If I stay too long you can let me down
This afternoon I was thinking about a girl I knew in high school and junior high. It was in the context of thinking about early crushes brought on by an earlier discussion of same. I had wondered what had become of her and did some gratuitous internet stalking. I was surprised to still be able to locate her, still in the town where we had grown up - not that I attach any significance for good or ill to that circumstance.
I found out that she apparently ran a small business and that she and her spouse were selling their house. They have a nice home. I was looking for a picture of her when it occurred to me that despite my curiosity I almost didn't want to see it, so I stopped looking for one. The feeling that perhaps I didn't want to see what she looked like now just kind of sneaked up on me but it persists. I'm not sure why, but I prefer to remember her as I had as a boy, known her then, about the same age as my daughters are now, with her shy but warm smile and pretty eyes, looking cute with her sexy legs and freshly blossomed figure in her cheerleader's outfit.
I have an aversion to going back there, to the life I knew once. No big scandal, embarrassment or outrage deterrs me from reconnecting. I just feel no connection anymore and not only no desire to re-establish a connection but an actual aversion to doing so. I don't know why I feel this way and it is weird to contemplate it. My past, with the exception of a friend or two and family, here and there, becomes detached from me. It falls away and becomes as if frozen in amber - something, while not necessarily to be forgotten, I regard it as something no longer to be touched and personally experienced again. I don't know why this should be so. It seems unusual. Most people I talk to do not share this experience.
Just out of curiosity, I Googled and internet-searched some old actual girlfriends. I have a small handful. I found them. With the exception of my former wife, I previously had no idea what became of any of them. I've not seen or heard from any of them since before I was married back in 1991. I still have no intention of contacting any of them. Is that strange? Part of me thinks so. I ask myself how it is possible to sleep with a woman and then have her just vanish out of one's life forever. It was no conscious design on my part. They just have different lives and families now and I just feel that our connection belongs in the past and has no place in the present. I must assume that I am eminently forgettable since obviously our non-communication is mutual. We don't even send cards, and yet I can still remember their birthdays, the days we met, and the last days when I saw each of them. In one case, neither of us wanted to stop being with the other, but both of us realized that circumstances were such that there was no future to the relationship. We wrote to each other a couple of times and then stopped. In a couple of cases, there was animosity in the break-up, but I really can't imagine any of my former girlfriends not having a smile for me if I happened to encounter her again - so why is it that I am not inclined to do so? There is a part of me that feels that just having the question reveals some sort of ridiculous naiveté.
I found out that she apparently ran a small business and that she and her spouse were selling their house. They have a nice home. I was looking for a picture of her when it occurred to me that despite my curiosity I almost didn't want to see it, so I stopped looking for one. The feeling that perhaps I didn't want to see what she looked like now just kind of sneaked up on me but it persists. I'm not sure why, but I prefer to remember her as I had as a boy, known her then, about the same age as my daughters are now, with her shy but warm smile and pretty eyes, looking cute with her sexy legs and freshly blossomed figure in her cheerleader's outfit.
I have an aversion to going back there, to the life I knew once. No big scandal, embarrassment or outrage deterrs me from reconnecting. I just feel no connection anymore and not only no desire to re-establish a connection but an actual aversion to doing so. I don't know why I feel this way and it is weird to contemplate it. My past, with the exception of a friend or two and family, here and there, becomes detached from me. It falls away and becomes as if frozen in amber - something, while not necessarily to be forgotten, I regard it as something no longer to be touched and personally experienced again. I don't know why this should be so. It seems unusual. Most people I talk to do not share this experience.
Just out of curiosity, I Googled and internet-searched some old actual girlfriends. I have a small handful. I found them. With the exception of my former wife, I previously had no idea what became of any of them. I've not seen or heard from any of them since before I was married back in 1991. I still have no intention of contacting any of them. Is that strange? Part of me thinks so. I ask myself how it is possible to sleep with a woman and then have her just vanish out of one's life forever. It was no conscious design on my part. They just have different lives and families now and I just feel that our connection belongs in the past and has no place in the present. I must assume that I am eminently forgettable since obviously our non-communication is mutual. We don't even send cards, and yet I can still remember their birthdays, the days we met, and the last days when I saw each of them. In one case, neither of us wanted to stop being with the other, but both of us realized that circumstances were such that there was no future to the relationship. We wrote to each other a couple of times and then stopped. In a couple of cases, there was animosity in the break-up, but I really can't imagine any of my former girlfriends not having a smile for me if I happened to encounter her again - so why is it that I am not inclined to do so? There is a part of me that feels that just having the question reveals some sort of ridiculous naiveté.