WTF

Reassuring words and love, shapes and sorts crafted, skillfully placed for me to see, to hear and read. Leaving me dizzy, dancing, twirling, twisting........and Poof! Gone....

words i can't escape today......

"There's so much craziness surrounding me

There's so much going on, it gets hard to breathe

when all my faith has gone

you bring it back to me

you make it real for me

i'm not sure of my priorities

when i've lost site of where i'm meant to be

like holy water, washing over me

you make it real for me

i run into you baby

you are the only one who'll save me

that's why i've been missing you lately

because you make it real for me

when my head is strong but my heart is weak

full of arrogance and uncertainties

i can find the words you teach my heart to speak

you make it real for me

i run into you baby

cause you are the only one who''ll save me

that's why i've been missing you lately

cause you make it real for me

everybody's talking in words i don't understand

you got to be the only one who knows just who i am

you're shining in the distance

i hope i can make it through

cause the only place that i want to be is right back home with you

i guess there' so much more

i have to learn

but if you're here with me

i know which way to rurn

you always give me somewhere

somewhere i can run

you make it real for me..."

james morrison

(forever)

Dragging my ass to Yoga....

Stretching my body, strengthening my muscles while I stretch my mind and work on moving past the fear. That's the way I'll spend the next 90 minutes of my morning......sweating and pushing myself to my limits, physically, mentally, spiritually.

Breaking this pattern of talking to him, texting him, emailing him, -it's harder than i thought. It's driving me fucking crazy, frankly.
In the quiet and the still moments of life, it's there.

I have to stop myself from going to the phone when I know he's driving to work, or texting him just to tell him I love him.
It's making me irritated, agitated. Like a junkie without a fix. I'm distracted by it constantly.

82 days? Are you kidding me?
I'm going to break. I can feel it. I'm half hoping he'll do it first. Is he struggling, too? The email and chat session a week ago seems insignificant. I need more.

In these moments, I'm not sure I can do this, despite knowing all the reasons why. And I'm really fucking pissed at myself for being so weak and not being able to move past this. This is where the tough girl in me thinks, "Suck it up. Stop being such a fucking wuss and just deal with it. He's going on with his life, move on with yours."

Tough girl wants to propel me to move on, to let it go, to stop worrying about whether he'll be there or not. Tough girl doesn't want to care. Wouldn't that make this a whole lot easier......

Found another song that seems to be my anthem lately. Can't stop listening to it..... and all it makes me want to do is reach him......somehow.......just get to him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU1Yau9K9YQ

Every word

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

An Autumn Evening in Pictures...

Sunset against the Corn Field......

The Harvest Moon kept a constant vigil.....

My favorite shot. Follow the tracks, mabye they'll lead to him....

Saturday night cup of tea gives me something to ponder and something to share...

I know not where his heart is, where his head is. I know not what has happened to him in these last days and what it has left him with.

I fear the worst based on little things. His posts have been scaring the shit out of me. He's lost, I feel it.

And then there are silly little games my mind plays, if you make this green light, he's thinking of you. If you see that daytime moon, the moon he talked about, he's there.

Still my fear swells and the thoughts swirl out of control like those of a 16-year-old with too many hormones and too little experience to know better.

It was the fucking Eight Ball. I knew when I picked it up my energy was diluted and twisted, so when asked if he loved me it said, "Reply Hazy Try again later."

Like how much later, 83 days?

Upon re-shaking and re-submitting my question "Does he love me?" it simply said "Outcome is doubtful."

None of this bullshit made me think he didn't love me, it just made me realize how distant we are. How removed that "cosmic love vibe" we've been riding really is now.

It's distant like the moon. It's fragmented and fractured and it's easily lost by the noise and the static.

Where are you?

(broken)

Wisdom from the Tea Leaves

My evening cup of tea Friday night produced this little gem of wisdom. Every breath.....

84 days and counting....

