Not sure if any of you are actually still paying attention beyond the folks that like to tie up and beat me. Hello Sadists, love ya. And I am definitely not sure if the people that this message needs to reach will ever see it but they are the last ones on the list and as of right now I have literally no way to reach out to them. So this summer has been hectic but I managed to grab a few moments here and there to read a book. And that book made me come up with the title of this post and the point of this book: to remember the loves lost, good and bad.
The book in question that had most lasting impact was called I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan. Now I’ve had a tortured relationship with Terry. When she’s on her books are wonderful. When she’s not then the books can be painful. I’ll admit to not reading her books much in the last few years but this seemed like it’d be worth the risk. So I checked it out of the library and got about 80 pages in before I had to return it–busy summer remember. I checked it out again on my kindle and finished it up in a blur. And then I got to writing. Nothing new of my own but letters to old lovers. I became Terry’s lead in real life and the plan was simple. Only write from the heart. Let the bitter stuff go and it may do absolutely nothing but lift the negative energy off of me that may linger. So I did it.
I didn’t keep count of how many messages I sent. There were various degrees of relationship with each of them, some long term, some intended one night stands that turned into slightly addictive behavior on my part, and others were just things that ended before they really had a chance to start. Regardless I wrote each of them what I thought I needed to say, cried a bit, and filed away whatever it was. Since this wasn’t fiction I didn’t hear back from most of them. The ones that did reply were relieved I didn’t hate them anymore and/or genuinely happy to hear from me. No one has stumbled into the we should get back together trap so yeah but that’s not what it was for in the first place.
However, there were or I should say are two people I can’t reach out to so that I can finish the list. My birthday buddy who would have totally jacked up my plans to get married in the dead center of my birthday and his cause that would have made for a mid December wedding is one of the MIA. And there’s Roaming Soldier whose email account went dead years ago. No cell phone number would really work unless I wanted to send 20 text messages and no trace of him on Facebook. Not totally unexpected because he wasn’t really big on tech at the time we were together. I can’t bring myself to look for his brother cause that seems to be invasive in a way these letters were not meant to be. That only leaves me with this space to finish this mission. If you have made it this far and really don’t want to know what I have to say flee now. If you really do want to know for some reason keep reading. I’m in spill it mode.
To the December baby who made me believe in love not being a totally twisted waste of time again I can only say I miss you. You were a good friend who said my name in a way that to this day could probably make my toes curl. You know you had to be important if you managed to inspire me to write a thing and for you I wrote a LOT lol. Heck you are the reason I got my second bit of erotica published. And that may ironically may be how I met someone else that ended up in my life much later. Long story not really relevant. In another time and in another place I used to envision all kinds of possibilities for us. And in a time not too long after that one and in a very similar place I knew that those things would never be for a variety of different reasons. Regardless, I still smile when I think about you and the brief but enlightening time we had together. I hope you are well.
To my Roaming Soldier I literally have no idea if you are alive or dead. That makes me sad. I don’t know if you ever got over your aversion to The Incredibles and it kinda hurt my heart when I finally had to let go of a gift I had been holding on to for your return. I couldn’t give it to anyone else and I didn’t ever imagine that I could just see it for it’s actual function. Finally acknowledging that there would be no grand reunion made me get stuck on the Alphabet Stories. Smut only intended to make our time apart easier and I couldn’t think of anything for the last four letters left undone because it felt like we had been left undone. I wish I could tell you what loving you did for me at that moment. Hell I told you my actual nickname and I hadn’t known you a month–you were the real deal sir. In every way that a love could be pure and honest while simultaneously being overwrought with the desire to do illegal things to one another until a bed, bone, wall or floor was broken ours was truly that. I’m not sure if you let go because you knew you couldn’t get back to me when you wanted or how you wanted but I even have to thank you for that. You were smarter than I was and even as I tear up now I would never have been able to be the one to walk away from you. I was ready to go destroy a nun’s belief system after all lol. Thank you for giving me the ability to believe that I could be deeply, stupidly, passionately in love with the same person that took pleasure in imaging detailed and dark ways to inflict pain on my willing body. If you are still out there I hope you are happy, that some woman has the privilege of loving you and that little soldier has grown up with the best image of what a man should be. If you aren’t out there in the way I knew you I hope you feel the energy I’m sending your way and if you happen to run into my father you can let him know you got the pass code and you can laugh about how I would ever have warranted that name.