Sentimentality, et al.
I spent several hours talking to a girl friend of mine online tonight, about her current interests, current states of concern about things, etc, and somehow the topic wound around to my ex-girlfriends.
I'm sure my discovery of the compromising picture of one of my exes had to do, at least in part, with it, but that girl wasn't the focus.
Rather, we talked about the girl I split up with just under four years ago, under somewhat mysterious circumstances from my point of view, on Thanksgiving Day, after I'd met her parents and grandparents for the first time.
To give you some history, several months ago I found the folder of all the email she and I had ever exchanged. The temptation to re-analyze the entire relationship, based on "what I now know," was overwhelming.
Within a week before our split (initiated by her), she had made the confession that "You know if you were to ask me to marry you, I'd say yes." At the time I thought it was an assurance. Looking back, it seemed more like a not so subtle hint.
"Because, if you're going through one of those 'what does it all mean' sort of phases, I can't deal with that again...." (Hi Fidelity, roughly quoted).
Anyway, my friend is now urging me to get back in touch with the girl — at this point only possible via a letter sent "care of" her parents. Her assertion is that if the girl was serious enough to marry me, she still thinks about me. In my mind, it's more like that if I'm still serious enough to track her down after nearly four years, I'm a psycho. Is this even worth thinking about?
For so long, I'd thought that trying to track her down would be an admission of defeat, like giving up on the little leagues to join the T-ball team again. "What, after x million people in Dallas, you have to fall back on me?"
Can it hurt to just write? Am I naive to think she may have been waiting all this time? Am I remembering a fantasy instead of the real thing? Or, at worst, am I really giving up? I'll let you know. . . .
I'm sure my discovery of the compromising picture of one of my exes had to do, at least in part, with it, but that girl wasn't the focus.
Rather, we talked about the girl I split up with just under four years ago, under somewhat mysterious circumstances from my point of view, on Thanksgiving Day, after I'd met her parents and grandparents for the first time.
To give you some history, several months ago I found the folder of all the email she and I had ever exchanged. The temptation to re-analyze the entire relationship, based on "what I now know," was overwhelming.
Within a week before our split (initiated by her), she had made the confession that "You know if you were to ask me to marry you, I'd say yes." At the time I thought it was an assurance. Looking back, it seemed more like a not so subtle hint.
"Because, if you're going through one of those 'what does it all mean' sort of phases, I can't deal with that again...." (Hi Fidelity, roughly quoted).
Anyway, my friend is now urging me to get back in touch with the girl — at this point only possible via a letter sent "care of" her parents. Her assertion is that if the girl was serious enough to marry me, she still thinks about me. In my mind, it's more like that if I'm still serious enough to track her down after nearly four years, I'm a psycho. Is this even worth thinking about?
For so long, I'd thought that trying to track her down would be an admission of defeat, like giving up on the little leagues to join the T-ball team again. "What, after x million people in Dallas, you have to fall back on me?"
Can it hurt to just write? Am I naive to think she may have been waiting all this time? Am I remembering a fantasy instead of the real thing? Or, at worst, am I really giving up? I'll let you know. . . .