Sometimes I am so touched and surprised by people.......
I received an email yesterday. Attached to it was the message below. Normally I don't post everything that gets sent to me but this message touched me in a profound way. I think my friends and family can now see this website is my sort of personal therapy and desire to have some sort of legacy. By posting all this stuff I have re-connected with some old friends. It has also caused me to understand a different point of view of my own personal history, more succinctly, looking at the wake my own life has left. Time and distance illustrates why we don't fully understand our actions and their effect on others. Over Thanksgiving I ran into my first "love", and I finally had the opportunity to let her now how much I appreciated our time together and the lasting effect it has had on my life. I have never forgotten her and while this may sound like a sad remorseful lament it was quite the opposite. We walked down her old street and laughed and talked. She carried her new true love, a beautiful daughter, and she too was very kind and sweet in her memories of me. We shared some history and then went back into our lives as they are now. As I read the message below I thought of my own experience over Thanksgiving and I think I know how my first "flame" felt as we walked together so many years later. Time has softened the heartache of youth and age has brought perspective and appreciation for seeds planted long ago.
So why I am posting this very personal message. Well this note came as an attachment. The author and I had a long discussion regarding the message and it was very special. We laughed and re-connected in new way. The more we talked the more the message changed for me. The first time I had read it I was sad. I felt bad, guilty, remorseful. Had I hurt someone the way I have been over the years? Oh geez, this certainly is not good. Can't change the past but as we talked the intent of the message became clear. It is really a love letter to her husband with a nod and wave goodbye to our relationship. End? Yes to the relationship we had then. We now have a new relationship, crazy friends. Now unfortunately for me, she has personal knowledge of some of the less than notable adventures of my youth. I don't think she will blackmail me, but let's just make sure by saying that surely no good can come from opening the door to my skeleton "closet". Consider it an inside joke shared between two old friends.
The other reason I am going to post this is that she actually sat down and wrote this out as a separate document. That effort alone is something very special. People rarely can articulate their thoughts, let alone share them at face value. She has given permission to let it be shared here, I'll leave her name off but those of you who know me from my upstate days will recognize her style. This is a gift. I love gifts that come from the heart and bring people closer. This is my way of showing appreciation and respect.
--Leftcoastlove--
As a long ago deposed lover of Leftcoastlove I have suffered the unkind cut of lamented lost love. The eternal flame of his being attracted me with a burning intensity I had nary felt. But, as all love’s that burn too hot, I was singed and left to flutter helplessly to the barren fallow of love’s lost ground. I was sure that my wings of fancy had been scorched beyond repair. How could I ever find a man who could romance me by moonlight with the finesse of Leftcoastlove? The endless rhythm of our dance by the midnight sky with just the deck of a boat separating us from the pounding pulse of the Hudson River, a river famous for its acts of war and love, haunted me in my sleep. The chivalry of Leftcoastlove sheltering me in his arms to keep away the unseen dangers of the world outside our sheltered affair wore warm against me long after they ceased to protect.
Life however conspired against this fragile tour de force of life and love. Leftcoastlove was raw from his first divorce and I was still too new to the lessons of life to match his needs. While my passions ran hot my reality ran thin in the raging river of Leftcoastlove’s need. The affair, and worse the friendship, with Leftcoastlove was over but its effects worked magic still
I found with time that love had not abandoned me. As Leftcoastlove and Snowy so insightfully noted: “the relationships that last for a period are the relationships that are initiated by chance”. I met and married a wonderful man a while after Leftcoastlove. The love was grown in the ground of surrender – the belief that love would never enter my life and the steadfast refusal to continue its feeble pursuit. I found that as soon as I stopped begging love to appear on the altar s of smoky bars and coffee houses of the desperate single it walked up to me, quite casually, on the streets of the self-fulfilled. When I had finally solved the puzzle of life and discovered that the last piece was ME (not the ever present 50’s ideal of husband, children, house and hearth that has been perpetuated in this society like an insidious undiagnosed cancer that no one wants to acknowledge but everyone often laments) love decided I was finally ready.
My friendship with Leftcoastlove is back after many years lost. I admit my heart skips a beat when I see that instant message appear and I realize it is the love that still sings its haunting melody in my dreams. For just a moment I can feel that old rhythm, that arm of steel that encased me for so short a time, and the boat deck dancing under my feet. More importantly however, I remember the love lesson that Leftcoastlove imparted – you can not love another until you love yourself with all your heart. As 10 years just passed with my husband I think of Leftcoastlove often and hope that in an era of a 50% or more divorce rate, of which we have just entered prime divorce time, I can always hold close to my heart the flame that Leftcoastlove ignited in my own soul for a love that is true.
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