Oh, we've all done it, so don't pretend like you haven't.
You're single, or maybe you're not but things are going absolutely
rotten with "him" (or "her"), so your thoughts begin to drift back...
back to when you were dating that other person, and how you
recall those days being filled with sunshine, goofy jokes and steamy
nights in dark bars and beds.
You clearly remember how much fun you had,
and how you'd walk along the boardwalk as mermaids threw bits of sunken
treasure at you from the water, and you both would tuck the gold and
jewels into your pockets before boarding the dirigible and floating off
to your mountaintop castle, where hoards of leather-clad dwarfs served
you lovely chocolatey things and let you win at all the video games.
It's all so clear in hindsight.
"Why did I let that go?" you think, as you gaze off into the middle
distance (or stare malevolently at the back of the person responsible
for your every misery, or at least intolerable banality).
You inevitably wonder what that person is doing now. Is he/she happy?
Does that person still think of you, or (in some cases) even remember you?
Maybe, you think, your past love occasionally sits on a moonlit stone wall and gazes at the stars, wondering where you
are. Maybe there's a song that brings you to mind, or maybe it's that
brand of beer you liked or the smell of clove cigarettes... maybe you're
on someone's mind and, goldernit (you think) you can't let that pass
you by! You can go back! It's not too late... go find your lost love and
dive forever into your shared life of magical ponies!
Yeah.
I'm here to tell you, you're a fucking idiot.
I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, you not knowing me from a hole in the wall and all, but you are.
Now, pay attention. What you have forgotten is that he sucks on each.
and. every. finger. after a meal of something he's eaten with his hands
(even though he wasn't meant to in the first place). You've conveniently
wiped from your memory the fact that he uses the word, "piss" way too
liberally, can't sit still for more than a minute, and insists on
singing along to the radio incessantly.
This isn't news. You know this. Yet, many of us still seem to have a
persistent curiosity when it comes to people we left in our rear-view
mirror 10, 15, 20, even 25 years ago.
That's okay. Really, it is.
It's okay because most of us wouldn't dream of doing something as dumb as actually going and finding out What Happened To So-And-So, but I AM. Well, not really that dumb, but definitely that curious, and below is the tale of what transpired when I reconnected with one dude from My Past Life in the 80's.
I heard just yesterday that my divorce is final, and my last ties to the
man I was with for 9 years (12 if you count the 3 years between our
separation and actual divorce) have been severed permanently. My
feelings about this are mixed and unexpected; I'm not sad in the
least, except insofar as I'm sad about the 8 years or so of romantic
life on which I lost out. I'm actually happy that he seems to have found
someone he doesn't hate, and it's nice that at least one of us gets to win, even if she is
sort of a moose that learned to walk upright. I also feel kind of like a
dinghy that's been cut loose, and there's the vague notion that someone
ought to start rowing.
Since, unlike my ex, I have not yet found another suitable partner, I
have plenty of time for dumb-ass projects, and enough of a penchant for
thumbing my nose at reality that I'm of a mind to play around with ideas
from which most normal people would shy away.
As such, I've decided it might be an interesting writing project to track down a few of my past interests/exes/friends (male and female) and actually have a look at what they've gotten
themselves up to. I'm that weirdo who suddenly turns up out of nowhere.
What could possibly go wrong?
One reason I think this might be entertaining is that I did exactly
this, just for the hell of it, with one person a few years ago, and it
was an eye-opener:
My second boyfriend ever was not named "Joe," but that's what I'm
calling him here, because I think at the very least he deserves that
level of anonymity.
I met Joe in the spring of my freshman year in college. I was on the
periphery of the "Dead Head" community, getting very much into the music
and fashion but not really inspired by the more adventurous drugs. Oh,
sure, I got stoned regularly, but that and beer was about it. Joe
was introduced to me by a female friend, and I fell instantly for those
huge blue eyes, tousled brown hair and soft voice. We spent more and
more time together, and my crush on him drove me nuts, but I was far too
shy to admit it.
I lived in an apartment with 3 other girls, and we had a kitchen and
bathroom with a bedroom on either side. Since Joe and I were both night
owls, we spent practically every night in that kitchen, on the couch in
the corner, talking as quietly as possible about God knows what until
dawn. To be super quiet, we took to writing each other notes in (and
this totally cracks me up now) a runic alphabet. It was our own little
code. It was our thing.
Finally, one night, he wrote a short note, pondered it for a moment,
then folded it and put it in his shirt pocket. We'd been doing the whole
flirting thing for a while, so of course I was hoping like hell he'd
written something interesting about me, but now he was adamant that I
not see it.
Of course, that meant I wouldn't relent until I did.
After a great load of pseudo-wrestling, he finally relented and handed it over. Much to my shock, it actually was a declaration of romantic intent, and that was the beginning of our involvement.
It lasted through that spring and summer, and then ended when he found
another hippie chick while away somewhere for a few weeks, but it was
cool and we stayed friends for a few more years before finally drifting
apart, at which point I was at art school in NYC and he was in
boat-building school on the Atlantic coast.