The left side

Funny how I find my mind stuck on the details, the little things.
It's what I cling to, these little vestiges of him, to get me through the mania and chaos that is currently my life. I feel like I've strapped on the seatbelt, secured the helmet, and pushed the Eject Button. Hold on! I'm still in a constant state of being on the verge of vomitting or breaking down.

The check came from my parents.
Okay, can i say how embarrassing it is to ask your parents to pay for your divorce?
I ripped open the over night envelope, shoved the cashiers check in the very formal attorney envelope along with the signed agreement and sealed it's fate with the adhesive strip. I didn't want to even hold the check in my hand very long.
It had a postage stamp on the front. How convenient. All part of the luxury package I'd now secured with my $250 per hour, I'm sure.

I decide to drive it over myself.

It's a one mile drive and it was the longest fucking mile of my life.
But I need to do this.

I need to physically walk it in the door. I need to hand over that envelope as a symbol of gaining my life back. Getting myself back. Apparently it starts with $2,500. I wonder how much more it's going to cost me to have freedom, happiness and a sense of peace, and maybe love?

I fill my thoughts with random little tidbits of him. The other him. The beautiful him. The him that I love deeply. i keep touching the necklace around my neck. The one he gave me, the one he wore around his neck until he put it on me. I reach for it to find him, to feel him. To know he is there.

"Are you still there?"
I can only wonder when my parachute opens where I will land. Where will he land?
Too scary to think about sometimes.

I put those thoughts out of my head and focus on the mind candy. The last time we kissed. The shower where we laid hands on each other's hearts and promised to love each other forever. The feeling of sitting next to him on a bar stool. The little things...

I find that this disconnecting from him and no contact with him, five days later, has allowed me to move forward. It's made it okay to leave my bad marriage.

It's made that break in my mind and in my heart that this isn't about him.

It's about the abusive situation i should have left years ago. It's about choices that are better for me, and ultimately for my child. In the here and now, I'm not making these choices to be with someone else. I'm making these choices for this moment. This life I'm in, right at this moment.

What i know is this - Life is hard.

You're going to have to weather the storms. Sometimes they come at you when you least expect it. Sometimes you're the one choosing to walk into the eye of the hurricane. It's scary to put yourself in the thick of it when the safer option is just to sit back and wait for the weather, let it come to you. Being a storm chaser means risking it all and scaring the shit out of yourself in the process.

I guess I fancy myself a bit of a stormchaser right about now. I'm going headfirst into the eye of this storm and I know it's going to beat the shit out of me. But I still believe in what's possible when it all clears over.

I still know why I have to do this.

So it's the little things that keep coming alive for me. It's the little things that sustain me through storm.

As I laid in bed the other night, i thought about him laying next to me, left side of the bed.
Oh, wait....left side.

Does he always sleep on the left side?

Funny the first time we shared a bed together, we were back and forth between either side. There wasn't much sleeping going on!

But somewhere along the way, he found the left side and I the right side. And I started thinking about a lot of things like the way we walk and hold hands, he was typically on the left. How we sit at a bar, or on the couch, he was always on my left.
I have no idea what this means, except that it somehow feels like he is supposed to be there. On my left.

I went to parallel park the car yesterday as I am dropping off the paperwork that holds my freedom in a business envelope. Nothing on the right side, just a spot on the left side of the street.
I'm not as experienced parallel parking on the left side and I'm nervous. I need to walk these papers in, it's close to closing time and I need to park this car and take these papers in and go back to work.

I stop, take a deep breath and back the car easily into the space. The left side.......it's the left side. I somehow need this to mean something.....

The whole thing felt so symbolic somehow. Maybe I was reaching, maybe i was looking for the ceremony of it all. The end for my beginning. The sealed fate of that envelope.

I stick a quarter in the meter and start walking fast towards the mahagony front door that some other lost soul helped pay for with their price of freedom. Brass handle, expensive wood receptionist desk. Kind faced woman takes my papers and I want to say to her, "Deliver me...please god. Get me out of this shit fast...." Instead I just smile and head back to my car.

