I Miss Them All

Because I am pretty much dense as fog when it comes to certain things – it has taken me a year or so to realize that three men I love (I always thought of them as a triumvirate) are really no longer in my life.

These were men who, although we were pretty much always separated from each other – by time zones, and other factors – always maintained some semblance of contact with me.

None of them know each other. They have nothing to do with each other. And yet – they go together in my mind. I didn’t really date any of them, strangely enough – at least not in anything resembling a conventional way.

However, love affairs most certainly happened. Profound things most certainly happened. Deep connections were made. Stuff you can never erase, and stuff you can barely describe. (Or – let me be clear – stuff I can barely describe.)

One of them took the following photo of me:

I shared with him what remains, in my memory, one of the happiest and freest days of my entire life and I love that photo because it completely captures what that entire day was about. Photos so rarely do that. And I love it, too, because that was, in general, how I always looked at that guy. That was how I looked at him, that was how I felt about him. Pain-in-my-ass though he was.

Anyway, over the past couple of years – slowly but surely – my contact with these three men, men who I have always thought of as somewhat essential to me, has almost completely disappeared.

There are very good reasons for this, reasons which I will not go into.

I want to say, too, that I never had conventional communication with ANY of these men, either. What do I mean by that? I never called any of them on the phone to say, “Hey, how’ve you been?” None of them ever called me to chit-chat. Chit-chat would be impossible with any of them. I think I only had the phone number of one of them.

I was never used to hearing from them all the time, or getting calls from them, or exchanging emails – No. It was never like that. It was more like: my experience with each one of them came to an end, and that was that. No question of being in touch with them in a normal way. Maybe I knew something was just too powerful or something, that it could never morph into a normal post-relationship friendship. Must walk away completely. And that’s fine. That’s as it should be. I am friends with one of my ex-es in a “I send you Christmas cards” kind of way. I’m very glad of that – he’s too great a guy to cut myself off from him completely – but I’m able to see him at parties, etc., and say, “Hey how are you? How’s the wife? The kids? How you doin’???” I would never be able to be casual with any of the triumvirate.

None of them could be casual with me, either.

And so – when our time was up, our time was up.

But then – throughout the following years – I would randomly re-connect with one of them, or another one of them … I would randomly receive a phone call, sometimes at 1 in the morning, and there one of them would be – laughing uproariously about something and launching right into a story he wanted to tell me, with no preamble, even though I hadn’t spoken to him in 2 years.

Or, I would randomly open my mailbox, and there would be an envelope with familiar handwriting – and boom – I would be treated to a rambling monologue about his life, even though we hadn’t been in regular communication for 5 years.

Weirder things happened, too. Stuff which might sound insane. But they happened so repeatedly that I can only say that it has become a pattern. The pattern is this: I would randomly dream about one of them, and the next day I would get a letter from that same guy. This has happened to me more times than I can count. It’s become a bit like a game.

I so rarely dream of any of them, so now – when I do, it’s like a game. “Okay. I give him 5 days to contact me.” Usually contact arrives the next day. I’ll open the mailbox, see the envelope, and burst out laughing. Here it is, I knew it would come!!

One day last year, all three of them called me on the same day. Two of them called me to say, “Hey, I’m in New York for the week, let’s get together!”

There is nothing casual about any of this. I am obviously not casual about any of them. I also can honestly say that I am not in love with any of them either – and yet I have definitely come to rely on them, in some way. I don’t NEED to hear from them – I do not bombard them with letters – I do not ache by the phone – No, it is all just the opposite. I move along, basically forgetting them completely, and then randomly – one of them will emerge from the deep – and I am reminded all over again of how lucky I am, and how blessed I am that – these guys are in my life.

One of them wrote me a letter once – a snail-mail letter (that’s another thing – I communicated with these three guys in almost 19th century ways – in old-fashioned pen-to-paper epistolary ways … we might as well have used smoke signals for how technologically backward it was – But I loved that, too. It seemed to fit) Anyway – One of them wrote me a letter, and said, after maintaining a completely goofball hilarious tone for the entire letter – “I’m really glad that you’re out there. I like to know you exist. I even just like knowing that the IDEA of you exists.”

I guess that’s what I’m trying to get at.

I like to know they’re out there. I like to know they exist. I even just like knowing that the IDEA of them exists.

