Goodbye Memories

How do you summarise the greatest love of your life? Much has been written, talked about, cried about and hoped for over these past thirty-six years. Never really ‘On’ but on again, off again all the same. You know…the chemistry, the love, the ties that bind me irrevocably to this man. This complicated…honourable? Honest? Damaged? Narcissistic man? I’ve retreated many times. To other boyfriends who offered me stability. I stayed with them like a weak cup of tea, looking back at him…. looking back at him, visiting him, leaving him, returning to my substitute, pretending to be happy. But I was not. I’ve been lured back many times. A sixteen-year break while I put my heart into self-imposed protective custody. I emerged tentatively then excitedly from that cocoon state, with my butterfly wings quivering, waiting to see if that spark was still lit when he saw me. It seemed it was. My light grew brighter, I accrued evening clothes for ‘when I go out with him’ but that invitation never came and although I stayed, I accepted his invitations to come over and have sex…and eventually I grew myself back into that plump little larvae to lay in a loveless catatonic state once more. But I devised a way around not seeing him. I teased and flirted over the phone, I had him hooked on my late-night whisperings until I grew tired of my unpaid night job and stopped answering his desperate calls. He punished me by phoning to tell me he was ‘going to try a relationship with someone.’ Someone who wasn’t me. Someone he hadn’t known long. Someone. The ache in my heart was as though it would never recover again. I cried, I panicked, I couldn’t eat. Then my sadness was replaced by anger and for the sake of my teenage daughter and to prove my psychologist wrong, I got ‘better.’ I pushed it aside, pushed it down, stuffed it in a bag and tied the strings tight. I hid it under the bed. And then my first boyfriend died. I saw it on the internet on one of my random searchings…. checking up on him. Long lost, married, living in America…but I still liked to check. I saw the word ‘Vale’ and I turned my phone off as my heart jumped and my stomach knotted. I knew what I had seen but I couldn’t handle it, not on top of Him, him and that girl, the one he hardly knew, the one he took in his car to the farm I’ve never been to…to the dinner he never asked me to…to her house and not mine…he’d never been to my house. I kept my heartache down deep, but I couldn’t relax any more. In a short space of time, I’d lost two dear elderly friends, my first boyfriend from Covid and now the love of my life. I worked hard, accelerated my workload through the long early morning hours and only climbed the stairs as the kookaburras laughed and I was exhausted but careful to shield my eyes from the breaking light so I might sleep just a few hours until the tight cramping in my stomach woke me and the thudding of my rising panic made me throw the covers off violently as my feet landed barely a millisecond onto the carpet and I was off on my feverish business….my pumping heart slowing as I showered, did my makeup, dressed, descended downstairs while everyone slept their peaceful sleeps and my day had begun already…but hours after laying down…yet started again…as I raised the blinds around the house, a routine I grew to hate as I pulled them down again at night and not a soul had sat in that lounge room, no family had sat at that dining table, no laughter had been laughed because on top of my grief my beloved children had grown independent and no longer needed me, my people, the little people I loved with all my heart and laughed and lived one hundred percent for….were gone. And my dear Dad and I sat in our respective aloneness…. him with advancing dementia and deafness, me with all my bagged up sadness and Dad would look up from his tiny dinner and say ‘It’s quiet isn’t it”. And I would nod and say ‘Yes it is’ and those tightened drawstrings would ooze a stream of tears, unnoticed by anyone except myself.

“Why don’t you come over…be natural” he urged. Somehow less than a year after his departure he found his way back in. For a long time when his photograph appeared on my phone when he called, I stared at the red letters I’d scrawled over his face ‘Narcissist…YUK’ and felt nothing. My feelings were dead inside, but I quietly rejoiced in his discomfort. I didn’t want to block him. I wanted to watch him beg. But eventually he found a way in and I found myself saying “I’ll drive past for a drive by kiss…. I’m not getting out of the car…just a kiss and run.” Which I did…and more…and when I drove off, I was smiling broadly and my heart felt a whoosh of warmth it hadn’t felt in a long time as I typed a text to him saying “If I died tonight, I’d die happy.” And so, it went on from there. I would ask what he thought about that night …. the night I saw him after four long years…the night I drove to kiss him and we connected through my open window after barely a “Hi” and we were kissing as in a movie…. a most intensely romantic scene you could ever imagine in a film…as the rain poured down and he dropped his umbrella and all it was, was us kissing, reconnecting and the chemistry flowed down our faces and bodies and the open car door, and I smiled the same smile from the first night we kissed in the ocean at dusk in the January of 1986 on Palm Beach. And his answer was…” I don’t know…I don’t remember…I remember it was raining.” And just like that he shot me down again….  like a stray puppy hiding in the shadows, trembling with fear but so hungry for love, for the food the stranger is holding enticingly…. emerging from the shadows, one shaky anxiety ridden step at a time. Encouraged, discouraged, encouraged, running back to the dark shelter… and out again. The process was familiar… the hope, the disappointment, the elation, and the defeat. The puppies great, big, aching soft heart at the hands of something much bigger, a game that could never be won, a game that guaranteed loss.

