Megan and I had begun our remaining days together reinforcing statements she'd already made...."I shouldn't be in a place like this. They were bad for me, bad for us." The latter certainly proved true enough seeing the eventualities and what Megan's final reaction was. The very essence of this new beast inside me was a detraction for us. Took much of the time I previously had to spend with Megan, away, and replaced it with training and classes. It was an awful adjustment to expect her to assume, or tolerate. After the first couple of weeks, we'd discussed, at length, what was taking place. Further, what accommodations could be made to buttress our relationship.
Let me now jump on this time warp contraption and bring you to present for an explanation.
What has brought me to start thinking so heavily in Megan, now, at this time? Well, as explained, I'd been hearing the occasional anecdote coming back from family and friend about having seen Megan in passing. Last year, my bud Doug had a party catered at his house by RS Jones. He stated that he specifically asked if Megan would be there. He went out of his way to tell me about this, either out of concern for me and what I might feel, or in a deeper sense, maybe he too understood what Megan had been to me, and possibly might be in present day. I may be over-analyzing this as well. In the back of my mind I'd hoped she would be there so we could, for lack of anything else, say hi in passing. Possibly allow me to blurt out those feelings cooped up inside me for so many years of words never heard but needing to be said. She ended up not being there. This year on a few occasions, stories were related back to me of additional encounters with Megan. My sister recently related that she and her family were eating at 'Jones.' They frequent the place. The owners came over and sat down with them, chatting. Megan wasn't their waitress but then came over and said hi. With that she then started, again, relating how I'd broken her heart. My sisters husband Brian became animated in his astonishment that the conversation once again returned to me and our relationship and further how I'd then set the stage in her life for failed relationships then on. Other details were related as well, but I'll suspend the nity-gritty. This last detail was intriguing because it was another tidbit of information I'd not previously heard. My sister then encouraged me to reach out for her. She thought it would be readily accepted and make Megan happy.
The thought, again, of seeing Megan is both comforting, established, and similarly frightful. Obviously the raw boyish feelings within rear up and expose themselves. The feeling of impending conversations, discussions of the mundane or intense. Establishing closure, and hopefully, reestablishing a long lost friendship. Feelings of adolescence, intrigue, overwhelming nerves, etc. All wrapped up into one continuous emotion. I haven't felt this way in more than a decade. As always I discuss everything with my wife. Involvement with my emotions is critical to our relationship. My emotions run as an undercurrent to who I am, maybe to a fault at times. I've learned self preservation by involving others close to me, in my life. Therein, I am able to get assistance in understanding life's challenges and triumphs. Perspective also plays a heavy roll as well. I've died three times during this half of my life. Once at the derogatory hands of another. The others by the hand of professionals during mundane surgery (the second of which left me in the hospital for weeks.) I don't have a very positive view of anesthesiologists after this experience. These episodes have galvanized my view of carpe diem. Each and every day is a great one. Icing on the cake of my life. I've said for years now that if I died today, I'd have been the happiest man I could have ever hoped. I've had relationships with my family that I am quite content over. I've said all of the things I've wanted to say to those closest to me. I say I love you and mean it, from my heart. I understand my emotions, and am unafraid, relatively as you see, to express them. I will take the road unknown, for the sake of learning or experiencing something new about myself.
So in speaking to my wife, I asked her advice. What should I do with this information, if anything. Do I leave doors now closed be, or do I knock and try and open them to see where those hallways lead. She asked me to try and reconnect. That I, for one, would find much joy in those past friendships I'd lost by time or distance. She also stated that the words and emotions of the time, not expressed, are ones that should be expressed. Words and feelings like those should never be hidden or buried away, always released into consciousness so they can be appreciated. She on the other hand would take comfort and resolve from being able to potentially have conversation(s) with Megan as well. Find out who her husband was at the time of the beginning of what she has come to know as my passion for service and commitment. Volunteerism, professionalism, and samaritan. She knows to the extents I go in life. Knows the trials and travels that have and do make me who I am. Knows of me spending better portions of my life trying to save life and property. Within fire, earthquakes, wild-land fire, hurricane, 2AM at bedside, etc. She doesn't have the ability to have experienced me in my teens, during high school. At a time when my emotions and maturity were undeveloped. She also realizes, and has been told, what and who Megan was to me. (I think she also finds it a new avenue to 'compare notes' on me with someone else who'd once had my heart so deeply, and possibly remotely, still does. This to my obvious delight - can you sense my sarcasm in this prospect of having the only two women closest to me in my life, in the same room at the same time, TALKING?)