I lived for many years with good memories of Joe. I remembered a good
writer, how he smoked cloves and how I liked the smell, his obscure
observations of the world, the weird music and comedy he introduced me
to, his mellow, almost hypnotic voice and how relaxed and content I felt
around him.
Years went by, and I occasionally tried to look him up, but he was
always off the grid. Then, one day, the Almighty Internet rose like a
social fungus, and eventually its tendrils reached into even the most
out-of-the-way hidey holes of all but the most conscientious hippie.
A few years ago, my husband and I separated, and I left CA and returned
to New England to re-group, as it were. After I'd been back for a few
months, I started looking up old friends who I thought might be in the
area, and the fact that Joe had been elusive over the years only
reinforced my curiosity about him, so I set about digging up all the
specifics I had on him, determined to re-connect with my old friend. (My primary motive was to find an "in" to a social circle in the area, since I'm bad at finding them on my own, and he seemed like the sort who would hang with an artsy fartsy crowd.)
Now, this is an important point: I was not ever interested in pursuing anything romantic this time around. That wasn't my motivation. Even though I had nothing
but warm and fond memories of Joe, and while technically I have a
"never say never" outlook, I had zero expectations or hopes in that
department. Trust me... I'll tell you when I start talking about one of
the ones in whom I did (or still do) have an interest.
This is not one of them.
I eventually found a "Joe" with the right last name and age, and I found an address, which turned out to be only
maybe an hour from me.
Okay, so far so good.
I wrote the following (I've omitted names and other specific info here),
and sent it off to someone I may or may not have once known:
"You now hold in your hands the 'Funny Thing That Happened to You
Today;' A letter out of the blue from either an old friend from the
distant past, or from a total stranger (either way, not an everyday
thing). I hope it will turn out that it's the former.
After roaming about, living in NYC, Paris and San Francisco, I have
finally returned to Maine, and I’m looking for the (Joe) I met (in
college) back in (19xx), with whom I lost touch shortly after I moved to
NYC. I believe you were about to go to boat-building school at the
time. If this sounds like it might be you, you may or may not remember
(me), as I was known back then, though I’ve gone by (me) for the past 20
years or so.
I doubt either of us are the same as we were back then, but I remember you as a unique and creative
individual, and I’m persistently curious regarding what became of you.
If you are the (Joe) I once knew, and you’d like to fill me in on the
last couple of decades, you may contact me in either of the following
ways:"
Maybe a week or so later, I got a call from him.
Oh, that same voice... the nostalgia flooded back.
We had a good talk. He had a 7-year-old daughter and recently separated
from her mother (no, I swear, I still had no "thoughts." I'm a city
girl, and he eats raw string beans. Not my thing). He was living on a
homestead in central Maine, in a house he and his girlfriend had built
from scratch, and was working at a place that installs solar panels. I
had not even a shred of surprise.
I went up to visit him and catch up one summer day. Why the hell not?
This was fun, and I felt like I was doing something I wasn't supposed
to. This, however, was where the reality of doing this sort of thing
started to solidify into something far less ethereal and poetic as mere
recollection would have one believe.
The homestead turned out to be a little house on a huge parcel of grassy
land, with raised gardens and a chicken coop beside it. The land itself
is beautiful; slight hills with long grass and wildflowers, a patch of
forest behind the house, and rows of maples dividing the fields into
irregular sections. The house itself, however, was apparently still a
work in progress. Upon exiting the car, my dog immediately began
terrorizing the chickens, which I probably should have recognized as not
a good start. I got her under control just as Joe came out of the
house.
Well, I gotta give him this: He hadn't aged much. He was the same
weight, same build, same hair, same glasses... remarkable, really. We went into the kitchen to hang out and talk while he cooked something for a group dinner somewhere.
Inside the house, there was running water, but the floors and walls were
unfinished. Apparently, they'd plugged along with building the house for years, but then hit a "wall" (so to speak), and a bunch of stuff was either unfinished or outright missing. I wondered how the hell they coped in the winter, since I
saw no heat source.
Of particular interest, however, was the bathroom.
One of the reasons I hate camping is the bathroom situation. I am
incredibly unhappy when I have no access to clean, cool porcelain,
lovely floor tiles, plush bath mats, a sink free of crusted toothpaste,
and a good hard flush. This bathroom had none of those things. The
shower, I will say, was fantastic. They'd built a huge shower-room,
festooned with blue, green and violet mosaic tiles and raised up on a couple of steps, and one barely noticed that the water source was... a hose run through a hole
in the wall from outside.
The commode, however, was a work of art in its wrongness.
Someone had constructed a wooden box about 2 feet square and the height
of the average kitchen chair. Inside the box was a large white bucket,
and when I gingerly peered in I could see (somewhat to my relief) that
it contained several inches of wood chips. That same someone
(presumably) had also obtained a large-ish wooden arm chair, removed its
legs, cut a bum-sized hole in the seat, and affixed it atop the wooden
box o'bucket. Next to this contraption was a block of wood chips, which
were actually the same brand I used to use as my horse's bedding.
