The lost emails!

So, I love my new love interest, Nick. He’s a really great person, and he has those bedroom eyes, ladies. I can’t explain it any better than that. But I’ll try to get a photo of us together. That would rock.

I’ve been talking to him about all the problems I’ve had over the years with the members of our former youth group. In 2013 in particular, I had some disastrous relationships with a few people: Sam, who’s very religious and might be a minister (I’m not sure); and Matt, who’s Nick’s older brother, and who I grew up with alongside Nick.

As best as I can remember it, Sam was trying to help me with my problems while Matt was trying to hold all these youth reunions without allowing me to attend any of them. Anyway, at this point in time, I think Matt’s a pretty worthless person, and I think Sam’s confused but possibly well-intentioned.

I’m going to give Sam the benefit of the doubt, but the worst thing he did to me was that I told him about my relationship with Jesus, and he scoffed and said, “Meg, Jesus isn’t floating around in the astral plane just so he can be available whenever you need a hug. Jesus is much more than that.” And ever since that disastrous conversation, I’ve lost my connection with Jesus. Gee, thanks, Sam.

I believe the error in perception is on my end, not Jesus’s, because Jesus would never forsake anyone.

But I had a nagging memory that I’d interacted at that time with Nick, too, so I searched my emails and found a fragment of an old Facebook conversation between his still-current account and one of my now-defunct ones. In fact, that link now leads directly to someone else with my name who looks nothing like me. Go figure.

(Below, he gets my name wrong and misspells it. My birthname was spelled M-E-G-H-A-N, but my legal name has been changed to Meg.)

March 1st, 2013

Dear Megan,

I never at all hated you. In fact, it’s hard for me to recall the details of any supposed falling out. I remember that our relationship wasn’t that great. And yes, I moved on to other things. Let’s let the past be the past. I would love to reconnect with you at some future time. I hope that you are doing well, and that your life is rewarding for you in all the ways that you deserve. Buddhists say that life is suffering, and, while true, this fact does not cause me to despair. In suffering is the impulse to improve things. And we are capable of doing so.

I’d like to know more about what you’re doing in life, if you feel up to sharing. I am living and working hard and going to school and trying to improve myself and the world around me in Olympia, Washington. Olympia is the last refuge of the true hippy. It is a great place, yet limited by the lack of progress within the movement. It’s never too late for a revolution, though. I live with roommates, which is difficult and beautiful at times, and sometimes both at the same time. What I loved most about you back in the old days was your intellect. I hope that you have an appropriate outlet for your brilliance whether in work or in play. I’m still trying to find mine…

Well, I hope that I was able to adequately answer your questions, and, like I said, I would enjoy continuing to get to know you again. Please write me back.

~Nick

My rapidfire responses:

Our relationship wasn’t that great? Gee, thanks. I guess my whole childhood was a big fat lie. Apparently, if you never knew how to spell my name. Geez! You want to reconnect in the future? As in, not now, right? You don’t know when things went wrong? Oh. Picture it: August, 2004. I came to a party at your house on my street. You treated me like I had leprosy. You were cold as ice. I left the party completely miserable, before I had even been there for long. Well, if you don’t want to tell me why you quit liking me, I can’t make you. Keep the past in the past? Nope. Not happenin’.

And call me Meg, dammit. No one says the M-word and gets away with it.

“And yes, I moved on to other things.” Oh my God, that’s a euphemism for, “yes, you did stop being cool enough.” Isn’t it?

My god, you’re right about one thing. I do have an amazing intellect. I see through crap in about two seconds.

He replied:

I meant in the future, as in face to face. I am very far away right now. Perhaps what you’re saying is what I felt at the time. I still feel some aspects of these ideas. I valued our friendship for what it was when it was. We just drifted apart from one another. Like I said, I never disliked you. So many of my friendships are on hold due to distance and due to not having real, frequent interactions and experiences. So, I restate, ‘in the future’. I cannot make up for past grievances, save with future kindnesses.

That’s all that was preserved of that conversation. God bless Nick for actually still loving me.

(For anyone who’s not in the loop about my issues, I’ve been struggling with extreme paranoia since 2005, and it’s built around the fact that people in my life are only pretending to care about me, when in reality, they want to give me the shaft.)

Wow, he got told. [Facepalm.] Great job, Meg. 

I felt awful when I found that and reread it after all these years. It was before bedtime last night, and to be honest, maybe I shouldn’t be blogging about it now, because I’m starting to feel awful about it all over again. But I think the point I’m trying to make here is that Nick is obviously a very kind, loving, forgiving, and understanding person. In Tarot, and I’ve told him this, he reminds me of the King of Cups.