My communication with these men from my past were filled with poignant and piercing moments such as that. It had a sweetness that hurt. It gave glimpses of a love that was never fulfilled, and so there were a lot of “what if’s” – and actually, there are still are a lot of “what if’s” that come up when I see the triumvirate and we reminisce about the past – and yet also – I was always extremely grateful that I knew these men.

Anyway.

Like I said, I would go on for months at a time never thinking about the triumvirate, or missing their presence.

I had a dream about one of them last night.

He had a handlebar mustache in the dream, and looked completely different.

I woke up, remembered the dream, and immediately thought, matter-of-factly, (welcome to my nutso world), “Oh, I’ll probably hear from him tomorrow or the next day.”

And then in the next moment, I became overwhelmed with what I can only call consciousness.

I moved from out of unconsciousness into consciousness with alarming velocity.

And it suddenly occurred to me, out of the blue:

It’s over. I no longer feel that they are “out there”. They’ve moved on. Whatever needs were fulfilled for each one of them by maintaining intermittent contact with me no longer exist. Or their needs are fulfilled elsewhere. Or maybe they are no longer comfortable looking at the “what if’s” in their lives.

I have to admit I agree. I am sick of “what if’s”. “What if’s” will eat you alive. They will break your back. They will break your back.

And yet I miss them. I do miss them all.

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20 Responses to I Miss Them All

  1. Dan says:

    I was going to try and write something here, but I don’t think this is the sort of post that invites long winded comments. I do hope you’re at peace; it can be hard to make peace with the empty places.

  2. Bill McCabe says:

    “What if’s” will drive you crazy. I’ve stayed in contact with one for eight years now, and all the what ifs and halfhearted attempts at sabotaging of engagements and marriages have only taught me that a clean break would have saved me years of delusion.

  3. red says:

    I don’t think there’s a delusion here. I think it’s just a matter of glimpses down a road not traveled. Inevitable when there’s a deep connection.

    I only want what’s best for them. I want them to be happy and well and to flourish. If that means not being in contact with me – and I can understand that completely – then I have to accept it. Just having a hard time with it, I guess.

  4. Dan says:

    Inevitably the right thing to do is always the hardest. I’ve walked away and severed contact with people I loved deeply and missed dearly; it was the ‘right’ thing to do for all concerned but I hated every minute of it.

    So much for Dan keeping his mouth shut.

  5. red says:

    Oh by the way, I do want to point out that I realize the “hypocrisy” of me claiming I’m not delusional while I, in all seriousness – 2 seconds before, discuss the connection of having a dream and then hearing from someone. I realize the hypocrisy and yet I stand by it. I am connected with these people on a level that goes beyond being in actual contact.

    Enough for me right now. Talk amongst yourselves. :)

  6. Allison says:

    beautiful sheila. i get it. god knows (and you know) that i have my “what if.” and no matter how many years pass, he will remain lodged in some corner of my heart and my conciousness. there is nothing simple about these loves, but for me the trick (and the challenge) is to acknowledge he will always be a part of me, but to stop asking the question what if?.

  7. Bud says:

    Dear Sheila, there’s nothing delusional about the kind of connection, so often tragic, that you have so beautifully described. Those of us with “crystal” hearts, especially we Scorpios, and countless others who also are willing to make these kinds of connections, understand the spiritual, soulful BOND you had with your triumverate.

    I had one as well, for nearly 20 years. One, not three, the latter of which is simply unimaginable to me. Here, for you and all of us who feel this precious void, is part of a poem I wrote about my one true what if:

    From “The Edge of Memory”:
    … To the very edge of memory
    Almost lost forever
    But finding where life began
    And almost ended
    And began anew

  8. Theresa says:

    I think I like the what ifs. They’re like special little secrets that keep you company on a bad day. Or maybe more like that bruise you can’t quit touching even though it hurts. What is the line, “Kinda hurts, kinda feels good.”?

    And where would art be without the what ifs?

    I don’t know. There’s unhealthy obsession, but then there’s sweet agony. Possibility that never lets you down because it never has to deal with reality.

    Plus, it’s all fine and dandy if I get over someone. But I don’t want them to get over me.

  9. Mitchell says:

    Sheil..you break my heart! For a laugh..read Alex’s journal entry for yesterday…she left out some crazy details to protect the not so innocent(not about us..but the other cartoon characters who were suddenly in our life for a day)

  10. Ken Hall says:

    Pardon the cliche, but everything for a reason.

