rebec' reflections and reflections on love.
i was glancing at a row of books i have on my shelf, and there's one that's been in my possession for probably about 14 or 15 years, given to me by Rebecca. it's a bondage erotica book that she got on sale. i want to say that she got it at gene's books, but it may have been at borders. she got it for me for two reasons. one was because she knew i had an interest in that sort of thing. the other was because she was trying to figure out if she had any interest in that sort of thing.
our history post-break up was an odd one. immediately after the breakup my memory of our contact is spotty, but there are two memories that stick out in my mind of us having interaction with each other. the first was when she decided to do a graduate degree at oregon state. when she told me about it, it was strange to think of her moving to oregon. it didn't end up mattering; after she first moved there we got together once and only once, so she might as well have been just visiting the west coast rather than living there. i think the reason for that was because we both realized after getting together that one time that our paths had drifted so far apart from each other that the only real common thread we had was our relationship. granted, that was a five+ year relationship, but it was also our first real relationship and thus a naive first-love sort that had started to crumble even after three years once our individual personalities started to evolve and mature.
given the nature of our young love and our subsequent contact being so rare, there are times when i could ask myself if i still love her at all. but i don't because i already know the answer because of the second significant time we had interaction.
i was living at tyler's place, so it was probably about five years ago. i hadn't heard from rebec' since we had gotten together that one time maybe a year before. as i was putting on my shoes to go out somewhere, she called my mobile. i was startled, but i picked up, and it was clear that she was emotionally distressed. long story short (and my exact memory of the situation is hazy), she had gotten in a serious relationship with some guy, but after x amount of years (and i think the long distance of her moving to oregon didn't help), she started to doubt. i think part of it was because she also started to develop feelings for a guy in oregon and that was mucking with her emotions too. she said that it was the first time since us (her and me) that she had felt so confused about the whole situation.
given how emotionally distant we both were to a degree the time we got together in corvallis, i was in a minor state of shock when she dumped all of this on me and at first i wasn't sure what to say. she sensed this and started to retreat and apologize about contacting me, but before she could get into apologizing fully, i had pulled out of it, assessed what it is that she told me, and started giving her advice and telling her what i thought would be best for her, or at least started asking her the sort of questions that she needed to answer for herself to come to the right sort of conclusions.
and it's not the fact that i was helping her from a call out of the blue that is the strongest evidence that i still love her; it's the fact that it was a reflex. that it wasn't even a question in my brain or my heart about it. she called me. she needed me. that's all i needed to know.
granted, that's true of a lot of people in my life, that if they ever called me, i would drop a whole lot to help them. i mean, i love a hell of a lot of people. but the striking thing about this situation was that she chose me to turn to. that out of all of the people she could have called, she called me.
what's funny about the rebec' situation is that i doubt that the people that we now are could ever be more than casual friends, and thus it's probably the right thing that we've talked maybe twice in the past ten years. i wouldn't be surprised if i never heard from her again, especially if she's since developed a relationship with someone else that can be her emotional confidant, someone that's more in tune with the person that she is now rather than what she used to be.
but if she called me, i'd still be there.
which is one of the reasons why i still have the book.
well. that, and there's some damned good stories in it.