IN LOOKING AT DAYS GONE PAST

 

...OUR ROMEO…

I ran across a new employee who has Michigan roots.  In fact, she has a very strong connection to where I did most of my growing up and “maturing” during adolescence, and her Mom even graduate from the same high school as a friend, one who I have not mentioned in many, many years, and whose memories of have waned and suffered over time.

This young woman had mentioned that she liked the tee shirt that I wore to work one day… and it was a Michigan State tee with one of the Spartan logos adoring the front, trimmed in green and white coloring on a heather gray background.  I asked if she was from Michigan and she said yes and no.  Her Mom did her undergrad in East Lansing and had grown up in the Detroit area, where she made her own “world debut” of sorts.  She knew several key streets and knew enough landmarks to have been a native from the Metro.  Of course, I was very enthusiastic in our conversation and it made me realize that though small, and in a very incremental way, life was happening to me and it was positive.  My partner and I were a happy couple again, work was going well and I really like my new apartment.  Now, almost as if to close a door on my self-destructive nature and to say, “If you really are looking for another opportunity to make the most of your life experience, here it is' '. I met a new co-worker, who I will say is replacing another woman, a bit older that she (the new young woman is in her early 20’s… she took the spot of someone who was at least in her late 30’s) and this meant that a particular kind of pressure was removed from MY LIFE.

See, a couple of weeks after I began working at the Rec Center, a department co-worker inquired about my “relationship availability”.  Because I am going to “work” my disability as a means to slow down interactions so that I may truly think through them, I get to be a little slow with putting things together.  This time, it was my co-worker looking out for a friend, and she wanted to know my relationship status.  I told her right off that I was NOT in the market, but for some reason her question triggered an “alert” status in my mind.  So I asked, suspicious of the question as I have not been spoken about in such fashion too often in my life.  I wanted, and this is the first thing that came up, to know more about this “friend” of hers.  Other than her first name (which was immediately lost in my mind), I did not really pry for information… because I did not care to know this person.  I did think that it was another woman at the Rec Center, as she had been normally friendly to me, but she did seem to be particular about how she spoke to me.  This would then set about another thread of thinking about this woman’s identity, but I did not care to know anything more about this person.  I noticed the people who took particular notice of me… the last time that I kind of sensed that someone was interested in me at a workplace was when I dated Tee Jay.  Objectively, she would have been a “go”, but I had totally committed to my “once and future partner” so there was no real interest… just the dangerous “what if” kind of interest that lingers about to see how deep and true 

your nature and character truly runs.  Knowing my faults and where the lines are in my character, for me, this was another opportunity to show if I was serious about my feelings for Kitty (there it is..!) or was I saying the “right” things to her and about us because of the convenience.  The answer came in the Redford Thurston young woman taking the place of my “secret admirer”, so that was that with that.  Everyone who may have pretended to like me in Nebraska are essentially gone… they have moved to different places with different relationships and other than for the part of my brain that occupies itself with “what if” fictions for the sake of creating a story or something (such as a crappy journal entry!).

SOMETIMES THEY DO COME BACK… BUT EVEN THEN, THEY REALLY SHOULD NOT HAVE

The conversation that I had with my new co-worker piqued my interest in some of the local places that I knew from her area.  I know that I lost her when I mentioned the Farrell’s Ice Cream shop, a place that fashioned itself as an late-1800’s eatery.  I think that it was replaced by a car dealership, if I am correct.  Also, there was a bakery that I mentioned that she did not have a remembrance of, and it made me think about other things that I would be looking for in the Metro, like the Record Collector and, of course, the Astoria Bakery (and Mrs. Maddox as well..!), places that are now in the long gone and past, things that were familiar for a generation that is long gone.  I have never wanted to return to Detroit, although I should go back and see my Father (and stop by South Bend along the way!!).  To me, they are both no-brainers, but with me (shhh!!) showing signs of slippage that Kitty and her daughter have brought up the idea of a “therapy dog” to help me navigate around the house, eh, I am not really sure about leaving home any time soon!  Still, the idea of going to Indiana, Michigan and Carolina in the next year or so, sort of sounds like a “challenge accepted” kind of thing.  Anywho…

I was happy with my behavior recently.  Sometimes I wonder if I really have grown any, or am I simply a modern-day Egyptian, still living near “De-Nile”.  The feelings that come back, the antiquated thoughts of a person that I can no longer identify with, at least not with a few hints, have no real place in my life and none in my future. Hopefully, I will be able to make a medical appointment and see about so “stuff” and get that cleared up.  Otherwise, things have been well… just a little fatigue, which is to be expected.  After all, the future does not wait for you to begin it’s building… it is going to happen whether you are ready or not!!