(There are four Kings: Cups, Pentacles, Wands, and Swords. Most men probably have some qualities of each, but Nick really fits the mold of the King of Cups, and in a good way, not in a reversed way.) (Reversed in Tarot means that the card came out upside-down.)

He even seems to be okay with the fact that I’m not a forgiving person. I think he understands that it comes from a place of pain and self-defense.

And I was talking to him about those previous emails this morning, and he sent me the hugs I requested and said:

You know I have always cared about you! Hugs, sweet girl. Don’t get down about anything!

He must remember the good times before I went insane with the paranoia. There were definitely good times. He and I made out at youth camp. Heck yeah. In the dark, under the stars, where we’d sneaked out, leaving both cabins (for boys and girls) behind. On a grassy hill.

His energy is just very loving and nonjudgmental and nurturing and actually quite soothing, and in a masculine sort of way, hence the King of Cups. In fact, whenever I visualize those aspects of him, I get turned on. He’s very present and available, particularly in person. (Online, he comes and goes.)

It’s hilarious, because my mom’s still in some form of denial about this, and I’m not making any effort to break through that. I’m mostly just keeping her updated. Like, the other day, I told her that he and I often hike by the river, and then we return and “hang out” (that’s the euphemism of the day, kiddos) in my bedroom.

Now, knowing my mom, she’s picturing us watching my TV or poring over my huge book collection, perhaps, while one of us (probably me) awkwardly tries to steal a kiss, while the other one of us (that would be Nick) takes offense and says, “Hey, what are you doing? I value our friendship too much for this nonsense.”

[Facepalm.]

In my mom’s defense, that’s typically how my love life plays out, if we’re talking about best-case scenarios. Usually, it’s much worse.

And I’m not about to correct her beliefs about what Nick and I are up to, because she can’t handle the truth, for whatever reason. But maybe it’ll start to sink in, because what do people actually do together in a bedroom? (Oh! Now, there’s a fun writing prompt. Taxidermy? Space alien dissections? Collecting Jack-in-the-boxes? Creating huge Rube Goldberg machines out of empty Pez candy dispensers?)

But rereading his message now, eleven years later, I’m noticing that he wanted to reconnect in the future, and I was all like, Yeah, right, of course you do, but the fact that it’s the future now, and we have reconnected, makes it clear that he actually meant it! Like, wow.

And he used the word love (or loved) twice. ❤ In my experience, people use that word when they’re trying to express love without directly saying, “I love you.” In other words, saying, “I’d love to see you soon,” or, “I love what you did with your hair,” is code for, “I love you.”

(Of course, context is important. Saying, “I’d love to dance on your grave, and I hope you die painfully soon,” might not be code for “I love you.” So, some discernment is advised.)

My perception has changed for the better over the years. Like, I used to watch Law & Order: SVU, and it terrified me. But then I rewatched it because it was on TV at the gym and I needed entertainment on the treadmill, and I realized that there’s this underlying love between the characters that is shown but not told to us, the viewers. Like, the detectives were always there for each other in ways that I used to be oblivious to.

And then there was stuff that I never understood that I really like now. Like, in an earlier episode, Detectives Olivia Benson and Elliott Stabler inform some parents that their daughter has been found dead. Stabler asks if their daughter was turning tricks, because she was found dressed like a prostitute, and the mom smacks him in the face really hard, causing his head to get turned all the way to the side. He does nothing in self-defense or in police retaliation. Nothing at all. (And neither does Detective Benson, who’s standing right next to him.)

When I was younger, I thought, Well, he’s not a very effective cop, now is he? But now I’m all like, He’s the real deal. We need more cops like him. (I didn’t want him to be retaliatory, but I kind of thought he was supposed to be, if that makes sense…? Like he had no clue how to do his job…?)

There’s this different level to my perception now that shows that I’ve come back from a very dark place. Go me! And the writer in me thinks that the SVU writers are geniuses. Even the character in scene one who finds the body (and then doesn’t reappear) is well-developed. There are no “throwaway” characters. Like, it’ll be this crazy dog lady who talks to her dog and dresses her dog in doggie clothes, and she’ll find the body because her dog is sniffing in the bushes, or whatever.

But anyway, I’m so glad my life is finally coming together! And I’ve been hard at work on my book, and I’ve been trying to lose some weight, and the animals are doing well, but my dad’s still a stress mess. 😦

I hope everyone out there is having a great day! ❤ I want to talk about all the “taxidermy” I’ve been engaging in, if you catch my drift, but that would just seem indecent. Oh well! 😮