I didn't stop at just my wife. I also involved our friends as well. Loralee, Cathy, Mike, Doug (obviously- though not to the same extent since he's had other issues on his mind of late, though I think he understands.) They all were like, bring it on. We want to know Doug, and possibly share in the delight of his squirming in front of us. Imagine the possibilities. (I have some wonderful friends.) Then with this new Facebook thing, I've reconnected with some high school friends again. Rob Foster and Suzzie Ringwald, specifically. Told of this they were amazed at my wife's acceptance and prodding. Rob was like, whoa, way to go man. Suzzie suggested she would drive down to help Mary kick Megan's butt, if that's what Mary decided and needed - it's not.
All around, these past few weeks have been a flurry of new connections, reconnection's and reflection of days gone by. Mid-life crisis maybe? Nah, been there, done that. In reality not worth the time and effort. So, with all of these happenstances arriving within a month or so of each other, the psyche becomes atuned to them. They're currently at my forefront, welling under the surface, turbulent and fresh. Then, the biggest assault on my senses came last week at our friend Loralee's daughter's birthday. We go over to their house and are sitting off to one side, five of us enjoying conversation about this and that (and also about Megan), when Loralee's brother in-law walks up with his daughter. She's going through a period of terrible teenage angst. She is standing over me while the 'adults' are talking. Then a fragrance smacks me in the face. At first blind, casual and then I realize I know that fragrance. I used to enjoy, LOVE, that scent. What in gods name is it. The mind racing for a minute or so when it finally hits me. That's the perfume Megan used to wear. I haven't smelled that since....well, Megan. It had been my favorite woman's scent until Organsa arrived. (truth be told, it always pleasurably reminded me of Megan and being with someone who smelled and reminded me of someone Megan, is not conducive to my life, or mental health because of those inner feelings of loss.) I was stunned. Dumbfounded. I guess I was perceptively processing these complex thoughts, memories, emotions, heartache. Everything.
I looked up and realized that the conversation at the table had stopped. Cathy looked at me, and then asked, 'Doug, you okay?' I guess the blood had rushed from my face, instead racing to where it was needed most, my brain. I blinked away the cobwebs and said, "umm, yeah." Cathy persisted. (Cathy and Loralee have, over the years, made a game of trying to get me to blush or react to their challenges or Wiley ways. Friends alike, they take great pride in feeling they've pushed my boundaries, my moral essence as it were. (Loralee famously pinched my butt in Church, at her daughters Christening. Though outwardly appears to be the most chasted of the group.) Either through a seductive hug between them, licking opposite sides of a spoon at the same time, suggestive talk, whatever, they 'get' me and have fun with it. (If they only knew who they were trying to play with.)) Cathy asked, 'Doug, you've now flushed, what the heck is going on.' They too know of my deathly allergic reaction to processed sweetener (the likes of saccharine.) Their immediate concern was that I might have ingested something akin to death. I immediately recovered and said, "no, no, I'm fine. Just had a sensory overload." They asked me to explain and I did. Cathy said, its an 'Omen. Something to be done about it.' Loralee, seeing yet another opportunity, just wanted to continue in another chance to make fun of me. The conversation ended with Cathy asking, 'so what are you going to do about it Doug?' I answered I was unsure and like Mary, she said, 'go for it. We got your back.'
So, with this sensory overload bringing a swirl of emotion and memory to my life, I've resolved to give it a go. What's the worst that can happen....that she doesn't return the call. I'll know then that I've made another effort to reconnect, almost at her urging (if you read the tea leaves correctly. Though I've never been adept at reading such things.) I guess I want to set the record straight. Provide context for choices made and defined by circumstances too complex at the time to understand as an adolescent, or better, communicate properly. Typical arguments in life establish themselves by creating extreme boundaries, measures of excess, flourish of position. Like a fencers parry, or the positioning of themselves before the first blow. In opposition, what's the best that can happen. Well, such things may be destined to play themselves out, opportunity and emotion confined or released into consciousness. Close friends, occasional acquaintances, tear filled days and discussions, connection, who knows. This takes two to make anything work. She may not be as mature, accepting, tolerant, or engaging as I might be. That, though, wouldn't be the 'typical' response of the girl I once knew and loved. Her heart had been larger than that, larger than my life.
