Relationships - cont'd

(cont'd)

Obviously, this is written in 2009. Many, too many, years have gone by. Unknowingly, Megan and I have been separated by miles, and time. My journeys have taken me across Nassau, NY to other States, to other counties (currently Suffolk, NY.) Unfortunately, REALLY unfortunately, what it now boils down to is 1 mile and 30 years. I work within a mile of where she works, now time is the detraction. So many years, in just one mile. I consider these hindrances the dearth of life.

As I've stated, Megan and I were doing everything together. Hey, I'd had my first dinner with the family, at her house. Her dad even acknowledged me with more than a grunt. (Her Dad, if memory serves was a carpenter.) Her brother Jack said hi to me - when I was someone to be acknowledged or seen. Met her sister Jane a time or two as well. Her brother Patrick, he was another story. A couple years younger than Megan. He was growing into and through his teens at the time. Full or energy and need. We talked. WE became friends and I joked around with him a great deal. I thought we hit it off and thought I'd broken down some of the barriers between siblings and the strange, fleeting people brought into homes at times. I remember one day waiting for Megan to get home when Patrick and I sat and talked. Almost brother to brother. I'd gotten the sense that he'd finally accepted me, where others in the house may not have. It was a nice first family to be involved with. Irish to the core, and accepting.

Since I'd never before been in this type of relationship with a girl, I took Megan at her word. I never, ever, knew anything different. Obviously I knew people, friends and schoolmates, and how shallow, manipulating or perverse they could be. The couple of girls I'd dated in the past, I really never got to know. Those relationships were born of alignment of time or convenience. Never really meaning anything more than a friendship. Megan had become my prime focus. Life just revolved around her. I hadn't yet experienced death or dying in my life, the likes which I have since, other than close family members. I make this statement because seeing and interacting with the amount of death and dying I have, beating back (sometimes) the grim reaper with my own hands, both calms and chills the soul. I guess this has hardened me, made me more actualistic, more apt to live in the moment, enjoy life with fervent regard to time, and try to never pass up connecting with people.

So, Megan was my world. As I've stated, she was gorgeous. The most beautiful girl in school, in town in the world. She was intelligent, could hold a conversation and NEVER backed away from an entrenched position without a fight. She was sparky, flirtive, full of life, never one to look back or be dragged down by adversity. Took to challenges and surmounted every one of them I'd seen come her way.........except one.

I'd never spoken to Megan about the conversation my mother and I had had at that kitchen table late that one night. Of my immediate perception, I didn't need to. We'd already hypothesized the future. What were were going to do, how the relationship would further develop, and how it would last. I'd written note after note to her, love letter or inane description of activities of the coming week or day. I liked to write to Megan. Liked to get her a flower, pass her friend a note to give her, or doodle hearts with initials and names. I found her similarly, I think by accident, doodling 'Megan Metzger.' It was cute, heart warming and visionary at the time.

The signs of our physical closeness could be seen by some in her family. Megan had spoken to her sister about it and the conversation was 'concerning' enough that her sister took her to her first Gyn appt and obtained an rx for the pill. We were safe, but her sister saw reality. Her aunt/uncle also noticed. One day we helped them move into a new house in Baldwin. Her aunt looked at us and said, if you ever need your privacy and a night to yourselves, you're welcome to come over here and use our spare rooms. (I blushed at that one.) Megan kept some things close to the vest though. Referring back to her sister and the gyn appt. Megan had been deceptive with me about her exploits with her sister, which led to a melt down later in the relationship, my hormonal and emotional immaturity. I couldn't yet wrap my head around the invasivness of what Megan had done for 'us,' or actually me.

All of my memories of Megan, as explained, are true and just. Any man in the world would be, should be, must be, blessed by being involved with her, married to her. The lengths she would go, straights she would forge for them, in the name of love, boundless. Just first rate all around. Intelligent, beautiful, caring, honest, supplanting at times, self-deprecatory, but most of all, grounded and not self-righteous.

Our demise.

My mind had been on one thing, relationship. I knew I was going to marry her. Mom told me I should, I agreed and was focused on getting through the summer and my first year in college with that in mind. Megan was Megan. She'd shown every indication that she would be right there with me every step of the way. When the time came and I'd gotten the chance to propose, she'd leap for joy, take it in stride and continue focusing on us, her education and needs, family, etc. I thought I could predict Megan. My mother was excited at the prospect of my relationship with Megan. She'd secreted me off one day, down to the 'safe' in our house. She'd opened it and showed me the engagement ring I should use. It had been my father's aunts ring. Created around the turn of the century, antique in every sense, a slightly less brilliant stone than those of today, a bit of amber color in it, wonderful setting, with Megan written all over it. It was going to be her ring. I just needed time to pass in order to ask her. The need within me though was building exponentially by the day.