He was going to a family wedding in the country. Deep down I wondered if he might ask me. That’s the thing with optimists. When no invitation came, I reasoned that I wasn’t ready, didn’t like the country, wouldn’t fit in, wasn’t slim enough…. we weren’t ready for that. The night before he left, he asked me over. I spent a few hours getting ready, washing hair, curling hair, thinking about what to wear, arranging someone to sit with Dad. Maybe we might go for dinner I wondered yet doubted at the same time. I arrived thirty minutes late to see him sitting up from lying on the lounge in front of the television. He was wearing a T shirt and shorts and looked half asleep. He also looked annoyed as his eyes scanned what I was wearing from the ground up. “I’m only half an hour late” I announced to which he replied, “There are phones.” I forgave him his rudeness, but I should have turned and walked out. The silly optimistic me stayed and made awkward conversation because despite his supposed charm and intelligence, he barely applied any of it toward me that night…. many nights for that matter. So, I fill conversation, sound blonde, rake up old memories from the corners of my photographic mind ….” Oh I remember you used to come back from being at Forbes with your stepfather and you always had muddy boots.” And he’d turn and look at me like I’m some freak, which I knew I was, for saying such a stupid inane thing. But it filled space…. made an awkward pause more awkward….damn, why was he so hard to communicate with sometimes? To fill the void we wander into his bedroom but it’s not a madly passionate feeling, because of his mood, it feels empty, routine, going through the motions …but we’re there to look at his tuxedo and his white shirt and I see his polished shoes on the ground and I act so interested but deep down my optimistic heart is wondering if he might wear this same tuxedo if we ever got married. That hopeful little girl is irrepressible. The phone rings and we saunter back out to the kitchen where he talks…he is talking and joking, his voice is animated and he’s smiling…in stark contrast to his slightly irritated persona but a minute before. I wander quietly around the house, open the door to the balcony and walk out to observe the darkened water view. The view I used to sneak out to look at when he was asleep thirty-six years ago…. listen to the yacht masts tinkle…dream…hope. Tonight, I feel a bit empty, a bit anxious, a bit hopeful that his mood will change. I step back inside and close the door quietly. I’m aware he is probably watching me. I wonder if he’s hating me wandering. I notice his old stereo equipment. I remember when he had music blaring through the house…Michael Jackson “I just can’t stop loving you” …. Celine Dion “My heart will go on”…..some song….was it Paul Simon and some other collaborator…..the lyrics “You can call me Betty…you can be my long lost pal….” I remember he liked that song…I hated it. I remember sitting on his back steps talking while Michael Jackson sang. I had my legs around him as he sat on the lower step, and I was leaning into his back with my arms around him. I was saying “I don’t want to get hurt” and he was saying “I don’t want to hurt you…. maybe it’s for the best.” And the goodbyes…. his lack of words, lack of love…. the acting like the goodbye was sad for him and me believing him and knowing it wasn’t really going to be a final goodbye…knowing he would be back…but sad all the same …hoping it would frighten him into waking up and realising I was the one …. we were meant to be together.

