The One that Got Away...

1988 was not the best year on record for me, but it was far from the worst.  I started out the year in the tail end of a two-year long abusive common-law relationship with a man ten years my senior -- a story for another day.  By May of that year, I had left him, after a sudden split-second decision one early morning after a night spent arguing and drinking beer.  I had moved in with my then-best friend, and we lived across the street from the neighbourhood arcade/snack bar, and behind a 7-11.  Needless to say, we saw a lot of people walk by our house, and most of them were people we came to know, and in some cases become close to. 



One person in particular is, for me, an iconic symbol of that summer.  Any time I think of this person, I smile. This has been the case ever since that summer, when we met and spent time together. 



I don't recall how we met, only that I had seen him around the arcade and his good looks had caught my eye.  He was tall and slim, and had an amazing head of long, wavy hair, to go with his soulful brown eyes and beautifully full lips.  His smile lit up the place, and he seemed sweet, gentle, and genuine to me.  We had mutual friends, and at some point, a bunch of us started going swimming in the middle of the night. We'd climb the fence, or in some cases cut it open, or find some other way in to the public pool, and we'd swim and goof around for awhile and then hang out for a bit and then finally head off our separate ways.



This guy -- I'll call him George -- and I had a couple of friends who started dating each other, so after awhile, the four of us sort of gravitated together after the swims.  We'd swim and then go to the guy's house to sleep.  The four of us would all be laying in his bed, side by side, and talking and being silly, and then eventually, things would get quiet and we'd all go to sleep, or we'd get up and leave, depending on whatever the plans were or how things went, or whatever.



I'm smiling right now, as I type, because I'm remembering laying there in the total darkness, George beside me on my left, and the wall on my right.  We'd all be talking and then I'd feel his fingers touching mine, and I'd smile in the darkness as I listened to them all talking and felt my own heart pounding out of my chest. I was always very conscious of him beside me; the way his body felt, firm and long and...I just thought he was so handsome and such a great guy. I guess I was kind of enamoured, but I was so terrified of making a fool of myself that I didn't notice how I was feeling, other than the fact that I wanted desperately for him to want me, not in a sexual way, because by the time we were lying in the dark at our friend's house, we'd already had sex.  I wanted him to want ME; to want to spend time with me, and (this was a much younger me, remember) maybe even to fall in love with me.



We'd lay there, and unbeknownst to the other two people in the room, we'd be silently touching our fingers together, and then someone would start the tickling...I think it was usually the other couple, and before long, we'd be rolling around tickling each other, George and me, and then the other couple, but it was as if the others weren't there after awhile, because I wanted so badly for George to just kiss me, with those gorgeous lips of his, and finally he would, and then I'd be lost for awhile, while he unknowingly just totally and completely owned me, body and soul.  Then the night would be over, or the moment would pass, and with anyone else I guess I'd have felt sad or worried about having just been used or something, but with George, I just felt...right. Somehow I knew that we'd get together again, and that it was just between him and me.  I honestly can remember only one of the times we had sex, and it was not a romantic moment, so much as a spontaneous, "I need you right this fucking second" moment, and I remember everything about that particular encounter (everyone in the living room watching a movie while I rode him on the bathroom floor -- my first orgasm ever was that time with him, and he didn't do a thing beyond just being there and being inside me; the orgasm came from it being HIM with me, not so much from what we were doing, although DAMN, what we were doing was so good...).  The other times, I don't remember because I was not in it for the sex with George, but for the rush of just being with him, so that what I do remember is that his lips were soft and he kissed like a dream; I remember that his touch was gentle, and that I thought he had the most amazing body ever.  I remember he smelled good to me, and I remember I'd sometimes forget to breathe when he looked at me a certain way.



There were a couple of times I remember he'd be at our house, and we'd all be sitting around doing whatever, and listening to music and we'd hear George Michael's song "Father Figure", and George would be either singing along or lip-synching, I can't recall which, and he'd act like he was singing to me, and my heart would pretty much just stop as I watched him and fought the urge to throw my arms around him and beg him never to leave me. In case you're not a grasper of the obvious, this is why I chose to call him "George" in this retelling, and why I will always love George Michael's music, even though to this day, I can't listen to that song.  I've tried, and even as recently as yesterday, I still can't get through even half of it without feeling weepy and sort of overly sad.



I often wonder now, and have wondered for years, if maybe I was in love with him. I know I had never felt that way with anyone before him and I've never felt that way with anyone since, and what I felt --still feel, I guess, as it turns out -- for him was/is so unidentifiable to me that it makes me wonder if I've ever really been in love with anyone else at all. If maybe he's the only one I ever really DID love, even though I didn't, or wouldn't, know it at the time.  It's all very confusing and probably sounds...insane or something.  all I know is, when I hear from him even now, after over twenty years since whatever it was that we were, I feel the same way I did whenever he'd walk into the arcade or smile at me across a table or in the swimming pool, or touch my fingers in the dark.  And I find out from him how his life has been since then, and some of it has been great for him, and a lot of it has been painful for him, and some of it makes me cry for him, and I want to go to him and make it alright, even though I can't.  But it's just like when we were so much younger and he hurt himself falling through a window and I wanted to run over to him and...I don't know what, but I couldn't, because he hated me by then, because of a lie someone told him.  And I remember just feeling like a helpless, useless piece of garbage, watching other people help him, and seeing that he didn't need me or even care that I wasn't there.



I got off track, I think, and I should be forgiven for that because it's 6:00am and I haven't slept yet, because I have been nursing a sick daughter all night. Bygones.



Where was I? What the hell was my point?



Oh, I know. I think.



My point, I think, was that it's no wonder some women have a hard time lettiing go of that fairy tale bullshit we all grew up with. I'm finding the words "one true love" rolling around in my head once in awhile, since George and I got back in touch, and while it makes me want to hang my head in shame, at the same time it feels so unusual and new to me, that I kind of want to see where it leads me, although I'm pretty sure it leads to where every other romantic notion or relationship ideal has led: the shitter.



But wouldn't it be nice to be that woman, who says "yeah we knew each other back in the day, and went our separate ways for twenty-some years, and then got back in touch and now we're deeply in love and devoted to each other"...?



I think it would be nice.