Another step to recovery – letter to the past

My Mikey, I love you

∞ • π³ + 1

So I found you yesterday.  MySpace, dissed as it is, is a wonderful thing, for me.  But that’s where I found you, last night.  I was looking through people I’d gone to college with….well, most of them were there before and/or after I was, so I didn’t really know them….but I certainly knew you.

Such a strange run of emotions coursed through me.  I was surprised that you look somewhat different.  I was surprised that you have chosen to call yourself gay nowadays.  I was surprised that I WANTED TO TALK TO YOU!!!!!  Well, kinda surprised.  Maybe.  Maybe not.

 Even though your profile shows that your life and mine certainly do NOT mirror one another, I still felt some sense of the old hero-worship that categorized our entire relationship from day one.  It was one-sided, of course, but I know I have to accept as much of the responsibility for that as you do.  I was hardly a steady person then.  Hell, I’m hardly steady NOW!

I’m a married man, with two daughters and four grandchildren.  Your profile says you are in a relationship, yet you plastered pictures of men in various states of undress all over the page.  Of course, by that token, my own spouse does the same thing, sometimes!

We had many of the same interests, from movies to books to music to whom we would like to meet.  I know one thing, though….or at least I’m fairly sure of it….you don’t want to meet ME again.  I have yet to decide if I could blame you for that, if it were so.  I know how psycho I was with you.

I also know I loved you with all my heart.  I wanted your approval more than anything, back then.  Now, it would be NICE to have it, but I can easily live without it.  After all, we haven’t even seen each other in about twelve years, and that makes twelve years of living without your approval.  Twelve, twenty-four, forty-eight, etc. more won’t hurt me.  

Things have changed, thankfully.  Just a few months ago, I would have fallen apart, just as I did when I reconnected with someone else I had loved before.  Not now.  I’ve come to realize that, no matter what you (or anyone else) thinks, I am a worthwhile person.  I am a good singer, a good writer, a good husband, a good father, a good grandfather, a good son, a good grandson (at least to ONE of my grandmothers).  There are a LOT of good things about me.  I have rarely noticed that.

I<span style="font-weight:

bold; font-size: 14pt;”> realize that you were – and kind of still are – a majorly important character in the story of my life, but I also realize that, as Billy Joel put it in "Say Goodbye To Hollywood", "Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes."  We have more or less said goodbye.  I don’t count it as inflexibly permanent.  No, I count it as permanent unless you decide otherwise.  I’m finished with reaching out to you.  I don’t need the degradation.  My husband doesn’t need the degradation.  My daughters and grandchildren don’t need the degradation.  It’s only degradation because you never once did something as simple as tell me to piss off, even.  Well, then, thank you for expressing – without one word or action – what I mean to you!

Life is funny.  I mean in a humorous way, as well as a strange way.  I love you.  I always have, and I probably always will.  I do NOT need you, though.  

And for this realization, I thank you.  It is a kindness I cannot repay.

Herman, although I am known as Jack, these days