I reach for my necklace, with my left hand and wonder if he can feel it.
As I walk back to the car, i wonder if i've just walked ten steps closer to him...


(jblife-09)

A Reason to hold on...

False Alarm

I'm trying to put this thing to bed
I drugged it in it's sleep
There isn't many memories I'm comfortable to keep
This ball keeps rolling on
It's heading for the street

Keep expecting you to send for me
The invitation never comes
Each time I turn around
There's nothing there at all
So tell me why I feel likeI'm up against a wall

But maybe it's a false alarm
And every answer sounds the same
Just colours bleeding into one that hasn't got a name
Maybe I can't seeMaybe it's just me

Another curtains coming up
The audience is stillI'm struggling to cater for
The space I'm meant to fill
And distance doesn't care
No distance doesn't care

Each time I turn around
There's nothing there at all
So tell me why I feel likeI'm up against a wall
But maybe it's a false alarmAnd every answer sounds the same
Just colours bleeding into one that hasn't got a name
Maybe I can't see
Maybe it's just me

I'm trying to put this thing to bed
I drugged it in it's sleep
Remember what you said.
Are you comfortable to keep it?
Keep it?
-kt tunstall

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy_NoRA5z0E&eurl=http://www.lyrics.com/index.php/artists/lyric/kt-tunstall-lyrics-false-alarm-t-8644316


(create)

Love from the Hardware Store

Day 3 3/4

Love can come in strange and unexpected ways.
Often it's hard to remember that it's in our every day life, the little things we forget to pay attention to.
Today I struggled to see much of anything in my life but pain and hurt until a small package reminded me what love is.
Today I took about fifteen steps forward, afraid of every one, but I'm headed for happiness and living my truth.

I told three different people that I was getting divorced. Saying it out loud was tremendously important for me. Enlisting other people in my truth is equally as important.

And then there was the call to my attorney. He told me to keep breathing and to do the next thing and that he would take care of the rest. And so it goes......

Today was a day when I felt like someone was sitting on my chest, disallowing air to move freely through my body. Today was a day when my stomach felt like it was on "that ride" and there was uncertainty running through me.

Today was a day i found myself on the verge of tears about everything, my emotions so used to being in check and not showing fear or weakness. Tears aren't allowed in my world and today felt like they were walking the high wire without a net. I feared breakdown at every turn.

I wanted to cry when the UPS delivery guy asked me how i was doing.
"How am i doing?," i wanted to shout. "How am i doing?"
"Fantastic, Jim. Just fucking fantastic," but of course, i smiled and just signed for the package.

I wanted to cry when Rosie the mail carrier came in with the daily lot telling me to have a good day. I sifted through the bad election mail, the coupons, the junk mail, the bills and then i noticed the puffy yellow envelope addressed to me.
Big suck in of air as i see the return address is from him. It's him. My heart drops.

Him.

Something protrudes visibly from the package. What the hell is this, I wonder. What could he have sent me? Something of mine he has and needed to return? Something to tell me he misses me? i flip it over and set it on the desk and go on about my day....for five minutes.
and then i cut open the top and take another deep breath.

When I finally figure out what i've pulled from the envelope, the tears come quickly.
It's a simple little plug for my electrical outlet. He'd noticed I needed one when i saw him last and told me to get one at the hardware store. It's dangerous he warned, I nodded and said yes i'd get one.
I'd forgotten.

He did not.
So today I found love in a puffy yellow envelope, delivered by Rosie, reminding me that it's the smallest of things. Love is in the details.

Love is in a mid-west town buying plugs for my outlets.

Who knows what tomorrow brings...



(djd)

Tickets, Please

Day 3

Let me off the ride.
This gut wrenching/ heart wrenching feeling continues. I actually dreamed I was on a roller coaster last night, that stomach dropping feeling as we climbed to the top and plunged down ridiculous grades. And then there was that song.
The song he sent me that I've been playing over and over that ran through my head like it was on repeat, through most of my sleep.
I admit that i'm a mess.
I border on vomitting, crying and/or screaming at the top of my lungs. The fight with "barely hanging on" husband took it out of me last night.