  11. hard times says:

    Gloomy Thursday

    Spent most of today bummed. For starters, Michele has decided to take a much needed (and well earned) break. Hopefully she’ll be back soon, without the politics. Which is fine by me – I went there for the music, movies, and funny stuff. And spea…

  12. Jeff says:

    Wow. What an amazingly lucid post. I’ve had relationships like that. I have relationships like that.

    We’re taught that there is a sort of relationship arc, a template we need to follow: infatuation, love, commitment and then either death or explosive emotional demolition. Some things, as you said, just… end. They fill their need and they end.

    It doesn’t have to be Gettysburg all the time. Sometimes I think we invent the hystrionics in order to make ourselves feel like whatever we’ve experienced has gravity and worth. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

    I have friends – men as well as women – with whom I drift in and out with. There’s a comfort in knowing that you can pick up at whatever part of the chess game you ended with last time. It almost validates your judgment about why they would make a good friend in the first place.

  13. red says:

    Theresa:

    You wrote: “where would art be without the what ifs?”

    What a beautiful and true sentiment.

  14. red says:

    Ken –

    Another cliche which elaborates on that one goes something like this:

    People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

    I have found in my life that sometimes people morph over all of those – like, they’re in my life for a season, and it is only later I can figure out the reason.

    The other trick is NOT to anticipate “which one” of those it’s gonna be, when a new person comes into your life.

    How much grief could be avoided if we didn’t immediately leap to the conclusion when we met someone new: “Oh, this person is definitely in my life for a lifetime.”?

    I would say that my triumvirate have come into my life for all three: reason, season, and a lifetime. Even if I never hear from any of them ever again, they will always be with me.

  15. red says:

    Jeff:

    It’s taken me a long time to realize “it doesn’t have to be Gettysburg”. I look for the drama, it doesn’t feel real if there isn’t drama.

    Ironically, these guys were not really Gettysburg guys, really. No blowups, no recriminations, no “I used to love you, now I HATE YOU” vibe.

    I’ll always love them – I just have to figure out how to do without them.

    Beautiful comment, Jeff – thanks much.

    Actually, thanks to everybody.

    Bud, I’m a Sagittarian! We don’t have crystal hearts, I don’t think. Do we?

  16. Bud says:

    Red, thought I read your b’day is in November. Maybe late in the month? Anyway, let’s say you’re an honorary Scorpio: we/you wear our hearts you know where. “Crystal” is a reference to one of those “what kind of” quizzes you shared a while back. I could be wrong (and I’m too lazy to search back), but I thought your result was something like a crystal/fragile/etc. heart.

  17. rick says:

    Red,
    I found this a few years ago in my wanderings. Mark Twain described the experience as Mental Telegraphy, and he relates some interesting, beyond – coincidence anecdotes here http://www.mtwain.com/Mental_Telegraphy_Again/0.html

    Sounds like what you described. Fascinating. It’s a whole different level of contact. Neat.

  18. Bernard says:

    Sheila, reading your entry reminded me of a young lady I once knew. We’d grown up together and spent an intense but chaste summer together before she got married that fall. We kept in touch afterwards too, writing letters back and forth–though with time, inevitably perhaps, distance devolved into silence. Still, I think of her on occasion. I like remembering what once was and knowing she still exists “out there” somewhere, if only in the perfect world of my reminiscence.

    P.S. I found your site courtesy the sidebar at One-Sided Wonder. I like your blog. I’ll be back

  19. red says:

    Bud –

    Wow. Good memory. I had forgotten – Yeah, I had a glass heart!

    My birthday is late November, yeah. I’m a cusp-y broad.

    Many of my best friends are Scorpios. We’re all wacko and dark and twisted.

  20. red says:

    Rick – wow.

    I don’t know how to explain it – it’s just that I have had countless experiences like the one described in that piece.

    Countless.

    By the way – not to be a total freak: but today I heard from the guy I dreamt about.

    I knew it. Opened mailbox, saw his handwriting (haven’t heard from him in 2 years) – and felt little to no surprise.

    Of course. Of course I would hear from him – I just dreamt about him after all!

    I try not to analyze all of this too much. It makes it all seem too tragic!

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