I'll take a detour from my talk of houses, homes and moving to share some thoughts that arise mostly from my weekend trip over to my brief home locale of Grant County, NM. The story is perhaps very much a slice of my life--one who leads with her heart, not her head, a romanticist to the core and also an Irish/Taurus person whose loyalties and connections tend to run very deep. I try very hard not to hate and have managed to shed most of my antipathies and forgive even where I sometimes cannot forget. Conversely, my loves stick like embedded burrs and are almost impossible to dislodge.
The tale begins in mid December of 2007. I'd been a widow for four years and had lost my baby brother two years earlier. I was doing my best to manage a half acre lot that grew lots of weeds, two dogs that were having more and more fights, an invasion of ticks, a septic system going bad and a few other 'little' issues. Life was not much fun. For spits and giggles I signed on to a match site called Adult Friend Finders. It was an X-rated one and many of the profiles showed folks flaunting their "junk" in all its splendor. Even as an erotic romance writer I was kind of like, "Whoa!" Then one guy contacted me--at least his profile pic was a headless torso with a pair of tighty whities for a bit of modesty. I replied.
Soon we were exchanging emails and then phone numbers. The first time I head his voice I 'knew' him. It took a few weeks but we agreed to meet midway between where we lived and chose a small town in Cochise County. The date was January 17, 2008. Again we were not strangers in any way and it felt as if we had known each other half our lives. There was an almost audible click as two kindred spirits re-met. and connected.
I ended up moving that summer over to Hurley. NM which was about 15 miles south and east of Silver City. It was time for me to get away from Whetstone. I rented my house for a year and then deeded it over to my middle stepson but that is another tale, mostly told in the past. About the same time, my new friend who I will just call Jim changed jobs and ended up over at Carlsbad instead of in Arizona. His base camp was in Grant County but he worked elsewhere a lot of the time. We stayed in contact and got together now and then but it became increasingly clear we were simply not meant to be a couple in this lifetime.
It was not a lack of compatibility, but what brother Charlie calls romantic relational integration. Middle aged people have a lot of life behind and often still entrapping them; kids, other family, work, debts, obligations and so on. We realized our very powerful friendship was too precious to jeopardize by trying to build a permanent romantic partnership which would likely fail with hurt and hard feelings despite our best intentions. There had always been a very fraternal or familial aspect to our bond. We both have a lot of Irish ancestry; we both lean toward an ancient pagan view of life and spirituality; we are both Taurus folks, Jim being five years and five days my junior--the first younger man I'd ever had a serious relationship with. We are also both eldest children with that overwhelming sense of responsibility and need to take care, make right, do what is asked or expected. That was part of the issues too. Neither of us can say "No" very well even to unreasonable demands and wind up pulled in too many directions.
The next spring I moved to Colorado and began to share a home with Charlie. In two years, he retired and we moved south, landing in Alamogordo which turned out not to be a good place for us. All through that Jim and I would call or text off and on, sometimes not for weeks or even months but never letting the tie part; it seemed very elastic. I did make it over to Silver City a few times after he retired and came home to be there for his two youngest kids. However long it had been, there always was an instant picking up and continuity.
Then I started having the bad eye issues at about the point where Charlie began a two year relationship with a woman who just hit me wrong as I clearly did her. In every sly and subtle way she kept trying to move me out and somehow make me go away. Charlie had a hard time seeing or understanding that aspect for a long time. I can spell depression and it hit me like a two mile train at track speed. From about 2014 on, I would almost have welcomed death but never quite got to the suicidal point. I still kept a-few-texts-a-year contact and a call or two with Jim but even that almost took more energy than I had. I never told him 90% of my woes, just mentioning the eyes as why I never came over there anymore. I had promised myself there would never be any drama from me for him as goodness knows he had enough elsewhere.
Finally the woman and Charlie came to the ultimate break and I made the trips to Alaska, a nearly desperate effort to find something to give me a purpose and a reason to exist. That did help. Then the idea to come 'home' to Arizona began to take shape and that process completely took over my life for most of two years. I still sent Celtic holiday texts to Jim and let him know of the plans as it took shape but little more. Finally we were here and I told him near Christmas that I really wanted to come over to see him and he said he looked forward to it. He is still working part time, doing flea market stuff and taking care of everyone although the two younger kids are doing fantastic out on their own. I was so happy about that because most of the earlier ones had not and caused him much grief.
And so, I picked a day, not sure it would work and we set up to meet. Yes, it was the 12th anniversary of that initial meeting. I got to the chosen meeting spot a few minutes ahead. He pulled his truck in on the right side of RHM. I got out and circled behind my truck as he got out. I was not all the way there when his arms reached and I walked at once into the 'coming home' hug I have missed for several years. We talked for two hours or more until he got a call and had to go. No drama--I knew what to expect and accepted that. He walked me to my truck and we parted with another hug and a promise to keep in touch better if possible as he thanked me for never failing to do so all this time
No, there is not a proverbial happy ending to this story, at least not in this lifetime, but the friendship lives, thrives and goes on. It will go with me to the veil and probably out on the far side. We have shared other lives and in time will do so again. The resonance of our two energies match so well and the two inner selves fit in so many incredible ways. As in Yolanda Martinez' beautiful song, Forever and Always, "I will always know you." or Glenn Frey's Part of Me, Part of You. that melding is real and I know I am never totally alone. A man and a woman can be platonic fraternal friends because what is friendship but a very sacred and special form of Divine Energy or Love? I am greatly blessed to have that precious incredible gift.
I'll go into some of the non-coincidences and strange Celtic knots in this and other related matters soon. This is already way too long!! Sue-Ellen, (another spirit connected friend!) I agree--there are NO coincidences. There are patterns and fate and Divine intervention and much else!
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