Memoir of a Love lost

Memoir of a Love Lost

It was the early 70’s, the age of free love, mind-blowing drug-induced revelations and the heartbreaking passing of Jimi Hendrix at age 27. A fierce war in some Asian hellhole, called Vietnam, momentarily dampened the birth of a new generation of narcissists.  On this November evening, an unsympathetic glacial chill had begun to settle coexistent with a cloak of descending darkness on the all but invisible village of Elmira Heights. Yes, just another boring town in the thousands of boring settlements that dotted the bleak rural Southern Tier of New York State. Like so many other bucolic towns, people were born, selected a high school hump-mate, found a menial job at the local factory and did what was expected, get drunk on Friday nights and have meaningless lustful sex. Eventually, their destiny required immature females to pop out a couple of kids and subsist yielding to the next generation that would continue the right of brainless passage in the cycle of rural living. These were not people. They were church-going drones born of the ages, residing in forgetful villages full of forgetful people all devoid of personality and ambition.

All-day, flurries drifted aimlessly, bobbing and weaving directed by intermittent puffs of wind until gravity no longer affected their flights of freedom, eventually settling each randomly on a frosted landscape. For now, they presented a clean antiseptic outline of the frozen tundra. Bushes appeared as powder-puffs and trees glistened like gaudy Christmas trees as the headlights of my, bile green Ford, “pretend woody”, Station Wagon approached. It was the end of another mundane week, in a mundane town, all clearly augmenting my mundane life.

The year before, I moved to upstate New York from metropolitan New York City to work in the computer department of a food manufacturer.  While both of these geographies have the words New York in common, they may as well be from different planets as nothing about either location were remotely similar. The mammoth facility was the largest food manufacturing plant in the world and was constructed in the “feral” village of Horseheads. In that sense, one could say Horseheads was the fraternal twin to Elmira Heights, both equally disappointing.

I was trekking to the Bun & Brew, my usual Friday, after-work watering hole to meet a gaggle of ignorant co-workers. Ignorant because as far as I knew, we were successful at concealing our intense and passionate affair. Before I decant my heart, I should explain the foundations of my belief system leading up to my account of that breathtaking evening.

At age 13, boys my age were archetypal snot-nosed, know-it-all brats stuffed with oozing juvenile hormones. I was different, I never knew why and I always assumed there were others like me, but, I never met any. At least those that were willing to cop to an unusual feminine sensitivity for a boy. I was exceptionally idealistic and believed that there could only be one true love, friend, companion and partner for life. Of course, I never considered that there were 3 billion people on the planet yielding approximately 1.5 billion females with a considerable number in the 14 to 20 age group, manifesting an incredible Google-like task to find the one and only true love. So, I rolled through my adolescent years holding fast to my belief, ricocheting around the dating scene making mistake after mistake until I finally got married and found myself entrenched in another mistake, a colossal blunder actually. Ironically, I had fallen prey to continuing in the very footsteps of the drone mentality and the brainless passage in the cycle of rural living. I am getting depressed recalling these dreadful memories of a haunted past. Pushing forward, I will attempt to translate the epiphany that abruptly interrupted my ordinary life on one Saturday evening.

It wasn’t until I was in my 60s that I came to believe that every person is born with a genetic paring imprint, a template of sorts for love. For technical nerds, think of it as Bluetooth Device Pairing. People have often said that they believe in love at first sight. Back then, I didn’t subscribe to such a fantasy even as a remote possibility until I met her. She was a neighbor. Her father convinced me, one beer-drenched BBQ weekend, that she would be a great asset to the company where I worked. On a whim, I drove her to work one morning for a “meet and greet” interview.  During the drive, we exchanged some pleasantries. That’s all it took, I was hooked on this magical presence sitting in the passenger seat. This deity had unknowingly aroused a surfeit of mind-blowing senses. She gripped me as smelling a rose for the very first time. I was spellbound from that instant and have been for the last 47 years. I actually knew love for the very first time, her name was Sara. I suppose that qualifies for falling in love at first sight. And, although I didn’t know it at the time, she was my genetic pair.

Now, for the pairing to work the other person must possess an identical imprint. When the genesis of this magic occurs, two people, two hearts and two souls unite. This is as pure a love as any two humans can achieve. It was in this instant, this discovery, that I realized she would be my companion through life’s journey. Funny, it wasn’t until she recently confessed that she felt the same eternal attraction, moments after we first met, that I began to trust my breakthrough.

It may seem that I have wandered far afield from the ultimate thrust of this story but I needed to lay a foundation so you will understand the sad and lonely 43 year void between my goddess and her devout worshiper.

I left the Bun & Brew first. It was about 9:30 as I can best recall. I sat in my car for about twenty to twenty-five minutes before Sara appeared. She entered the passenger side, slid over beside me then leaned over and kissed me on my cheek. As if on a switch, a prickly, corporeal spasm jetted from my chest to my loin. She told me that everyone was pleasantly inebriated and most likely didn’t see her leave.

It’s not important how we got there, but about twenty silent minutes later we arrived at the Harris Hill lookout. Harris Hill was the highest point in the region and had a beautiful view of Elmira, the surrounding valley and the countryside. It was a secluded spot at night for lovers to park while enjoying the views, if that was important. For Sara and me, it was a private place where we could talk about our lives and feelings while bringing to life the astonishing affection and intimacy we so splendidly enjoyed. Flurries were still meandering finding their cemetery on my warm windshield but before attaining their final death knell, they unknowingly exaggerated the glitter of the countless points of light on the valley floor.

I left the car running. We shed our winter garb and tenderly embraced for several minutes, silently drowning in our emotions. I’ve missed you, Sara, I whispered and before my brain was engaged in any kind of consequential decorum, I softly said, I LOVE YOU. It just spilled out as suddenly as a glass accidentally knocked to the floor. It was awkward and thrilling and profound and liberating, all at once. I had finally revealed what I realized six months earlier when I first encountered this stunning creature. Sara now knew. I was not embarrassed or ashamed. I said what my heart was aching, I LOVE YOU, Sara! And, if she didn’t feel the same, well, that was OK. I had to tell her, lay truth to fact. And, if I had died in that instant, it would have been the happiest moment of my life. I had never felt anything that so overwhelmed my senses. I couldn’t breathe. Unknowingly, she had coexisted with my soul, the essence of my being. She was my reason for living and it has NEVER ceased, not once, not ever, not for a nanosecond of doubt.

During these exhilarating first seconds of finally revealing deeply suppressed feelings, she interrupted my fantasy, squeezed me tightly, and pulled back slowly. She looked into my eyes and silently mouthed the words, I LOVE YOU TOO. In the most tender and loving instant of my life, our lips gently engaged, then firmer until we were in a fully entwined passionate emersion, unlike anything humanly conceivable. The excitement and first real romance of that evening and my life will always remain as a wondrous implant. It was a joy that only two people in love can ever understand. For the next three inconceivably beautiful years, we experienced the growing intensity and unparalleled romantic pleasure each time we were together, until an unselfish event brought our time to an end, but never, never my love for her.

Now, these memories no longer lie gently on the pillow of my memory patiently waiting for a second chance. Life’s unpredictable nature has just reconnected and reignited our love lost.

~Edmund