Skipping forward. My relationships since Megan have been plenty, varied, complex, trying and satisfying beyond explanation. Megan gave me my legs. Made me believe in the person I was. She validated the man in me, helped to support the confidence I'd been developing since I was 16. (Before 16 I was a mess. Introverted, non-exploratory, home body, limited. With a friend of mine, the two of us had packed off for Europe during the summer of 1980. 12 weeks we spent by ourselves, exploring, learning, fending for ourselves. Learning about the world. This was the best thing my parents could have ever let me do at that time. Not really my idea, but still, just a great thing.) The girls I'd dated since were beautiful, worldly, living for the moment, aggressive, self-centered, caring, earnest, hot-headed, foreign, animalistic, bi-polar, sexual, attempted murderers (VERY true - at my expense), miscreants, thieves, generous, adoring, etc etc. All types, shapes, kinds, ages, situations. I'd dated for as little as 2 days and as long as years. In my heart and my I'd been trying to find a new Megan. Just never getting there. So, I'd move from one girl to another to see if we 'fit' or if a match was made. I guess I was unknowingly on a wife hunt, begun with, and in the image of, Megan. The most adoring girl I'd ever at the time known. I'd realized, finally, that girls found me attractive. Whether for my composure, hulk, intellect, care, passion, features, whatever, I'd found my mojo, as it were. I finally settled down in 1992.

I last saw Megan, in other than photo's, in 1986/87. At the time I was commuting daily to the city where my new company, started with my father, was located. The Long Island Railroad. I was dressed in jacket and trench coat, sitting with my father on the commute home. In Penn, a woman walks over and says hi. Its Megan. We spent the next 45 minutes talking of goals and rights of passage, a great deal of small talk. At that time she stated she was studying for her Series 7 exams. Didn't really state what she was planing to do with it other than securities. The trip was woefully short. That ride had triggered something in me. I figured I'd try and sit down, establish bygone times and see what happened. Try and redevelop, at the least, the close friendship I'd once known. Someone I remember as being my 2nd closest friend. For no other reason than being friends, I wanted to try. If that led to a relationship, sobeit. If not, I'd be happy with that as well. So, after parting ways and with much consideration I sat down and composed my 2nd lengthy letter to Megan. The first a diatribe of cowering lost memories and desires, apologies, etc completed within days of our first breakup. I finished it and delivered it to Megan's house. Knocked on the door and spoke with her mother. I handed her the envelope and asked it to be given to Megan. Mom did not seem to be a fan of mine at that time, (understandably.) I'd hoped it would be delivered. Never though heard word back.

Time warp machine to the beginning of the end.

With our girlfriends in toe, Doug and I had left boating and the beach and were driving home. Traffic was a bit heavy on Sunrise Highway coming from Wantagh, so I made a turn onto Bellmore Ave. We stopped at a traffic light in front of a volunteer ambulance service. The light turned green and Doug looked at me "wanna do it?," motioning with his head. I looked over and without any further thought said "what the heck." I spun the car around, girls dumbfounded in my actions. We pulled into the place and filled out applications for membership, then left. About a week later we were members. For me it was the beginning of a 20+ year life of public and private service to those in need.

I'd been a Boy Scout. My father was a Boy Scout, as was his father, and his fathers' before. The family had a history of starting volunteer fire company's in areas that didn't have them. Concerned for those without had been an established family mantra going back generation after generation. I'd been chasing fires with my friend Doug since I was 13. Initially on bikes, and then in cars. Scanners adorned our rooms and now cars. We loved the thrill of it all. This was again, another generations progression of service to the community. It was destiny for me, realized or not at the time. It was in my bloodline.

In the 70's, I'd lost some people in my family to disease and age. Too young to develop any deep emotional scars, but old enough to begin appreciating them. I'd seen my mother drawn from the house on a stretcher. I'd seen the same of my grandmother. My sense helplessness and desire to be able to do something about their pain and suffering, or try to assist in their, or their families comfort ran as an undercurrent to my personality. Something about being in emergency medicine clicked with me. Lit that flame of desire and purpose. Filled a void in me. I was now, unknowingly, feeding a beast within.

With acceptance, I immediately began to take classes. First CPR, then AFA (advanced first aid) then EMT, Medic, teaching, training, writing, authoring, designing systems, etc etc. This beast inside still exists to this day, beginning, again, to rear its turbulent head. Within me is an endless passion and charge of desire and aptitude. This training placed me on the fast track of my inner personal need. I was accomplishing something that could help the sickly in my family, and friends, at a time of their urgent need. Obviously, this training took time away from Megan. She showed signs of discomfort in me being in the service from the start. We spoke of, and sometimes fought, about it. Her view was that the place was like the fire departments. Beer swilling, hanging out at the departments basement bar on Friday nights just getting drunk. Megan had an aversion to drinking. Some in her family were or had been alcoholics of some variety or type. Her concerns, in me though, were never realized. I tried to assist her in her understanding. I asked to bring her to the vac (volunteer ambulance company) on a few occasions. She declined. Then, I rode my first emergency call as an observer. A Cardiac Arrest. It was thrilling. I was pulled into the fray of this call to assist a short crew in the back. I was performing CPR for the first time. It was a save. My first. They though come all too infrequently. It was filling those very voids within me that I'd wanted closed for some time.

Megan did not get it. She couldn't see the good in me, the good I was in need of. The destined person I would become. Didn't see the passion I had, or would have for this. I knew from that first emergency call that I had found my life's passion, the thing I am most attuned to, the very part of me that works, has always worked so well. Emergency services. Emergency diagnostics. Understanding body systems and mechanisms. My world was now on two very distinct and divergent pathways. Marrying Megan and doing what would become the very essence of me and driving force. I was being torn in two, by these two internal beasts. One would win, the other would, woefully and unfortunately, lose.

.....tbc....