On Burning Bridges - 3/12/2001
Last night I spent the entire night dreaming about someone. It was strange, not only because it lasted forever, but because it was of a girl I tried to put out of my mind, as they once requested years before. I forgot about it as the alarm went off, and went to do my early-morning gym thang with the boys.
Halfway through the day I heard some random phrase and remembered the dream again, about how I told this lost friend about my thoughts on college, about playing the didgeridu, about how she always came up when discussing extremely large phone bills. *smirk* This person was my best friend of yore and she spent the entire day with me, persisting in my mind. Stupid anecdotes played over in my head, memories of silly gifts exchanged, drama relived. We used to talk about how our kids would play together one day, and the thought persists farther and deeper than any other. Once a year I see sydney, her old friend, and hear rumor of a letter or phone call.
I spent about an hour, doing my geekly best searching various databases and search engines for her name, her likeness, her nicknames... I tried AIM and ICQ searches. I had long deleted her e-mail address, frustrated with the stonewalled responses I received. Oddly (for me), there wasn't a single sign of her existence on the net. Of course, she had gotten married... Ever wary of uncool behavior, I leave it at that. People who can't be found with free services don't want to be found.
Why was I even looking? After years of no contact, why in the world was I trying to find some sign that this person who had moved far away to leave her former life behind was still alive?
It wasn't some posessive passion. Nor did I go looking because I wanted to see her hurting, nothing like that. I decided this need to verify her existence in the world was about... yeah. That scariest and most misrepresented thing. The best kind of feeling, the kind that doesn't have a thing to do with yourself. It makes you want to see someone smile, careless of whether they even know it was you. It doesn't have a "personal need" component. It is quiet, unobtrusive, and persistent.
 This morning I began to update my website, and I discovered in my old guestbook (shrouded in dust no doubt) a note from this friend I had lost to time. It was dated less than a month ago, and it thanked me for all of those kind things I thought nothing of doing, things any decent person should do for someone they care for. And in the end we cannot keep in touch, she says, due to bridges she burned years ago.
... In the end, I cannot reach her. I still don't know her (new) last name. But I hope, once in awhile, she visits my website. I hope she finds this, and sees that by taking a moment to write she has sealed a certain wound that I forgot I ever had. Perhaps some day she and her husband will allow us to talk again, and I can find out how her life has progressed. Because I miss talking to the first person who ever showed me real affection, that person who forced me to break out of my shell and become the crazy, insane man who tosses caution to the wind on a regular basis.
Meanwhile, the image of our children playing together will swirl about my subconscious, rising to the surface from time to time, along with quiet thoughts of old yet sturdy buildings that resist time and vandalism... maybe some bridges can, too.
Why, do you think, did I find this note only one day after my dream?
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