“I can’t remember anything. Can’t tell if this is true or a dream.” ~ Metallica, “And Justice For All”.
This post is absolutely unplanned, and very much unscripted. But there’s a story that I want to share. Something that has me scratching my head and making me say “WOW!” for the past full hour now.
My original thought for a new post was going to be about memories. How we have them, how do they come to us, and what makes us have them. But my thoughts are still not satisfactory to the point where I want to write.
But this ties in. There was a song that I heard just yesterday that caused me to remember a time about ten years ago in my life. I’ll give you a quick history and then move on to what I think is just so shocking and perhaps a bit funny. But I’ll let you decide.
Ten years ago, I was corresponding with a young woman whom I had the biggest crush on at the time. It was nothing real, just a really big cyber crush. Someone that I had been chatting with on the AIM program and exchanging e-mails. Eventually, I felt at one point she had done me wrong by keeping secrets from me about what she was telling her family about me, and how she might have truly felt about me at the time, just hoping that it was reciprocation. It wasn’t but let’s move on.
I came to the point where I had made plans to move to Texas and I told her. Things really went south from that point. Once I moved, that was pretty much the end. Our time of nearly two years of chatting and corresponding every day had come to a close. All ties had been broken. All communication was over. That chapter in our lives was finished.
My infatuation of her (or at least the idea of her) held on for a bit longer, but it was battled by the fact that she had these secrets about me. Eventually that too, would die.
It had probably been about three years later that I decided I was going to contact her. Not knowing what she was doing, what she might say. I had figured that her life moved on just as mine had. I was actually anticipating that she was probably married and had children.
During that time that I did not speak with her, I saw my faults. I knew I had done her wrong at times. I was human and very immature back then. But I could see those errors that I had made that had caused the trauma between her and I. That actually was the intent of contacting her again. I was hoping for an opportunity to be able to apologize to her for being so irrational towards her life, her ways, and her actions.
Well, I found her. She contacted me back asking how I was doing and mentioned that it had been a long time. I didn’t mix words with her and went right for the throat, so to speak.
I went into detail about how sorry I was for my immaturity and asked her to forgive me. She turned around and said that she wanted to apologize for hurting me. I could have sworn but I think that we did forgive one another. And then just within a few e-mail exchanges she said she had to go and I didn’t bother her any more.
She was married as I had expected, and was pregnant with her first child. On this, I congratulated her.
Fast forward nearly seven years later until yesterday evening where I had heard this song, which is actually a male-female duet. I started having the memories of using AIM to chat, having a microphone there and talking with her. I would play the song on my stereo and turn the volume way up so the microphone would catch the sound and I would sing the male part and she would sing the female part.
Not the kind of memory that I feel would be resentment or anger back. But rather something that was pleasant for the both of us at the time.
So with the invention of Facebook since the last “encounter” for lack of a better term, I looked her up by using what I thought was her e-mail address. I would be successful in finding her yet again.
I sent a message saying that I had heard the song that she and I had sang so many, many, many years ago and it brought up pleasant memories.
How quickly she wrote back, saying that she was stunned and surprised that I would even still remember her. She took the time to apologize for hurting me, even though she acknowledged that it was probably something she didn’t really need to do. And I reminded her of the time where I had actually contacted her and we both forgave one another.
She went there, that fast!!! What was going on in her head that she would resort to the feeling of needing to apologize??
Then she admitted that she really had no memories of the time that she and I had spent chatting and corresponding. She was being honest and I let it go. Not everyone has a great memory like I do, I understand that. Plus it was just her “moving on”.
A few more exchanges and then she said that she had to go to bed because she now had two children and they would most likely have her awake pretty early in the morning. There was really nothing more to be said I suppose. Or maybe she was scared and went into a panic. After all, she has been married for the past seven years.
I sent her an ending salutation and waited to see what she was going to send as her ending salutation.
Several minutes passed and I thought it would be best to remove the message thread out of my Facebook inbox. It wasn’t necessary to hang on to. So the moment I went into the inbox, something went down. Something that I found extremely shocking.
She had blocked me.
The conversation was not filled with bitterness. It was not filled with anger. It was a very small conversation, which I realize now that was mainly about her, her marriage, and her two small children. And now she blocked me.
For her to do that seems a bit hypocritical of her lifestyle that I knew she had even back then. I don’t think that I did anything threatening towards her. I was not even entertaining the idea of trying to add her to my list of friends on Facebook. I merely was thinking about her because of this song that I had heard, and wanted to let her know about it … hoping that life was treating her well.
I realized several minutes after comprehending the block, that perhaps she did not grow up as much as she had claimed. It wasn’t making sense.
It’s getting to the point where I am laughing about it now, but the brain still is saying “WOW!! How cruel. There’s no excuse.”
So I suppose that’s going to be my highlight of the week in general. Perhaps time didn’t heal all of her wounds. Perhaps she was just trying to protect herself from the Inquisition of her husband of the past seven years, should he find out that she was corresponding with me. It could be any thing for any reason at all. It was just behavior I was not expecting out of her, based on her “love one another, forgive and forget” lifestyle.
At any rate, I’m going to continue my research about memories and why we have them and what brings them up. Once I have everything that I need, I will be posting about them and I hope that you as the reader- enjoy it.
You can bet your money that the song that had caused this memory to come up about her will not be listened to or heard for a very, very, very long time. Instead of a pleasant moment in my past, sharing a duet over the Internet has now become a reminder of her shutting me out so that she makes sure that I never speak to her again. Naturally, that is her choice. But because of how I knew she would live her life and the things she would do was not mirrored by her actions so it is just, ………… WOW!!!!
Dambreaker 