Then it was a phone call with my mother this morning. Did i know what i was doing? Was this the right thing to do? Fuck!!!!!!!!

Are you kidding me, mom? I can't figure out if I put on the right boots with my dress this morning. I've spared her the asshole that is her son-in-law for 10 years, protecting her from the shitty things he's said about her and my family.

Forget what he has done to me, her daughter. I protected her from that, thinking that i would need her to be kind at Christmas dinners, birthday parties, etc. I didn't want her to hate him.
Now I think that might be helpful.

My neck is so tight with tension I can't turn my head. Or maybe it's from the air mattress i'm calling a bed the last four weeks that is on the basement floor since he won't leave the bedroom.
And then there's the other him. 87 more days of no contact.
Wondering what is happening with him, wondering how is feeling, what's he thinking. Is he okay? Does he miss me as much as I miss him? Does he remember my touch, my kiss, my love? God, it's only been three days since we last touched, but it feels like a world away, a lifetime away.

I'm wondering if i use a lifeline or if it's too soon. We've already cheated once. Trying to be strong, trying to respect what we both need to do. Hoping there is life on the other side for him and I. Hoping this reprieve gives us a chance to deal with our situations, separately of one another, so we can find each other when it's said and done.
My therapist told me it's good, that the other him and I need to do this, although he thinks it's very difficult. He doubts our strength to follow through on the 90 days. The doubt makes me determined to do this.
I tell therapist I want a better me. I tell him I want to get "down and dirty" with me, my bullshit, my baggage. I want to spend the next couple of months in therapy understanding what i've done here, what i've lived through and what is left of me when the smoke clears.
Therapist offers insight into my weekend with "other him".
I tell him about how the other him takes care of me, is chivalrous and romantic. He actually tells me this is good, given my practicality and disbelief of romantic love the last decade.

"This balance of romantic love and practical love might be a really good thing for you," he says of the other him. I actually take that as endorsement of "him" and smile. My therapist thinks he'd be good for me.
Sigh.

I feel like a fish, removed from its tank. Left to flip and flip, flounder and falter, this way and that.......would some one please put me back in the water?

(no.9)

Torture

Day Two & 3/4....

This is painful.

I realize now how hard this is going to be and why.

Just stepped away from knock down drag out with "hanging on by a thread" husband and he's back to his old ways. At the first sign of my wanting out and wanting to leave, he promised change, turned over a new leaf, apologized, cried, begged, etc, etc. Several months later, he's pissed that i won't try, pissed i can't get over what's been said or done.

Tonight in his typical verbal abuse/masked as converational tone sarcasm, I felt myself floundering, feeling the need to defend myself. Feeling the need to argue with him, feeling the need for him to understand that I'm not what he says I am.

Once I find myself in that place, it's easy to let the anger flow. A decade of abuse comes flooding back and I feel justified in my rage, almost as though I owe him this. For all the shit I've taken over the years, he can sit there and listen to the hurt and the pain come spewing out of me in the form of anger.

It leaves me hollering and him goading me into more, questioning my mental stability, my family, my mothering skills.
I won't lie, it stings, even still. Somehow I lose my footing and I start to slip off the path of "i know better" and "you don't need his approval".

This is when I would reach for the other him, -this loving man who has been there to kiss the boo-boos, wipe away the tears, put the band-aid on the skinned knees.


He would remind me that he's wrong, he would remind me not to be invested in what he thinks of me anymore. He would remind me that I am good. And he would tell me he loves me. This i know undeniably.

But as he told me last night, it's time to break that pattern. I've done it for him, too. Coached him through the words to say when his abuser/wife tears him down. Reminded him that he is loving and is a good dad. But now, we can no longer look to each other for this survival skill.


I need to do it on my own. I need to step forward into my decision and not look back. I need to make this okay for my child and I need to make this okay for me.

I no longer need to accept this torture as my fate. I don't have to love this man I've called my husband even though he didn't love me. I don't have to be willing to take what little love he would give and call it enough. I don't owe him anymore of myself.

