Temporandom

We are all adults now.

I ran into Donna the other day. When I last saw her, she was a thin, pretty, dark-haired teenaged girl, and I was a teenaged boy. We were girlfriend and boyfriend for all of about two weeks. I asked her to "go with me" because that is what we did back then to declare our relationship. She said yes.

In those two weeks, I don't think we kissed or even held hands. After the two weeks, we broke up, and I went back to seeing her sister, Julie. Julie and I would be a couple for about a year and a half, until I left for college where my whole world expanded leaving no room for her.

I don't know why I dated Julie for so long. We obviously enjoyed each other and most likely saw a future together. We regularly shared 'I love yous' which isn't strange or uncommon. Most teenagers don't REALLY know what those three words mean in a realistic or practical sense, but it's so romantic!  As soon as I stepped foot outside Maine in September 1978, however, they became meaningless.

Such is the way of youth.

So, I ran into Donna, and it has been more than 35 years since we last saw each other. We quickly caught up. I learned that she had been married to an alcoholic who she divorced in 1988. She has been a single mom since, raising two kids to adulthood. She learned that her stepfather physically abused her and her siblings as children, and she suffers from chronic migraines now. There was a near death experience ten years ago. She has discovered holistic living and religiously practices laws of attraction. She left the church and absolutely will never go back. Given that Julie and Donna, though sisters, don't share the same father and the man that raised them was a different fellow altogether, I'm not sure why the church is to blame for her issues. But, whatever. She did mention a 'horrible experience' - I have no idea what she meant by that.

After she told me all this, all I could say in response was, "I'm sorry to hear that you've had to go through so much, but also glad that you seem to have gained control over much of it." What else was there to say?

Donna showed me a current picture of Julie and her husband. Like all of us who have lived into our fifties, they look significantly different.  It was difficult to see how different because the picture wasn't particularly clear. But I saw enough to be able to compare the memory pictures I have with something more recent. The differences weren't stunning like they would have been a few years ago. I've witnessed too many changes in that time to be taken aback anymore.

We are all adults now, with adult bodies and lives.

Adult stories.

The exuberant flirtations, the adolescent nervousness, the wild-eyed energies are all characteristics of the past now. The joys and pains of youth have all been supplanted by the joys and pains of adulthood. Neither holds an advantage over the other. There is just simple divergence.

I will probably stay in touch with Donna through the internet, but I won't try to contact Julie.  That train left the station in 1978 on a track that went far afield from its original heading. Or maybe not.

Perhaps temporary relationships are just layovers in life, and our original heading is yet to be discovered.

Then again, everything in life is temporary.