Signing out of one of my Yahoo! mail accounts, I was taken by an ad that touted Yahoo!'s search capabilities, screaming, "Quick! Find e-mail from an old flame!" Now, I thought to myself, "Gosh! What a great idea! I wonder how they do that!" Until I realized that they meant, search your old messages for your old emails from your old flames. Oops. I mean, I don't have any old flames that were flaming (at least with me) since email was invented. What with the 23 years of the cohabitation phase of my marriage and the year of separation since that ended, well, as we say down south, DAY-UM! To find an old flame, I have to go at least back to 1981, and I really try not to dwell on it, 'cause it can get pretty damn depressing if I think about it too much.
Now, I know someone who spends way too much time thinking (and talking - blech!) about old boyfriends, and I mean very old boyfriends, 'cause she hasn't really dated in, oh, thirty years, or so. I think it's gross (Ewww). Not that I didn't have a good time, back in the olden days, but, gosh, I have a pretty full life right now, (joyfully) manless as I am (of course, there is the husband with whom I have completed the cohabitation phase of the marriage, and three fabulous sons, who keep me pretty busy), but, you know what I mean. I just can't imagine making room for *dating* and just the idea of it seems kind of, I don't know, silly, for lack of a better word. There just isn't any extra space in my world, not a single spare minute in any day, or at least not that I can imagine right now.
Still, on a very rare occasion, I think about old boyfriends, fondly, even if it was before the days of email, when long distance telephone service was expensive and people wrote letters. Every time I do, I have to wonder why, when people stop being lovers, they usually stop being friends too. I think that's stupid. If I can be friends with the husband with whom I have completed the cohabitation phase of the marriage, then anyone can be friends with anyone. Now, I know I'm friends with him, because when he comes into town, usually 'cause he has a business meeting of some kind (he lives up on a lake not too far - but just far enough), he sleeps on my sofa (and I make him take out the trash and recyclables, sort of like paying rent). I let him stay for a night here and there (NO HANKY-PANKY - not that there was ever much of that anyway), mostly because my life would be much better if he found some kind of work, closed one of his deals, did something, anything, to make a little bit of money. But I digress. This isn't about recent husbands, it's about ancient boyfriends, and I had some jewels, most of whom I remember fondly, and I wish I could just know what they were doing, who they married, how many kids they had, how they turned out, so to speak.
I dated my first serious boyfriend for ten years. He kept all the pictures, which ended up being all the pictures there were of me, or at least most of them, from the time I was fifteen to the time I was twenty-five. Now, I don't know whose idea it was that he and I couldn't just be friends, but I promise that, after all the years of therapy during my God-forsaken marriage, I could be friends with him, EASY! His wife has not one thing to worry about, but I'd just like to see some pics of his kids (or get a hold of a few oldies but goodies of me), and hear about his heart attack, and tell him how glad I am he survived it. Mostly, I'd really like to say thank you to him, for being such a great guy, for teaching me all about *that stuff* in such tender, loving context. [Edit: For today (11/4) Happy Birthday wishes from afar will have to do.]
I have nothing but nice feelings about old flames. I don't yearn for them, but would like to hear how they're doing. I think my marriage pretty much broke me of getting all bent out of shape about guys. I am what I am, I suppose, and don't have much interest in anybody who might pull me out of step. I guess the only kind of man-woman thing that might work for me would be one of those where I suddenly up and realized he was walking there with me, just slipped in, kind of beside me, without my even noticing.
In the meantime, I'm gonna leave work and pick up #3 from school (gosh, that boy needs his own car), stop by the store, go home, feed and walk the old blind dog and fix something for everyone to eat, grateful for this stolen time with my college sophomore unexpectedly home for just a little while longer (he's going back to New Orleans this weekend, to visit some friends and his stuff). Maybe I'll even build a fire. I dunno. What was that old saying, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"? Please don't take me wrong, men are great. Some of my best friends are men, but where in the hell would I *put* one?
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