Back to the downfall. Megan began episodes of hypothesis on what would be our downfall. I on the other hand was thinking quite the opposite. What would make us work. I was, for all intensive purposes, planning to marry this girl. I was trying to merge the current strife with what my mind was set for, the long term. Then, abruptly, came a demarcation point. The declaration. The "I can't's." Megan was determining her boundaries, our boundaries for that matter. For a while she began saying things like, "I can't see us together through this chapter of your life." This shook me to my foundation. The girl who professed, so completely, her love and devotion to me and us. Who literally gave every sense of herself to me, for me. Yes, in retrospect these too were adolescent protestations. The immaturity time had not yet given perspective to. Megan was, after all, 17. She didn't yet know I wanted to set a date certain for us. 1984. She didn't see my building inner desire to let out those words from my heart. Was that realistic, was that placing too much of a burden upon a fledgling relationship? In 1982 maybe. Though I was a very ritualistic person. My discussions with my mother galvanized my determination. I was a new person, alive, headstrong. I was doing the things in life that had finally made me happy, for myself. My mother stated that she and my father got married very young. If love was there, explore it, embrace it, to others be damned. The family would support us in our relationship and life. I could be a husband.
My head hurt. My heart began to hurt. I'd realized I was breaking Megan's heart and that she didn't understand the larger picture. I finally decided it was time to involve her in my mothers discussion with me. Start anew and begin buttressing us and the relationship. Try and express my deep love for her now and for the future together. Nervously, I set alone time for us. I made plans, arranged for dinner out and a movie. Then a place for a long walk and deep honest discussion. It was time for me to talk with her, and hopefully it would end in the right time for me to ask her to marry me. Time, conditions, and emotions though didn't let the conversation go where I wanted it to. As I was talking, trying to make verbal strides to build up our position in life together, she was reading these signs as opposite. Two people speaking the same words, but hearing the opposite. I'd started out by describing who we were together. The people who experienced the first of everything with the other. In turn she began reading this as run up to breakup. I saw it happening in front of me, unable to recover. I tried many times to stop the conversation and ask to restart it. I'd get a couple words out and she would dive back into the devolvement of us. What was happening here. Why was this happening. Her comments became harder, more pointed. She laced some of her words with invectives and insult. Try as I might, I realized I couldn't recover, on this day at least, from this onslaught. It was a difficult night. The first of which I remember that made me question 'us.' It also made me see a side of Megan I had never seen before. Pain. I realized, horrifically, I was hurting this perfect woman, The perfect woman. The person in my life that I'd vowed to take adversity for, give my life for, offer my soul for, I was now making hurt, cry. My actions were making her an emotional wreck. How could one person do this to another. For the love of pete, what had I done. What were my actions doing.
That was the day of change. Why did I love Megan the way I did? Why would she accept, ever, to be my wife? Everything was in turmoil. With that, I turned to that thing in life that had newly, now, made sense. Emergency Medicine. I dove in head first, with both feet. This predictably, placed a new level of stress on our relationship. Every date, every spare moment we had together, was filled with strife. I was also preparing for college and leaving in a few weeks. How, if our relationship couldn't handle medicine, would it handle relative distance. I perceived this as yet again burdening Megan's heart with new ache. I was literally hurting her. Who could I talk to. So, I started with my mother. She urged me to keep trying. Offered to speak with Megan directly. Also, and somewhat predictably, the other who was Lauren. I say predictably because its almost a cliche. Lauren too was a new member in the vac. She and I spoke often during training. I let her into my life and problems, and she was very sympathetic with my plight. She gave me insight into the female psyche. Similarly a woman with deep emotion, deep thought and consideration, she too in a failing relationship. I, at the time, didn't see things progressing as they would eventually. What they might, could or would become. Lauren and I didn't become a 'we' until much later, many many months later.
