Article submission to Under the Same Sky magazine
I was recently asked to submit an article on the subject of "past love relationship" for Under the Same Sky magazine. I don't consider myself a writer, but I said yes. I don't know if it will be published, but I'll put it here for posterity.
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I met you in the summer I was 19. I had recently moved to a large city in a new state. A friend had asked me to drive to her boyfriend’s graduation four hours away in Small Town, Texas. I was eager to explore the region and visit with my friends. I’d never seen anything like the beautiful pines, twisting live oaks, cactus flowers and large, ramshackle houses with American flags that were peppered along bumpy back roads.
I was introduced to you when I arrived. I was wearing a turquoise T-shirt and like many other aeronautical majors, you wore mirrored aviators that didn’t let me see your eyes. You were beautiful, tall, athletic. I knew right in that moment you were mine.
After the ceremony we went to my hotel room and watched MTV. I was laying on the floor with my legs stretched up toward the tv and you asked if I was a runner, I said I was, and you said you were too. You asked me if I wanted to go for a drive - of course, you had a red sports car. We lit up cigars on the banks of the Sabine, telling stories of alligator gar and laughing about things we knew were coming. It was easy to be together, the way we instinctively turned our heads to spit out the window in sync on a bridge, the current running between us.
The next day I said goodbye and gave you my phone number. You promised to call, but when I arrived home hours later there was an email waiting for me instead. You said you liked the sparkle in my eyes and the way I laughed. You asked if you could come visit the next weekend - you had walked in graduation, but still had 4 months left of school. We made arrangements to go camping together the next weekend. When we met at the campground by the lake, it was as if we had known each other for years. Late that night, when I said I was cold, you got a sleeping bag from your car and wrapped it around me, in one smooth movement leaning in to kiss me at the same time. I’d been kissed before, but not like this - not like fireworks burning a hole straight to my heart. This was magic, this was the thing you dream about.
We were inseparable from then on. We drove to see each other twice a month. Sometimes we met elsewhere. Sometimes you flew to see me. Once I got up at 3am to drive from my house to yours, to surprise you with breakfast. I made eggs, then you took me flying and pulled one too many G’s - I vomited all over the cockpit. You felt bad and cleaned it up. I didn’t eat eggs for a while after that.
We called each other our cosmic twin. We whispered to each other late at in night in our beds. We listened to Radiohead and U2 incessantly. We had sex. You bought me a tiny diamond ring. We jumped off bridges in the middle of the night, into the dark Sabine. No one understood us like the way we understood each other. I didn’t care how dangerous any of it was, because I was so happy. For the first time, I felt loved.
A year later, you were teaching at the college you’d attended and needed to find someone to apprentice with in order to study for your commercial pilot’s license. I wanted you to move towards me, you wanted to move to another city hours away. I didn’t want to move, and I was hurt that you wouldn’t be near me. I started to feel distant from you and wondered if you wanted more distance between us. We began to argue with no resolution. I would get outrageously angry with you and hang up the phone and not answer when you called back, crying while listening to you leave pleading messages on my answering machine. I started to feel suspicious about your intentions for our future and you called me crazy.
You complained about my messy bedroom and said you didn’t want a messy wife. (In your defense, my bedroom was a serious wreck all the time). You said that it seemed like I was losing it, I was going nuts. I was seeing things in the night and feeling scared. I thought maybe I was losing it. You had password locked files on your laptop and you wouldn’t tell me what was in them. “There, there” you’d say, patting me on the head, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.” And because I thought I knew you, because I thought you knew me, because I felt protected by you, I tried not to worry about it. I tried not to worry. I was worried.
The pendulum had swung.
A year and a half after we began, it was over. You sent me an email. “In with a bang, out with a whisper, Vee” you wrote in one of your last emails to me. I cried for weeks. It felt like the pain of losing you would never end. It didn’t, really. Months later I found out you were engaged to someone else. You called me crying weeks before the wedding and asked if I would move to your new city with you, try again. I asked how it would be different - would it be different? - why would we just try to do the same thing again? I asked you if loved your fiance. “No one is like you, Vee. It’s not the same.” I felt bad for her and angry at you.
You continued to call me every so often, to tell me that your wife was a good wife but that you didn’t love her like you loved me, asked me if I could feel you when you thought about me. I could. It was cruel and hurtful and I told you to fess up to her or stop calling me. You stopped calling.
I still miss you. It’s been 13 years since I’ve seen you and I still remember how you smell. Sometimes I still dream about you. Five years ago you called me out of the blue. You had a baby, a problem with alcohol and no more marriage. You flew in and out of Austin often and wanted to see me. I wanted you so badly I could taste it, so I said no. You called me only when you were drunk, saying you weren’t brave enough to call me sober. You would call me the names of other women you were seeing and told me you wanted to get me pregnant. You would pass out when we were on the phone. It was frightening and I felt so grateful that somehow I had managed to dodge you, I had escaped so barely from the present future.
I don’t know all the lessons I learned from our relationship. It made me a believer in my own intuition in many ways. It made me believe in connection and past lives. It made me understand how vulnerable I was and how to start to control my vulnerability. All of these things have had a positive and negative affect on my life. I don’t know if I’ll ever open my spirit to another person again like I did with you, and that might be good.
