Calming Down - sort of



Today J. called me. It was great. I have to find a way to get him back in my life. He has been thinking of hiking off to the nearest motel also, but has the same reasons I do for not doing it.

Yet, I keep thinking and scheming of a way to make it happen. And the fact that we are no longer teenagers, but middle aged old fogeys doesn't seem to make any difference.

I think maybe we are too settled in our lives, after so many years of marriage, and we have the middle age blues, and find our rekindling of our relationship to be an antidote for that. But as his wife and my husband have grown older, so have we.

On the other hand, I don't think I ever really realized how much in love with me he was, nor how much I loved him. Our relationship didn't bear the earmarks of love as described by my family. In my family, love was accompanied by great drama, and Jan and I were not dramatic at all.

We simply were. So magnificently suited to each other, we hardly ever fought, and just got along so well- better than I ever have with any other person, in fact. We were best friends even more than we were boyfriend and girlfriend.

He talked about the things he did (at such a young age) to try to keep the relationship alive after I moved away. I feel so bad for him, because I really didn't realize how much he was hurting. The one thing that has really changed a lot about me since I was a teenager is that I have become much more aware and tuned in to other peoples' feelings.

Here I was a cold little bitch to him, and of all the humans I have known, he did not deserve that. It was inexcusable. I was so lost and so separated at that time from my own feelings, that it was just about impossible for me to see other peoples' feelings, and he was hurt in that deep well that I had fallen into.

There was no room in my life for my feelings in those years. My parents certainly never had any concern for them. I think of all the things that were out of kilter about my childhood, the separation I felt from my feelings was probably the worst, and the most damaging.

I remember fantasizing about being able to read minds- primarily because I never had a clue (then) what made people do the things they were doing.

So, I returned to my current favorite fantasy of late. I am in that big City, because my company has sent me there for training again, and J. meets me there, because he has some business there, and at that time, we have the chance to be together, and catch up, and so on.

Of, course, in my fantasy, we are both in our 30s. Woof.

Posted: Thu - May 1, 2003 at 10:45 PM