Lauren had opened the topic of a mutual 'time out' as it were. My mother similarly suggested something akin to this. To give time and some distance a chance to let the roiling waters calm themselves. Allow perspective back in to the relationship. I considered this and went with it the best I knew how. Megan was not receptive. Megan asked if there was another girl involved with this new 'insight.' I answered honestly and said I had made new friends and one of them was Lauren who was helping me. I also stated that my mother was involved as well, hoping to be in a position to blurt forth my inner desires for a future life together. Megan's dark side reared up and struck about, wildly. Things for us were over.
My heart split that day. Broken, strewn about in portions of my life. Never to return to its previous state of bliss. Relationships were far more complicated than I knew at the time, or finally knew they actually weren't. I didn't want to let go. I gave it 2 weeks. I then called Megan's home. Spoke with her mother who advised me that it wasn't a good idea for me to be calling. I tried to explain that I wanted to talk, to reconcile, straighten things out. She stated she'd pass the message along. I waited a day and called again. I got her father. Left a message. I waited 2 more days, called again. Her mother answered and cut me off "Doug, dear, she's heart broken, don't ever call here again." She hung up on me. I then took to sitting in my car out on the street where I could see her house. I saw her room, 2nd floor window. Sometimes lit, others not. I'd wait hours on end hoping to catch a glimpse of her. I knew I could explain my heart and observations and ask forgiveness and the new chance at life together that could be afforded. I was willingly subverting my college to try and get back together. A month went by, I was at school and couldn't stand it anymore. I drove home. I called again and got her mother, who simply hung up. I penned 2 letters. Sent them in the mail. Nothing. I was coming home weekly to try and see her, catch sight of her. Nothing. I started coming back every other day. All for naught.
As loneliness set in and took hold, Lauren was in the periphery. Ever present once or twice a week. I met Lauren's mother one day when Lauren was weepy from her failed relationship. Her mom was extremely nice and concerned. Lauren walked out of the room and her mother said that I was making her happy, and thanked me. "You're good for her, a nice friend." I just muttered a 'Thanks." Lauren and I would eventually become a couple months later.
My mother sought to provide advice to me during this breakup. She knew how heavy a heart I had. Saw the tears and anxiety. She'd advised me to keep trying. Try to find and reach out to this wonderful person, the oncoming daughter-in-law. All of those efforts failed, until one day the memories were sufficiently suppressed for me to be happy again.
I did try to reconnect those few years later on that train. Failed as they were, I'm confident in myself in knowing I gave it a go. Time, people, circumstance, immaturity, protection by others, mother hens, all intervened to play a roll in keeping us apart. Maybe that's what should have happened, maybe it is not. I still wonder heavily, deeply. I know though, time has healed many wounds within me. Time has provided me with maturity and perspective. The ability to reflect on things I did wrong, and there were many, many of those. My view is but 50% of this story. I do hope that one day I have the ability to publish the other 50%, or have someone allow me to publish their words, her words, here, so a full perspective can be gleaned. I feel I owe her that. I owe myself that. I can only learn and become a better person through true perspective, 100% accuracy. It will make me a better man.
To what end do I write these things? Obviously this blog offers my thoughts and perspectives on life and the trials I've had and joys I've experienced. From a great friendship with Doug, which continues to evolve and deepen, to my relationship with my sister and her family. To my relationship with my wife Mary. I'm an open book with most things. Life is just, simply, too short to not live to its fullest and experience all that can or would be. These meanderings of my life, through written word are also genuine to my spirit and helpful. They provide perspective into my psyche that I might not have otherwise explored. They provide catharsis, support and a record for my family, its future, and otherwise. To understand their friend, acquaintance, father, husband, sibling, etc. In the end, these words are me, for me, by me of my own hand.
Life is precious, fleeting, complicated. Live for today. Understand the past. Accept failings. Move past them, learn by them, understand them. I'm better for it.
Postscript.
Through all of the above, I have done it. I've spoken to wife and family, friends near and far. I've received mostly encouragement (and one offer of violence.) I stumbled by the RS Jone's website and found a few pictures of classic Megan, smiling in that familiar way I remember. With that, I took the step. So, on Friday I reached out yet again. I sent a message that I know has now been delivered. I provided my numbers cell and work and the desire to say hi. I await the call. I will always await this call. My hand is extended hoping to explain, reconnect, laugh, maybe cry, to catch up. Hopefully, in the end, become friends again.
Time will tell.
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