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I met you in the summer I was 19. I had recently moved to a large city in a new state. A friend had asked me to drive to her boyfriend’s graduation four hours away in Small Town, Texas. I was eager to explore the region and visit with my friends. I’d never seen anything like the beautiful pines, twisting live oaks, cactus flowers and large, ramshackle houses with American flags that were peppered along bumpy back roads.
I was introduced to you when I arrived. I was wearing a turquoise T-shirt and like many other aeronautical majors, you wore mirrored aviators that didn’t let me see your eyes. You were beautiful, tall, athletic. I knew right in that moment you were mine.
After the ceremony we went to my hotel room and watched MTV. I was laying on the floor with my legs stretched up toward the tv and you asked if I was a runner, I said I was, and you said you were too. You asked me if I wanted to go for a drive - of course, you had a red sports car. We lit up cigars on the banks of the Sabine, telling stories of alligator gar and laughing about things we knew were coming. It was easy to be together, the way we instinctively turned our heads to spit out the window in sync on a bridge, the current running between us.
The next day I said goodbye and gave you my phone number. You promised to call, but when I arrived home hours later there was an email waiting for me instead. You said you liked the sparkle in my eyes and the way I laughed. You asked if you could come visit the next weekend - you had walked in graduation, but still had 4 months left of school. We made arrangements to go camping together the next weekend. When we met at the campground by the lake, it was as if we had known each other for years. Late that night, when I said I was cold, you got a sleeping bag from your car and wrapped it around me, in one smooth movement leaning in to kiss me at the same time. I’d been kissed before, but not like this - not like fireworks burning a hole straight to my heart. This was magic, this was the thing you dream about.
We were inseparable from then on. We drove to see each other twice a month. Sometimes we met elsewhere. Sometimes you flew to see me. Once I got up at 3am to drive from my house to yours, to surprise you with breakfast. I made eggs, then you took me flying and pulled one too many G’s - I vomited all over the cockpit. You felt bad and cleaned it up. I didn’t eat eggs for a while after that.
We called each other our cosmic twin. We whispered to each other late at in night in our beds. We listened to Radiohead and U2 incessantly. We had sex. You bought me a tiny diamond ring. We jumped off bridges in the middle of the night, into the dark Sabine. No one understood us like the way we understood each other. I didn’t care how dangerous any of it was, because I was so happy. For the first time, I felt loved.
A year later, you were teaching at the college you’d attended and needed to find someone to apprentice with in order to study for your commercial pilot’s license. I wanted you to move towards me, you wanted to move to another city hours away. I didn’t want to move, and I was hurt that you wouldn’t be near me. I started to feel distant from you and wondered if you wanted more distance between us. We began to argue with no resolution. I would get outrageously angry with you and hang up the phone and not answer when you called back, crying while listening to you leave pleading messages on my answering machine. I started to feel suspicious about your intentions for our future and you called me crazy.
You complained about my messy bedroom and said you didn’t want a messy wife. (In your defense, my bedroom was a serious wreck all the time). You said that it seemed like I was losing it, I was going nuts. I was seeing things in the night and feeling scared. I thought maybe I was losing it. You had password locked files on your laptop and you wouldn’t tell me what was in them. “There, there” you’d say, patting me on the head, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.” And because I thought I knew you, because I thought you knew me, because I felt protected by you, I tried not to worry about it. I tried not to worry. I was worried.
The pendulum had swung.
A year and a half after we began, it was over. You sent me an email. “In with a bang, out with a whisper, Vee” you wrote in one of your last emails to me. I cried for weeks. It felt like the pain of losing you would never end. It didn’t, really. Months later I found out you were engaged to someone else. You called me crying weeks before the wedding and asked if I would move to your new city with you, try again. I asked how it would be different - would it be different? - why would we just try to do the same thing again? I asked you if loved your fiance. “No one is like you, Vee. It’s not the same.” I felt bad for her and angry at you.
You continued to call me every so often, to tell me that your wife was a good wife but that you didn’t love her like you loved me, asked me if I could feel you when you thought about me. I could. It was cruel and hurtful and I told you to fess up to her or stop calling me. You stopped calling.
I still miss you. It’s been 13 years since I’ve seen you and I still remember how you smell. Sometimes I still dream about you. Five years ago you called me out of the blue. You had a baby, a problem with alcohol and no more marriage. You flew in and out of Austin often and wanted to see me. I wanted you so badly I could taste it, so I said no. You called me only when you were drunk, saying you weren’t brave enough to call me sober. You would call me the names of other women you were seeing and told me you wanted to get me pregnant. You would pass out when we were on the phone. It was frightening and I felt so grateful that somehow I had managed to dodge you, I had escaped so barely from the present future.
I don’t know all the lessons I learned from our relationship. It made me a believer in my own intuition in many ways. It made me believe in connection and past lives. It made me understand how vulnerable I was and how to start to control my vulnerability. All of these things have had a positive and negative affect on my life. I don’t know if I’ll ever open my spirit to another person again like I did with you, and that might be good.