The debt is with myself.

Somewhere I will find me and there will be courage to take that next step.

Tomorrow I will pick up the phone, take a deep breath, and jump into the waters of starting my life without him.
Or him.

why i love e.e. cummings.......

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) -e.e. cummings

Chocolate Cake

We cheated.

See, as i explained to him, this is like a diet. We have both agreed to this ridiculous arrangement to not have contact for three months so we can get ourselves "in shape" for the other.

Our "barely breathing" marriages should have long ago ended. We both need to figure out why we were there so long to begin with, why we let the horror continue. Abusive situations for each of us that left us shattered and broken, in different ways. He's actually filed papers. I'm still needing to file mine. There is work to be done here.

But we want this life together and 90 days gives us a jump on not making our departures from our marriages about each other. This isn't about leaving for him. I know that deep in my heart. I would have loved to have seen the happy ending in my own marriage, but verbal abuse cuts deep and it's too far gone for salvage.

And so this "hiatus" is a bit like a diet. A self imposed restrictive "diet" where we are limited in our "caloric contact" with each other. A phone call is as bad as three Big Macs, large fries, coke, to go, please. No emails, no texts, no hot sex.....sigh.

So how's it going two days in?

We cheated. That's how it's going.

I couldn't stand it. I had to reach him and I had a relatively legitimate reason why, concerning something I thought i'd left around that would give us away. Once we had figured out he had the incriminating evidence, contact should have ended. But we couldn't stop talking......

So we ate the cake. The whole fucking thing. We chatted for several hours and I indulged in every last bite. Funny though, we never did talk about sex, one of our favorite topics.

He felt more remorse than I. He really wants to do this and be loyal to the process. I was giving us more room for error because on the heels of our amazing two days together, we had managed to not call or text each other all day yesterday. That was progress, right?

I was seriously questioning our decision because timing-wise, we just set ourselves up to make this so hard.....I mean two days together, non-stop "us" and then boom! Cold Turkey?

Shit it's like detox after a two day bender.

I have to be good. I have to stop looking at the chocolate cake. I have to stick to the diet and do what i said i would, honor the process. Keep looking at his beautiful picture, though. Damn.

I have a session with my "trainer" tonight....otherwise known as therapy. He is going to help me kick this habit for 90 days and remind me why i need to do this. And i'll complain the whole time, I'm certain. Eye on the prize, just keep your eye on the prize.

But, damn that was good cake.

88 days.....but who's counting?

(89-09-J/B)

Happy

He came to see me.
Heart skips, plans made, timing just right.
It was challenging to work out the details as it's getting harder to cover tracks, to hide our relationship, especially when we want nothing more than to be public with how we feel. We're both still stuck in remnants of our bad marriages. It's complicated.
But he came here.
And i drank him in, every touch, every taste, every smell. Every kiss.
We spent two glorious nights waking to each other's touch. We made love every second we possibly could. We reveled in time together, meals together, plans together, life together......even if just for a little while. I loved just bringing him coffee and making him eggs.

We escaped to the city one night where no one knows us, to immerse ourselves in a world where we are mere strangers to the passing faces on the streets, and we could be with each other. We held hands walking down city sidewalks, we stopped on corners to kiss. He worried about my being too tired to walk around, being too cold. He's not used to someone who can roll with it, who doesn't need a plan, a place to be seen, but he was the ever present boyfriend, so kind and caring, so loving -and so hot!

I have to admit I'm taken with him. I love just watching this man walk into the room. Walking towards me, reaching for me. He's beautiful. He's handsome to a fault. He's fucking hot. Jeans and a black sweater, flips flops. Hot. Striped shirt and jeans. Hot.
I'm completely attracted to him, just as I was 20 years ago.