 He’s still on the phone…I stare at some art works and slowly wander over to where he is seated at the kitchen bench. He is the charming, animated man I met at the dinner party…the blind date…he can really turn on the charm. With me it’s different. Is it because he’s comfortable with me? So many times, we’ve fantasised about what I’d do if I was there and he was on a business call. Tonight, is not that night. I feel like it wouldn’t be appropriate at all. He’s off the phone and we chat, and he tells me there is a box in his bedroom on his dressing table. He is directing me to go and get it. He adds to the description…” It’s a little jewellery box…bring it out.” I know the thoughts that went through my head in that short moment…I know I was aware to act calmly and never to get excited…. that it might be an old piece of jewellery from his mother or a friendship ring for me ….or….just something he wanted to show me. I don’t know the words I uttered as I walked toward the bedroom at a casual pace….the words would have been watered down to a dry, casualness…non excited…non hurried….I’m in the bedroom…I see the box….I take it in my hands and turn to walk back to him….coming into the light and seeing a black vintage box with the ever so slightly worn letters ….TIFFANY & Co…..did he say for me to open it? Why is he asking me to open a box that says TIFFANY & Co? Why is he watching me…. why am I filled with anticipation….and he is making it so. My fingers open the box to reveal more than a solitary ring…a band…. a diamond….they are black with gold edging and a small diamond set within what may be onyx. They are cufflinks and button studs….they are his, precious to him….he’s sharing his pride in their beauty with me and I’m touched and curious and pleased and a lot disappointed…all at the same time as I fill the space with everything else but disappointment…I fill it too full with remarks about the box and when he bought them and are they vintage and I insist the box looks vintage and he seems irritated with my insistence and its awkward again as I continue to admire them, pretend to look more closely at them with my glasses on …peering closer like a fine craftsmen jeweller peering at his work …looking for perfection….polishing out flaws…but seeing nothing but disappointment with a splash of optimism that he wanted to show me his cufflinks.

We make it to the bedroom and afterwards he tells me he’s happy for me to stay but I’m aware he has a long drive in the morning. It’s also playing on my mind that he mentioned I was often a bit negative and this comes as a shock because for all my struggles at the moment I think to myself how strong I am, how am I not curled up in a ball…not in a nuthouse…. or worse…but I’m trying every hour…every minute to overcome so much and despite my dark thoughts I can still wake up every morning and put on my makeup, get dressed…. open those blinds…and close them at days end when nobody has noticed if they were up or down…like my mood. I whisper in his ear in a jovial manner as I leave…”Stay positive” to which he scoffs in annoyance and I’m off up his driveway acting all casual and strong but really I’m awkward with him watching me and as always for thirty six years I’ve longed for him to do that walk with me to my car, open the door, chat with me a little while and lean in and kiss me lovingly…wave goodbye while he stands on the road in the dark. Instead, I reverse out of the driveway waiting to see how long it will take for him to turn the light off and pad back to bed while I drive home, dishevelled, confused, happy, sad…. going over the evening…the good and the bad…absorbing those visual and verbal memories deep within my vault full of deep sentiment for me and irrelevance for most. I notice in my bag he has slipped a one hundred dollar note. I’m a mixture of confused and horror that he looked in my bag with my unflattering undies and general clutter. I’m confused why and what the money is for. Is it for the babysitter I organised for Dad for the evening….is it for the Telstra bill I told him I had to pay before midnight…is it for the small bag of groceries I delivered to him when he had Covid? Was it for sex or was he settling a final bill….an ending of any indebtedness he might have felt toward me. I sent him a text saying, “Love you baby, sleep well” and I guess it landed in his inbox as he slept. I couldn’t sleep until 2am and was woken by his phone call at 8.38am as he drove out of his driveway on his way to the wedding. I asked him about the money, and he said he had been plotting how to pay me back for the things I bought when he was isolating. Funny that, I had hoped he might have asked me out for dinner. I really didn’t expect payment as such because I would never think twice about spending my last penny on him or anyone I cared about. A niggling feeling lingered over this.

Late that afternoon I texted to see if he had arrived and he phoned straight back to say he had and after a brief discussion I involved my son with about a speeding fine he received, he said he had to go the wedding rehearsal and he was being picked up. That was Thursday and despite my deep hopes he would phone me from his hotel room …. drunk after the wedding…thinking about me…. saying the free things that only drunk people say and only hopeful romantics want to hear. But no such phone call came, and my mind tormented me with thoughts of country MILFS chasing after the available man from the big city. I reached rock bottom when I walked out the door well after midnight to drive over to see if he was home on the night he said he would be or did he stay longer for the desperate MILF who he took back to the hotel room with him…that’s why he didn’t call me…why he never phoned on the five and a half hour drive home or getting into bed after the five and a half drive home or the next morning or the whole day until my anxiety made me drive to his house. But it wasn’t all about derangement, I was concerned about his health and my overactive imagination worried there may have been another reason why he hadn’t phoned. I left my motor running and fumbled for my little torch I had tucked into my jacket pocket when I was putting the garbage bins out hours before….delighted it was still there and had come in handy to light my unplanned midnight spying mission to his house, down the darkened driveway to shine the torch quickly on the number plate of his car before hurrying back to my car.

