Well, the following story is so complicated that I have been very hesitant to mention it here-plus there is a lot that I can’t really say at all which would do it a lot more justice-if you were to believe it all in the first place (hell I’m not even sure if I do). But I’ll try anyway…you can feel free to call me whatever epithets apply, and at this juncture I would probably agree with you. All I know is that I did what my conscience and muse suggested at the time, not knowing what it was that I apparently was dealing with, and thus must live with the consequences.
December of 2012 I decided to look up my first love, the only female I’ve ever fallen for, to be exact. She and I met when we were teens, and at the time hit it off great-we liked a lot of the same music, and would do spooky stuff like just go and play a game without verbalizing about it first, finish each other’s sentences, etc. With her I felt like a million bucks-she was bright, creative, inquisitive, and funny. Unfortunately, (A) I was a hopeless basket case in the rest of my life at the time, and (B) her immigrant parents were very strict with her and forbade any dating or such.
For about a month things finally picked up momentum after she had fought for some independence for herself as she got older, and we got physically affectionate at long last (nothing past 1st base tho). But my wounds and such eventually surfaced and she got to see just how broken I was, and then her dad noticed how close we were getting and laid the law down on my ass, telling me to steer clear of her, or else (and I completely wiped that from my memory banks).
We quickly drifted apart, I subsequently reinvented my life, and would idly wonder what she was up to during the intervening years. Once I walked into class at college, late/head down, plopped into the first chair near the door. 15 minutes I became convinced that she was in the class with me-turned to my right and there she was.
She then had gotten married, and we bumped into each other a few times afterwards. The first time my mom was with us when I met him, and she, being my mom and thus utterly unable to stop from saying whatever is on her mind, kept saying “Oh! He’s just like John!” over and over (no joke).
The second time they walked onto an elevator with me, and when I mumbled a hi, she immediately got extremely nervous. That was the last time I saw her…
…until during an idle moment one day in the fall of 2012 I decided to type her name into Google. And discovered a song that she had written (she was a singer-songwriter in her free time)-a song she had written about me. She had come across me in bed once while I was crying, you see-crying about her, to be exact, but she managed to get my depressed ass into the pool-5 minutes later I had completely forgotten what it was I had been blubbering on about. The lyrics were an exact match for this incident (and I got subsequent confirmation later), as well as an exact match for my hopeless psyche at the time-but she also gave me advice as to how to improve myself-turned out I had unwittingly followed said advice, to the letter. In the intervening years I had worked like crazy on healing myself and completely reinventing my life, the depression long gone, joy my constant companion.
So I decided to go to a concert she would be giving. Our reunion was cordial, but lacking any sparks (I decided to not worry about that and focus on the friendship side first). Her set tho was utterly enchanting. We parted on good terms, emails and phone #'s exchanged. I got one email from her, short and oddly formal if not stiffly so, then she stopped responding. I also got 2 of her CD’s, and long story short found a few more candidate songs (her hubbie performed on the 1st CD). I eventually broke down and emailed her with sincere thanks for the song I mentioned (trying to make it clear that I intended no obligations from that point on), and she remained silent for 6 months. Like I said I figured that people reconnect like this all the time, and I didn’t intend to put her on the spot, but I guess that is how it got received…
…because, when I tried one final email, she responded back and denied everything-what we had shared years ago, the song, everything. At first I was so taken aback by it I didn’t know what to do. I eventually decided to write her back, with the confirmation I had gotten (from her HS best friend) in hand, offering an honest friendship if she would just drop the nonsense. That was last June and I haven’t heard from her since.
Yes, I was a presumptuous jerk, foolishly thinking we could just simply pick up where we had left off 30 years earlier-but of course it doesn’t work like that, does it? I don’t know if I had kept my tongue (I guess I inherited that from my mom) if things would have gone completely differently and she would have eventually opened up to me about it all. Live and learn I guess.