We laughed a lot. We talked about our hopes for life together.
And then we made this really stupid decision not to talk or have contact for the next three months. We had decided this would be the best way to work out our shit.
We have decided we are better than "affair couple." This is more than just an indulgent way to escape our shitty marriages for a brief time. We have aspirations of life together, not just escapism every six weeks.
So we'll put this on hold. We stop talking every day. We stop texting and emailing. We stop being immersed in each other's lives.

This sounded very mature, very much the right thing to do. We made promises of cleaning up our messes, putting our broken marriages out of there misery, seeking therapy for ourselves to be responsible for our baggage. To stop relating our gloom and doom with each other and stop making our relationship about that. It was time for us to step out of our bubble and back into our lives so we can actually have a shot at this. Very grown up and very evolved.
But as our weekend started coming to a close and our fated "hiatus" was about to begin, i began to panic.
Seriously panic.
I was struck with fear. How was I going to be away from him? How was going to not call him, not reach out to him. As we lay in bed that last night, I told him how scared I was, he told me he was too. He pulled me closer in that hotel bed and put his hand on my heart. We slept this way for several hours.

When we were showering together the next day, it was his turn to panic. "I don't think i can do this," he said, fear in his eyes. " I know," i said. We held each other with the water streaming down us, our hands on each others hearts. "i know."
When we finally came to "goodbye" i started to panic again. How would I do this? My heart was pounding in my chest and i couldn't pull myself away from him, from his embrace.
I welled with tears, my heart exploding with the hurt of loosing him, -again. Would I see him again?

I drove away with a knot in my throat and my eyes on the rear view mirror.
Three life lines. We built in three in three months. An email, a text, a phone call.
This morning I received lifeline 1 in my inbox.
It was a clip of a song with instructions to listen to every word.

This is what I heard:

"Some need gold and some need diamond rings
or a drug to take away the pain that living brings
promise of a better world to come
when whatever here is done
i don't need a sky of blue, baby
all i know since i've found you
i'm happy when i'm in your arms
happy darling come the dawn
happy when i taste your kiss
i'm happy in a love like this

there is a house up on a distant hill
where you can here the laughter of children ring
guardian angels they watch from above
guarding over the love that they bring
but at night i feel the darkness near
and i wake and i find you near
i'm happy with you in my arms
happy with you in my heart
happy when i taste your kiss
i'm happy in a love like this

in a world of doubt and fear
i wake at night
and reach to find you near
lost in a dream you caught me as i fell
i want more than just a dream to tell

born in this world
darling with few days
and trouble never far behind
man and woman circle each other in a cage
a cage that's been handed down the line
lost and running beneath a million dead stars
tonight let's shed our skin and slip these bars
happy in each other's arms
happy baby come the dark
happy in each other's kiss
i'm happy in a love like this"

God, i love him.
Only 89 days left....

How to Fall in Love on The Internet

So it happened.

I'm a cliche. A statistic. An Oprah show.

Or am i just needy?
Needy of love? Needy of a feeling of connection beyond the cold war that has raged in my loveless marriage for years?

Too scared to get out, too far gone to ever feel love for him again.

I had long ago resided myself and my marriage to apathy, indifference, erractic bursts of resentment and disdain, and the occassional drunken sexual encounter. This would be my life.

Fine, I thought. I have good friends, good family, a great child. I'm happy with those things. There is no need for a storybook marriage, or even love, to fulfill me.

And so it went.

Until one warm May evening when i came home from a night out with friends. A few cocktails, a husband out of town, (hence the empty bed and a laptop perched across my legs in the queen size) and a restlessness that often accompanies the balmy, spring air.

Bored, curious, and a bit adventurous thanks to the martinis, I'm surfing the net, fishing the vast waters of the information highway. What's out there? i think. Who's out there? i wonder.

I search a couple of people I haven't heard from in years. I pop in a few names to see what comes up. My own version of "Where are they Now?".
Who's next? What about her? What about him? And just like that, -he popped into my head.

Him.
The sports guy. The writer guy. The boyfriend from sophomore year who broke my heart. The him who I haven't thought of in years.

