(I've been meaning to get this revision done and on here....)
It’s not hard to see exactly how and when it all happened…one moment I was going along with my life pretty much the way I wanted it, with a few exceptions; then everything turned upside-down.
Exactly when it all happened is not that important, chronologically. Let's just say it was the night of the Telephone Call, when for just a few seconds I thought I might have called the wrong number.
You could say that it was the start of one of the most unsettling times of my life. And hey, that takes in a lot of ground. I mean, my father died in July 1971. That was a tough month…Hell, a tough year...maybe more than just that. A close friend died in a car crash in June 1980. In August 1984 during one two-week period I lost, in no particular order, my job, my apartment, and my girlfriend. As I said, in no particular order…like the order would matter somehow.
There was the six-month period some time back when I thought I could be facing some pretty serious legal trouble…when I honestly did not know what my future held…for a false confession that was forced out of me while under duress, with no lawyer present, so the bastard who was then my boss could save his job. Hey, we learn by doing.
Well, let me tell ya, this event gets its place Right Up There. I mean, when you've gotten close to the flame a few times earlier, and you've counted yourself lucky to escape intact, well….
Well.
This most recent brush with a special time--and special feelings--is what I think really got me. I was going along with my life pretty much the way I wanted it, with a few exceptions…but I told you all that already.
I honestly thought I was done. Thought I had put to rest all that stuff, from before.
My eyes had been reopened…those feelings, well, I reckon they woke up. I don’t know that I’ll ever be done…at least, completely. I mean, how special was that time we spent? More to the point, how important was the time that we could’ve, should’ve, spent…?
We may never know the answer to those questions.
But that night, when it all turned around….
I was always afraid that it would happen, what I found out that night. Knew it would broadside me, despite any distance I had tried to maintain. Embers, like I said in a previous entry...some torches and embers don't ever extinguish.
Despite my best efforts I could not go back to that old existence, just minutes before that telephone call on that fateful night…and, not even sure that I would want to. How empty life seemed then, in retrospect!
And, I always believed there was some reason we have still tried to keep in contact. I’ve got friends that I was once close to that I never talk with anymore—both here and far away. I’ve sent email to others, and get them bounced back…that email address doesn’t exist anymore. Or they just don’t respond.
But that’s not true with us. We still somehow never stray too far…it’s like we are bound together by Fate, or some otherwordly thing like that. And it’s not just one of us…we EACH have made efforts to stay in touch.
I believe that for each of us on this world, our destinies are already sort of pre-written for us…but we can change them. Maybe we can realize our mistakes…maybe we can fix them. And maybe it’s never too late.
“Once upon a time when we were friends,
I gave you my heart, the story ends…
No happy ever after—now we’re friends.
Wish upon a star if that might help;
(The stars collide with you beside…)
Wish upon a star if that might help….
What’s it like to have loved and to lose her touch?
What’s it like to have loved and to lose that much?
Well I hope and I pray that maybe someday you’ll walk in the room with my heart,
Add and subtract but as a matter of fact, now that you’re gone I still want you back…
Remembering, surrendering; remembering that part—
All of my heart.”
--“All Of My Heart”, ABC