Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.
I’m getting to the age where my friends are starting to die.
It’s not an easy place to be. Inside, I still feel like I’m young - much like Wanda Sykes, I still think and act like I did when I was 26. This mild self-delusion is only compounded by Dear Husband and I not having children. Since we don’t have fast-growing, proto-people in our lives we’re not often reminded by the relentlessly steady passage of time. Thanks to good genetics and relatively healthy living we’re both pretty well-preserved for being in our early 40’s. So, barring minor changes in hair, clothing style, and the normal changes associated with age, when I look in the mirror I see pretty much the same face I’ve always seen staring back at me.
So, when one of the folk I knew back when I was young dies it tends to give me pause.
A couple of weeks ago I got word that a guy I knew back in the 90’s passed away. He wasn’t that much older than I (just shy of his 51st birthday). And, though I knew he was in poor health, I’ve witnessed elderly people hang on for years despite worse health profiles. Given all this I had every expectation he’d be tottering around for a while yet.
When I heard he was gone I messaged my best girlfriend from those days. She and I became friends around the time we met him. And, though neither of us were good friends with the deceased he occupies a large space in the background of our memories. I had been deliberating going to the service - would it be appropriate for me to attend given he and I weren’t close? After my chat with her I decided I should go - if for no other reason than to honor the place he held in our memories.
I also decided to spread the word around to some of the people I knew from back then too. There’s a group of us who still keep in contact on FaceBook. My departed friend never participated in the stuff that brought us all together but many in the group knew and loved him. I suspect that post was where my ex, R, found out.
A word on R: He and I dated between the spring of`97 and fall of `98. As with most young love affairs ours was deep and intense. Looking back it feels like we were together for a longer than a year or so. I think what makes it seem longer was the post-breakup, back and forth, phase that followed our split. After dragging each other through the mud for 4 more years he finally cut ties. Since 2007 we’ve mostly been ignoring each other on social media. In 2012 I felt like it might be nice to reconnect. I sent him a long message owning my part in why he cut ties and apologizing. During that conversation, he allowed that his behavior was also less than angelic. I tried to keep in touch after that but he let it drop. At the time, I saw it as him setting a boundary so I did the respectful thing and honored it.
Fast forward to two weeks ago.
The day of the memorial came and I was nervous. I had heard that R and his wife planned to attend and hoped it wouldn’t be weird. I had arranged to go with a friend of mine, who also knew the deceased, and hoped that her presence would help me avoid any awkward scenes.
For some unknown reason my friend thought it would be appropriate to bring her two youngest children. Predictably, the kiddos got antsy (I mean, what did you expect would happen in bringing them to a gathering of sad, old people?) and she used that as an excuse to bail well before my ex and his wife showed up. She was my ride so I was at the mercy of her whim.
After returning home I moped around, trying to process the closure of another door to when I was young and my life was still ahead of me. As the afternoon wore on I got to feeling isolated and decided to check FaceBook as a distraction. I noticed my ex - the man whom had been ignoring me on social media for 5 years - had liked one of my photos. In that simple “like” I saw a glimmer of hope: maybe, just maybe, enough time had passed to where he can let bygones be bygones.
So I reached out.
I’ve largely thought that applying tone/emotion to text conversations is a fool’s game. But, all the same, I couldn’t help but be struck by the distant nature of my ex’s end of the conversation. It almost felt as if he were making polite small talk with me, despite my attempt to be sensitive to his loss (I met the deceased through him, mind you). I don’t feel like I was making the conversation about me and my experience either. Unsure of how to handle how the dialogue was going I decided to say goodnight. But, before doing so I asked if it would be okay if we stayed in better touch from here on out.
“Perhaps.” He replied.
Constant Reader, I’ve been mulling over that reply ever since. And, honestly, I still don’t know how I feel about it.
On the one hand, I feel like I should just let it be. A while ago, as I nursed my ego after a friend decided to step away, my sister told me: “Parachles, you deserve friends who enthusiastically want to be your friend. You shouldn’t waste time on anything less.” She was right then, and she is no less right now. If my ex can’t/won’t let the past go enough to see that 41 year old P is vastly different than 21 year old P then I should wish him all the best and get on with my life.
But, 5 years ago I did exactly that and I’m right back in the same place today. Something inside just keeps coming back around to wanting to re-forge this one association. I know myself well enough to know that, in another few years, I’m like to end up face to face with another version of this exact same scenario. (I mean, none of us are getting any younger. Someone else I ran with back then is bound to kak off sooner or later!)
One thing I’ve learned over this short life of mine is when you’re coming up against similar scenarios over and over again it means you have something yet to learn. So, there’s the probability of a lesson I’m missing in all this. Unfortunately, as of this writing, I’m still not entirely sure what that lesson might be.
Anyhow, I’m sorry to say that I have no tidy resolution with this essay. So, if you were looking for a pretty little lesson you could take away with you I’m sorry to be a disappointment.
Perhaps, for all of us, something of that sort will come along in time.