make me go weak in the knees.
She hastily apologized for barging in, and closed the door. I got up, combed my hair, put on some clothes, and went out to the kitchen to meet my new roomie. The first thing I saw was her boyfriend. Shit. Massive, mean-looking guy named Ben. As it turned out, this was a mistaken impression, as Ben was really a very kind, warm guy (again, shit. Why couldn’t he have been a Neanderthal?). We all talked for a bit, and I got the impression that they were absolutely devoted to each other. Easy come, easy go. I resolved that that door of opportunity was closed.
Our other roommates moved in shortly thereafter. Without exception, the three of them were lunatics. I mean unbearable. As a defense mechanism, Sean, Lisa, and I started hanging out together a lot. Since I determined early on that Lisa was staunchly unavailable, I relaxed and we became very good friends. We’d do all sorts of things together. One of my most vivid memories was on one occasion when I was playing guitar. I was concentrating on the fretboard, because it was a difficult piece. I was apparently making a pained face, because I looked up and realized that Lisa had the exact same expression on her face. She was unconsciously empathizing with me or something. Hell, maybe not. Take all this with a grain of salt. It could very well be that I’m looking back with rose-colored hindsight (mixed metaphor, yes. But you get my drift.) Anyhow, it made an impression. In short, I thought it was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen.
OK. You’re supposed to have the impression that I really liked her at this point. Moving on… 
At the end of the year, when I was graduating, I got a job in Washington, DC, working with World Wildlife Fund as a contracted consultant. I helped write a book for them. Well, because we had become such good friends, Lisa and I stayed in more or less constant contact. My long-distance bills were awful. We shared a lot of close conversation, so when her fiance (Ben. Yes, they were going to get hitched by this time.) dumped her, she called me to tell me. I didn’t do or say anything stupid. I was just a good friend to her. She was hurt badly, and I felt terrible for her. I sympathized and commiserated and comforted. I had absolutely no dark plans or ulterior motives at the time.
Much later on, as I was winding up my consultancy with WWF, and she was graduating, there was a bit of a different kind of tension in our conversations, and I liked it. Finally, very hesitantly, she broached the subject that she would like to see me on a deeper-than-friendship basis. Her actual words were, “Do you ever think about maybe, I dunno, dating me? NotthatI’mpressuringyouoranythingbecausewe’regoodfriendsandIdon’twannascrewthatup.”
My response was a snort of utter disbelief. “Do I ever think about dating you? How about constantly, ever since I met you?”
I was absolutely ecstatic. I was floored. It was finally going right for once! We were both free and clear. We cared for each other, and, and, and, oh my GOD! What an opportunity! We got all mushy and gross then, and over the next few days, we talked constantly. I wanted to touch her, hold her, and kiss her so badly. But she was 800 miles away, in Alabama.
I was a fool in love. I finished up the project in DC, and instead of looking for more work in the DC area (as would have been the prudent thing to do), I promptly moved back to Alabama. To try to abbreviate just a bit, when I got back, it fell apart. I was back for a month, and she moved to Texas, to live with her folks. It’s not that we fought or anything, but she was unresponsive. We moved too goddamned fast. I moved back to Bama too goddamned fast. It freaked her out or something, because after she left, I couldn’t get her to talk to me. Scratch one girlfriend, and worse, scratch one friend. I was devastated. I had thought that I could be happy forever with her. It took me a year to even want to try to start going out with someone else. Anyhow, I was stranded in Montgomery, Alabama, without any damned money, and nothing to show for the fact that I went out on a limb and moved across the friggin’ country for what I thought was love. It took me a while to put the pieces back together and put Lisa behind me. It still hurt badly when I heard that she was engaged again. I concocted all sorts of wild schemes, then carefully, carefully stepped back from the abyss. I had lost her. No getting around that.
Then I met the girl I’m seeing now. She’s wonderful. She’s got a smile that lights up the dark, and she loves me. I love her too. We’ve been seeing each other for a year now, and I’m still delighted every time I see her. She’s intelligent, she’s beautiful, and she doesn’t mind when I go off on some idiotic tirade about ecology, conservation, religion, or the human stupidity I find so ubiquitous (I never said I was a ray of sunshine on a field of daisies. I’m a moody sumbitch.) She doesn’t care that I’m moody. She loves me anyway.
So, after all that tiresome introductory material, here’s the crux of the story. I found several undeveloped rolls of film the other day. I took them to be developed, and when I got them back, who do you think was in there? That’s right. Lisa, in her pajamas, combing her hair, looking beautiful. One picture, and I almost cried again. Goddamn it, I’ve paid my dues! I thought I was past all this. My heart still hurts every time I look at it.
There’s not a thing I can do about it, though. Lisa got married in August, and I love my current girlfriend. It would be totally unfair of me to unload this garbage on her and take her for an emotional ride. But it hurts.
I just have no idea what to do, or how to feel, or what to think. I guess I’ll just get rid of the picture, and try to forget her all over again.
I know, this is truly mundane and pointless, but I needed to see it in writing, to get it off my chest. Sorry.