  The next day the silence got the better of me and I sent a text asking… “Did all the country MILFS fall in love with the chauffeur?” to which he texted “How did you know?”  and I replied, “I just know” and he replied, “How come they are all so silly” and I replied, “Good luck.” He phoned me straight back after that and we chatted and I flirted and struggled with the bad phone reception cutting in and out and I knew deep down he would start getting irritated and blaming me for my phones shortcomings and just as I knew I had reached an all too familiar point of vulnerability the previous evening ….I knew as I gave up trying to talk through the phones constant audio issues that this thing had come to an end…that I can’t keep being that young twenty something girl saying “I don’t want to get hurt” as Michael Jackson sang “I just can’t stop loving you” and all those conversations we’ve had over those many, many years, my hopes and my heartbreaks, had to stop. I didn’t call him back I just texted “Sorry no decent reception. I’m on my way out.” An ironic choice of words. He called me later in the evening asking if my car had broken down and I said…” No, I’m still out.” We had a little banter and I told him I’d call him back, but I won’t. I’m writing this and I don’t believe it’s the end …. I know it should be…. but again…I’m uncertain. I know it feels other worldly with us sometimes…when I’m in his arms, I’m twenty-two again. That’s an amazing feeling, as though time hasn’t passed at all….I’m not heavier, not older or burdened by life’s challenges….he and I are the same…preserved forever in that moment…we are unchanged…still those lovers kissing in the surf at twilight at Palm Beach and my great big, aching, soft heart never went through any changes, disappointments but rather every dream and hope it ever had was met and satisfied and never sustained trauma. That is the big aching, sad saga of the greatest love of my life…so far. EXIT STAGE LEFT Little Hopeful Girl

        Do not love half lovers
Do not entertain half friends 
Do not indulge in works of the half talented
Do not live half a life 
and do not die a half death
If you choose silence, then be silent
When you speak, do so until you are finished
Do not silence yourself to say something
And do not speak to be silent
If you accept, then express it bluntly
Do not mask it
If you refuse then be clear about it 
for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance
Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes
Half a drink will not quench your thirst
Half a meal will not satiate your hunger
Half the way will get you no where
Half an idea will bear you no results
Your other half is not the one you love
It is you in another time yet in the same space
It is you when you are not
Half a life is a life you didn’t live, 
A word you have not said
A smile you postponed 
A love you have not had
A friendship you did not know
To reach and not arrive
Work and not work
Attend only to be absent
What makes you a stranger to them closest to you
and they strangers to you
The half is a mere moment of inability
but you are able for you are not half a being
You are a whole that exists to live a life 
not half a life

Gibran Khalil

The first time we meet someone who turns out to be someone who ends up staying in your life for a while, is most often memorable. We meet thousands of people throughout our lives. Many we remember, others not at all. The butcher, the chemist, our school teachers, friends and neighbours. Life is a constant parade of people. With every meeting, every introduction and hello, there will be a goodbye, a wave, a handshake or something so much more. I want to talk about the Goodbyes. The Endings. The goodbyes you saw coming and the ones you did not.

The problem with me is my memory. My memory is attuned to the sentimental. The painful memories are stored in a chip inside my sentimental brain and despite being quite full, it continues to scan for potential material to save. It works hard on preparing to capture all data associated with any upcoming goodbye. The associated data is the vivid snapshots of how those chapters between ‘hello’s’ and ‘goodbyes’ pan out. They snap, snap, snap a continual sequence of happy moments, sad moments, quotes, fabrics, scents, smiles, tears, emotions, hair catching the sunlight or blowing in the breeze, rosy cheeks, expressions, hurtful conversations, happiness, loneliness and the list goes on. Whilst my brain actively gathers information, my heart and hands retain things…hard copies…hand written letters, cards, texts, dried flowers, cut hair, clothing, photos…anything tangible. My hands type and scrawl all these memories onto paper, into the computer, mobile phones, videos and cameras. If I lost my internal data, there will always be some written content to refer back to.

For some reason, I imagine loss to be a feature of my life. More loss than gain. More goodbyes than hellos. I wonder if I’m one of the few who feel this way, have experienced the same sense of people leaving. The leavings become more apparent as we grow older and the room begins to feel empty. Fewer replacements are coming through the revolving doors. The goodbyes are piled high and the hellos are thin on the ground. I grew accustomed to the leavings from a young age. I’m not sure why I accepted the temporary nature of things. I guess its why I’ve clung with all my might to the regulars. My parents, my children. I learnt early that friends are transitional and boyfriends never stay. The old people I adore will die and now the young people…my children will leave. It’s inevitable.