Memoir Monday, June 29, 1968

 Somehow this was almost a week that wasn't as far as recording anything went. I know I spent a a lot of time with Dale who was briefly driving locally out of Flagstaff. What I said about those interludes  belongs not here but in my "Addicted to Romance" tales, a section labeled "Ports in the Storms."  I do not censor erotica here but it just does not fit smoothl at this point. 

I whined about a severe case of monthly miseries; but made it through them and manaaged to have some 'good times' of sorts. And paid little notice to school other than I think Iwent to class and  maybe got my assignments done. C'est la Vie. So I will just pull a bit of introduction from that Addicted missive  as it does explain part of of what I was going  through for most  of 1968. I was still missing Dusty keenly and the special closeness we had shared and also trying to find new ways to be myself and maybe a better and happier self than I had been for much too long. I had to h ave some crutches and passifiers, perhaps

Ports in the Storms--in the spirit of 1968

         The necessity for seeking Ports in the Storms on my rocky life road is a symptom of my addiction. I might add before I go on that my addiction was to Romance. It was more about the sense of feeling special to someone, the rush of “being in love”, the security for awhile of not being alone and lonely, feeling pretty or attractive and desirable. It really was never about sex by itself at all. That was incidental and almost simply a way to pay for the ‘fix’ I craved so badly. I was not the first to trade sex for a “fix” but my need was not the normal drug type of addiction.

 Whenever I ended up actually or at least emotionally alone, I habitually wandered, falling or drifting into one of those sheltering spots. I’d linger there until I found my balance and the ability to move on again. None of them were ever anywhere near, much less “The " love of my life. In a couple of cases I have to admit infatuation or enchantment for a time, but it was not the depth of connection, sense of true belonging and being not alone that the real ‘loves of my life’ brought to me.

These particular relationships, if one can even call them that much, were certainly anomalies. Each was for a season and a reason. In every instance, I clutched at straws to some degree and found for a time what I at least believed I needed. That they each cared for me in many ways, I cannot deny for it was obvious from their treatment. None were ever abusive or ‘mean’ to me. And I certainly cared for them and was as giving and supportive as possible.  They were not meant to be long-lasting, much less permanent and although generally very emotional for awhile, they ended with no real regrets or acrimony. There were clean breaks when that time came.

I never looked back to ask myself “what if”. I could never envision or even imagine a lifetime shared with any one of them. I always tried to give back as much as I got or took. Whether I truly did so, I really cannot say. I do credit myself with an “E” for effort.  Even today, decades later, I do not feel deep regret or remorse and certainly am not ashamed or abashed at what I did. They were part and parcel of my addiction and perhaps inevitable in view of its influence.

In the first instance, I had been left utterly alone with the family’s dispersal and Dusty’s disappearance. At that point, I was struggling with PTSD and depression, while trying to cope with a level of solitude I had never known before. That was the proximate cause for the next case as well, which even slightly overlapped the first. In the third,much later,  the proverbial seven year itch had hit and my marriage went through the rockiest period of its duration. It and I were tested to near the breaking point. This one was strictly an “office spouse” sort of relationship, essentially platonic, and never remotely physical. In retrospect, it was a large part imagined or illusionary for me. If not totally one-sided, at least something like 75-25. In each case, I learned and grew as well as finding an energy-entity to sustain me. 

I think that is about as coherent and truthful explanation as I can offer for what went on in my life in the finall four plus yeas of my college expereince and ecen extending somewhat into my abrupt morphing into a  nine to five type 'working girl."  Certainly Dale and to a much less degree the other 'bus drivers' or Highway Cassanovas as I termed them in hte book length memoir wre the firt. The second will be met in the 1969 era and came very close to stearing my life off onto an absolutely new and unexpected direction. Maybe it is good that ultimately did not happen. I now am sure it would not have ended well and was probably not ever meant to happen. Next week we will get back to the not-routine summer of 1968, part school, past trips and a lot of minor but significant changes in the rough map I was creating for my furute and adult life. Did i ever really "grow up"? I often wonder. I was always both the oldest young person and the youngest old person in my shifting circle of companions from late childhood on. 

No Pictures!! And I won't even apologize.