It was explained to me that the established procedure was that one was
to sit upon this throne of sorts, relieve oneself of whatever abdominal
cargo one wished, which would collect in said bucket, atop the existing wood chips. At the conclusion
of one's purging, one was expected to add a small layer of wood chips to
the bucket to cover the evidence. Apparently, once the bucket became
full, it was hauled out to some sort of separate compost area (I don't
remember the specifics, as at that point I was still on, "I'm to whiz in
a what?"), dumped, and returned to the box.
Uhm, okay.
Everything else there was similarly makeshift or tree huggy, though I
really didn't mind because some of it was kind of cool, plus I knew I'd
be going home in a few hours to my flushing, heated-water world. It was a nice visit,
and his daughter turned out to be a sweet, beautiful little fairy-like
girl.
Even though the lifestyle was totally alien to me (I've been extremely generous in my description here), it was good to have reconnected, and we kept in touch for a while.
Now, the rest of our contacts weren't too interesting, but what I learned was this:
What you remember as a blue-eyed poet with a charmingly child-like world
view and a mellow personality can, if you get close enough again, turn
out to be a blue-eyed clueless aging hippie with zero ability to make
the most fundamental life choices, scrape together enough motivation to
actually do something -- anything, or spring for the $40 to bleach the fuck out of that one brown front tooth.
I have friends of widely varying personalities, so it normally wouldn't
bother me that he, for instance, insists on driving a car while turned fully around to look at his daughter while talking to her.
No shit, doing 45 up Route 1, he's at the wheel and getting through 2
or 3 complete sentences in a row while looking out the back window. He
also chews with his mouth open.
I know. I'm so picky, right?
Schlompp schlompp schlompp...
It was fascinating. I couldn't have done it that dramatically if I tried.
Every misfortune he'd suffered had been at his own hands, like when he
thought it would be awesome to go rock climbing alone, with no
equipment, miles from traffic. Halfway up a 50-or-so-foot rock face, he
lost his footing and fell, broke both feet upon landing, and a fraction
of a second later his knees slammed up into his jaw, shattering it. He
crawled 3 miles or so down the trail until he happened on some hikers
who helped him out.
I can see a teenager doing that, but he was in his late 20's at the time, the dumbass.
There were a number of tiny quirks and aspects of his personality that
scratched and dented my previously rosy memory of him, but again, with
friends you take the good with the bad.
What tilts my narrative in a snarky, somewhat dismissive direction is
what happened the last time I saw him. We had a nice dinner at my place,
but before he left he got all serious on me. He explained very clearly
how we had to "talk about this crush (I) had on him."
Uhwhaaat?
Wait, what?
He went on to explain how he knew I had a major thing for him, but that
he just wasn't interested, in part because he'd met a woman he'd started
seeing. "She's perfect, except that she's a raging alcoholic." My mind
snagged on that for a few beats, as it boggled at how any parent of a
7-year-old could think it was a fine idea to deliberately bring a person
with major substance abuse issues into their lives. I struggled with
absorbing that information while some other part of my mind was thumbing
desperately through the manual of How To Tell A Guy He Has Totally The
Wrong Idea.
The sheer arrogance and patronizing tone is what makes me not at all
hesitant to point out his shortcomings. All subtlety deserted me. I was
left stranded with the choice to remain quiet, or bluntly explain how
sure I was that I'd somehow muddle through not having the option to date
a penniless, snaggle-toothed middle-aged dude who shits in a bucket.
I'd done nothing whatsoever to prod him into that conclusion, either. In
fact, I thought I'd been pretty clear about wanting to go back to
Brooklyn, my love of all sorts of things he wasn't into, plus
there was my whole aversion to raw beans and desire to not have other
people's urine hanging around in my house.
(No, I bloody well can't let the toilet thing go. You didn't see it, dammit!)
It turned out to be a mercifully short conversation, during which I
mostly said things like, "Oh, well," without elaboration. I wished him
luck, he left, we played phone tag a couple of times, but it's now been
over a year since I've heard from him.
My "lesson" here, friends, is not that you should never seek out those
who stick in your mind through the years, but that if you decide to do so, be prepared for
your memories to be marred by reality. I absolutely don't regret
finding Joe again, because I'd rather know than wonder what became of
him. The price I paid was discovering that he's much weaker than I
remember, his creativity has gone unused or wasted on bad ideas, and
he's nowhere near as smart or intuitive as I remember. He's a faded,
diluted and worn version of the Joe in my mind's eye, and that's a bit
of a shame.
The experience has made me curious, though, about a few other choice
individuals from my past, so I'll be writing about them in future
entries, whether or not I find them, and whether I fuck the whole thing
up enough that they somehow think I have a crush on them, too.
(Finally, just for fun, here's a photo from that day I saw him for the first time in years. Hey, I never said he wasn't good lookin'!):
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