As you have no doubt figured out by now, even though I have been at this blog for going on a year now I don't use it for the therapeutic reasons that I opened it for. Mostly because when I write in the thing I find myself reliving the sometimes sensitive subject matter I'm writing about and in order to keep that suppressed I give up on it and stash it away in the unseen archives of this volume never to be viewed here. Ever. So, by and large, I have tried to be selective in what I bring to life on this blog as a result.
Every once in a while though. Something happens out here in the real world that prods me to put fingers on the keyboard and put the words on the blog. Tuesday night, December 28th 2010 was one of those nights and strangely enough it happened at a hockey game.
Many of you who know me well know that a Tulsa Oilers hockey game has long been my happy place. A place where I can tell the rest of the world to go f@ck itself and let me be. I dare say, it is where I am in the zone. It has been such a part of my life that all my romantic interests in life, either long or short term have passed though the hallowed halls of the Tulsa Convention Center or the BOK Center to watch hockey games in a date setting, including the woman a married and had children with.
So, there I was in the arena last night, in my element talking with a longtime friend of mine and one of those former romantic interests appears out of the blue clear sky. What struck me about this encounter was that at first, I did not recognize her. She had lost a LOT of weight...being heavy or light has never been a requirement of mine, but when I was seeing her she was a lot heavier...pleasantries were exchanged, etc., etc., and I did my best to maintain the friendly and cool image I like to project.
Inside, I was in turmoil. For good reason.
This girl was the one that I made the closest approach to being married to, aside from the person I actually married, had a kid with and divorced. I had actually given her an heirloom of the family as an engagement ring (my grandmothers, first used by my sister when she was engaged to her first husband), and had lived with her for 6 months away from Tulsa in 2004 before it had all fallen apart.
And as it usually happens all of the good memories of what we had flooded back, which was followed by the inevitable "what could have been" thoughts that come along with it, (sorry, this is how my old noodle works, folks). Since I was married every relationship I've been in has been ended by the other party...except the one I had with her. Everything I have tried to start has had to measure up to what I had with her, which is sad when you think about it.
She has married and has another life miles from here and I am but a faded memory to her now. The door is most definitely closed. The whole encounter tonight really illustrated one of the constants in life and that is change.
That is to say that there will always be things in life to knock you on your ass. Be it changes at work, family or personal life. I have spent the past few hours trying to get the whole incident out of my head and it will eventually get to that point in time. I just had to write about it this time.
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