The closed chapter. The "love" that was obviously a gross over-exaggeration of my young heart, and a girl who didn't know better. He did and he'd broken my heart.

But then it had been 20 years and I'd had a lot more heartbreak than James. Shit, marriage number two wasn't panning out so well.

Where in the hell was he?

I type the letters to his name in the white space search bar, expecting nothing. Expecting to keep him right where he's been, in ex-boyfriend oblivion.
Turns out he's in Wisconcin.

And still fucking hot. Damn. The profile page says married, kids. And clearly still cocky, with that smirky half-smile staring at me from the page.
Well, good for him. Somebody made it. Happy life, happy wife, beautiful kids. I let the martinis be my guide and i think "What the fuck?" so i hit the "send an email" option and compose a message, subject line "Are you my ex?".

I'm feeling witty, sarcastic and genuinely platonic and curious about my old friend. I write a clever little note because hey, we were friends once.

So I click the send button before I can over think it and i shut off the computer.

It's two days before I check the email to see that he's responded.

He's shocked to hear from me. Stunned, really and I can sense it from the response. I get a little giddy to see he's written me back. Twice actually. In the second message he nervously apologizes for a sarcastic and funny comment he's written in the first message. Clearly, he's forgotten I have a sense of humor. I smile as I type the response.

Two decades later, he's polite, he's funny, he's kind. He wants to know about me, my life, my whereabouts after college. He's charming. He's hot.

I write him back.

I become more and more interested in his repsonses, checking daily now, to see if he has sent me an email.

He never disappoints and soon we are emailing "real time" exchanging rapid fire messages back and forth, as though we are having a real conversation.

Within a few more exchanges, he confesses to marital misery as do I. It's not hard to talk about the disappointment with another fellow "club member". Once you exchange the secret handshake and admit it's not at all what you had hoped, it's pretty easy. We both had it pretty bad.

He confesses to staring at my profile pictures, professing his attraction to me and how beautiful he thinks I still am. He confesses to never being over me.

Really?
I'm the one that got away, he says. I'm the one he's thought about over the years, I'm the one he's fantasized about. I'm the girl he measured all others against.....his standard.

What? I was someone's standard girl? Damn I wish I'd known that. I mean, that would have kept a girl warm during those cold nights in bed with her loveless husband.

He recalls stories with such detail that I'm blown away someone remembers this much about me. I don't even remember some of the things he tells me. Bits and pieces and fragments of our life come back to me as we walk down memory lane.

I admit to having closed the door pretty hard on him and on our relationship when it was over, deeming myself a fool for having thought i had loved him. Clearly it hadn't been love.

Clearly he'd blown off that summer after sophomore year because it didn't mean anything. Clearly I had trusted my heart and been wrong. It wouldn't be the first time.

I came back to school junior year with a new boyfriend.
He came back to school looking for me and thinking we'd reconnect. The stubborn and tough girl that I was back then wasn't about to lose her pride. Too late. I acted disinterested and unaffected when he came to see me at the sorority house.

He acted sheepish. Secretly, I had been devasted but I wouldn't let him know that back then, particularly with those cute shorts on and his boyishly handsome good looks. Fucker!!!

Now it's two weeks into our correspondence and the emails get longer and eventually we take our "reconnection" and slight flirting to the phone lines, agreeing to talk.

I'm schocked at how familiar his voice is during that first phone call. His inflections, his laughter.

He apologizes for being an asshole and blowing it with someone he now knows was perfect for him, someone he thinks he loved. I tell him we were 19 and 20 and to let it go because I have. He can't stop apologizing for hurting me.

I am taken with how open he is, twenty years later. So sensitive, so caring and loving. This is a far cry from the 20 year old who didn't want anyone to know we were dating.

We plan to talk again. I have a million questions, I want to know him more. I want to see his face as he says such distinctively "him" things like "Ya' think?".

I promise to call on my way to dinner with a friend. I can get out early and park at the restaurant to make my phone call.
We make a date to finish our talk, to flirt, to laugh, and find out exactly what the hell happened to our love twenty years ago.