Leaves are falling. I dropped my kid at girlscout.
It's the fall and I miss the Midwest.
Specifically, Wisconsin, Chicago and St. Luis.
Heart was broken one year. Heart was not mended for years to come.
I had a short lived love affair with a man who wanted to marry me.
It was epic, we had covered so many grounds, so many cities, so many states.
I cannot return to Boston and D.C., without my physical being experiencing death.
I found men after him, all from the East Coast.
I could never forget that night in downtown Chicago, the evening when he returned, when I had just let another man leave, in my fancy hotel room, he knew but he said nothing. He loved me like no other.
I had never been loved like that again. I knew at that moment when we were in Hedonism II, Jamaica, that he was going to be my only chance to eternal sexual happiness. And then it ended. The man who ignited and loved me, who made me feel beautiful and grown up, who showed me the world, who spoke beautifully, six languages fluently, who had curly, short, blond hair, who wore those glasses, with the impossibly blue eyes, who was seven years older than me, who loved me. That was going to be my one and only chance.
And then it ended.
Fall gave me special meaning to life. Death, and life after love.
My love affair with him started in the fall and ended in the fall.
When it finally ended, he moved from the east coast to be closer to me, I refused to see him. I did not want to talk about him, see him, or be reminded of him.
It then dawned on me perhaps that was what true love and betrayal was like. You can't begin the thought process of thinking, because thinking will break your heart all over again.
I hope that he's dead. I spent 18 years not thinking about him, writing about him, and now 18 years later, all I could think about was him.
Would I still be the same? Would I be loved just the same? Could we truly have a life together? Could I live with his secrets? Could I be OK with his colored past, his women, his wandering eyes? Would all of it be OK because he was the only person who was so deeply in love with me and who thought that I was his only? Have I missed the one opportunity to be sexually desirable to a man whom I was devastatingly attracted to?
Or would any of it be of any importance if he was dead?
What if he was dead, and not just dead to me?
The coast of Massachusetts was exceptionally beautiful in the fall. He took me to the best deep dish pizza in Chicago. He was the reason I learned to SCUBA diving. He sent me beautiful seashells from the Bahamas, he wrote to me wherever he went and wished that I was there. I caught the travel bug from him. We covered the west, the east and the midwest.
He spoke softly, I nearly whispered when I spoke to him. But I could see his passion under his lens.
Then one day it just ended. I ended it.
We stayed at the South Beach Miami. The sand was white and the women were beautiful.
In Mexico, he ordered street tacos for me. In the winter of Philly, he walked into a Korean run corner store and spoke fluent Korean to the clerk. I wanted a fresh mango, there was none.
I never had to tell him that I loved him. He knew. And he told me so.
I was 22. I did not know how to live in one place after that. He moved. A lot. Mostly out of the country, stationed abroad, he was my Bourne Identity.
I had no other stories like that to tell after that.
I had never figured out how to love like that again.
Whenever I felt something I immediately reverted to the 22 year old me. I wanted to know when the next trip would be. Would he leave me? Which state would he be in? Which country?
It's the fall.
I don't know where he is. He just turned 48 in September if he's still alive. Is his hair gray? Does he still wear glasses?
Does he still remember me?
Does he still love me?
Would he still remember me if he ran into me on the street?
Is he dead?
Can I still meet him in Chicago, this time without another man in the picture? Would he forgive me?
The answer is in the leaves. The dried, fallen leaves.
It's the fall and I miss the Midwest.
Specifically, Wisconsin, Chicago and St. Luis.
Heart was broken one year. Heart was not mended for years to come.
I had a short lived love affair with a man who wanted to marry me.
It was epic, we had covered so many grounds, so many cities, so many states.
I cannot return to Boston and D.C., without my physical being experiencing death.
I found men after him, all from the East Coast.
I could never forget that night in downtown Chicago, the evening when he returned, when I had just let another man leave, in my fancy hotel room, he knew but he said nothing. He loved me like no other.
I had never been loved like that again. I knew at that moment when we were in Hedonism II, Jamaica, that he was going to be my only chance to eternal sexual happiness. And then it ended. The man who ignited and loved me, who made me feel beautiful and grown up, who showed me the world, who spoke beautifully, six languages fluently, who had curly, short, blond hair, who wore those glasses, with the impossibly blue eyes, who was seven years older than me, who loved me. That was going to be my one and only chance.
And then it ended.
Fall gave me special meaning to life. Death, and life after love.
My love affair with him started in the fall and ended in the fall.
When it finally ended, he moved from the east coast to be closer to me, I refused to see him. I did not want to talk about him, see him, or be reminded of him.
It then dawned on me perhaps that was what true love and betrayal was like. You can't begin the thought process of thinking, because thinking will break your heart all over again.
I hope that he's dead. I spent 18 years not thinking about him, writing about him, and now 18 years later, all I could think about was him.
Would I still be the same? Would I be loved just the same? Could we truly have a life together? Could I live with his secrets? Could I be OK with his colored past, his women, his wandering eyes? Would all of it be OK because he was the only person who was so deeply in love with me and who thought that I was his only? Have I missed the one opportunity to be sexually desirable to a man whom I was devastatingly attracted to?
Or would any of it be of any importance if he was dead?
What if he was dead, and not just dead to me?
The coast of Massachusetts was exceptionally beautiful in the fall. He took me to the best deep dish pizza in Chicago. He was the reason I learned to SCUBA diving. He sent me beautiful seashells from the Bahamas, he wrote to me wherever he went and wished that I was there. I caught the travel bug from him. We covered the west, the east and the midwest.
He spoke softly, I nearly whispered when I spoke to him. But I could see his passion under his lens.
Then one day it just ended. I ended it.
We stayed at the South Beach Miami. The sand was white and the women were beautiful.
In Mexico, he ordered street tacos for me. In the winter of Philly, he walked into a Korean run corner store and spoke fluent Korean to the clerk. I wanted a fresh mango, there was none.
I never had to tell him that I loved him. He knew. And he told me so.
I was 22. I did not know how to live in one place after that. He moved. A lot. Mostly out of the country, stationed abroad, he was my Bourne Identity.
I had no other stories like that to tell after that.
I had never figured out how to love like that again.
Whenever I felt something I immediately reverted to the 22 year old me. I wanted to know when the next trip would be. Would he leave me? Which state would he be in? Which country?
It's the fall.
I don't know where he is. He just turned 48 in September if he's still alive. Is his hair gray? Does he still wear glasses?
Does he still remember me?
Does he still love me?
Would he still remember me if he ran into me on the street?
Is he dead?
Can I still meet him in Chicago, this time without another man in the picture? Would he forgive me?
The answer is in the leaves. The dried, fallen leaves.
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