Humble Valentine: #8
I have been feeling pouty and sad because the guy I should have married(20ish years ago) hasn’t been in touch. We managed to maintain a lovely friendship up until a few years ago. That's when I became puerile and insensitive and left a horrid message on his home answering machine after ignoring his important, honest email he sent to me about a very tough illness that he had braved.
No doubt his wife was even more over me when she heard my voicemail. I made this ridiculous, impolite comment about his new diet that essentially saved his life. I dearly hope now that none of his kids heard it.
No surprise that I haven’t heard from him. Had the roles been reversed, I would have said 'over and out', no questions asked.
In retrospect, it was so uncharacteristic of me that this behavior could only be a classic, CLASSIC example of self-sabotage.
I know you already figured that out three sentences ago. Takes me longer.
I remember after I read the email where he shared that he had had a serious scare and had some surgery, I shut my computer and walked away before I got to the end of the email. Then I clamed up( can you imagine ME, with nothing to say?) and never wrote back.
Three months later I left this bizarre, awful (I can’t stop shaking my head when I think about it) voicemail at his house. After not a peep.
It was so childish. but I couldn’t deal with the idea that he was so sick and I couldn’t be right there next to him. I couldn’t be the one making him laugh and bucking him up and celebrating when the Good News from the post-op test results came back.
Because his life-threatening illness is really all about MOI.
Needless to say his wife is a doll! And we were friends too. Til I set fire to all the good will around me. And he is obviously thriving.With her; at work; with his gorgeous kids. I am delighted to see it.
Just this week, I have realized that if I had had the wisdom to say ‘yes,’ in England and kiss him hard and hold on tight, our life would have been splendid. If I had had his maturity to KNOW when you find a good match when I was 22 and he met me in Oxford, England at the coach stand with a rose and an honest offer of love, our life would have been a sparkling affair of the heart and mind.
I’m still confounded as to why I shied away from such love.
I haven’t met up with the likes of it since.
Our mutual affection made me feel like I never had to lean too hard in one direction or the other. When I was with him, my feet were on the ground and my head in the clouds. I was smart, beautiful, articulate, inspiring, at ease, at home. So, of course, was he. So IS he.
Enter the HUMBLE pie of this valentine: while I whine and whimper on this dusty, unpopulated blog, he is out there literally, LITERALLY saving the world.
I’m not kidding.
I just watched at short You Tube piece of him helping children in Haiti, Ethiopia and China. (I couldn’t make this up.) Right now he is probably laughing with President Obama over beers about what’s a better sport hockey or basketball and, simultaneously, trying to find ways to bring about world peace.
Odds are good he has the president’s cell number.
So, this wonderful man doesn’t really have a lot of spare time for his sad, puppy-eyed not-even-ex-girlfriends (and that is SOOO the opposite of ‘smart, beautiful, articulate.’ It makes me want to run in the other direction.)
Here’s the good news: some day in the future he will read this and know that I am sorry and that I still actually love him. And while it is tempting, very tempting, to send it to him, I will not. I will whine and cringe to you my phantom blog audience. Instead, I will make a donation to his lovely amazing, life-enhancing organization. So maybe somewhere in Viet Nam or Haiti or Ethiopia, a single mother who is feeling low and needs a micro-loan to get her business or school or garden going, will get the help she needs because of me. Much better idea.
More good news:
I have an important addendum to my Important Life messages to K.
K, lastly, if you find someone you loves you just the way you are and you breath easier around them and you feel smart, handsome and insightful in their presence, love them back. Love them often. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
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