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Rose Colored Glasses or The Age of Wisdom

We sometimes go through life looking backwards, reaching deeper as the years go by and what do we see?

Are the memories softer because of age, or are they painted with a varnish of wisdom that comes through living through them?

This particular weekend has brought back a lot of memories that were once filled with thorns but time and therapeutic apologies have trimmed off the points, leaving nothing but blooms.  In our youth we experience what I think are some of the most tumultuous situations of our life. We’re changing on a daily basis, surfing a wave of hormones we can’t control and occasionally we crash the waves made by other people’s crafts, causing wakes that can pulverize or intersect with greatness.

I’m mostly talking about personal relationships that have gone by in the past with people who go unnamed here because no one deserves the wrong type of attention. I’m approaching this blog entry as a straight female adult living with the memories of loving a gay person in my childhood. He was not in any position to completely understand his feelings or come out of a closet so tightly nailed shut in the era we grew up in, that there really can be no blame for any hurt feelings that passed between us.

From my perspective, I was once dating a kind, generous, fun, soul that became anxious to explore the sexual potential of the human body with another person so hard and fast that I was unable to mentally process five minutes ahead of myself, a girl who lived an emotionally desperate, parent-demanded chaste life.  I never inwardly blamed him for the impulses, I just couldn’t ever give back because I was wrapped up in that fear. I lashed out publicly at the impulses but I never truly blamed him. I blamed myself for being the prude who couldn’t reciprocate and many relationships afterwards were tinged with that inability and feeling violated for wanted to feel good.  My brain was twisted to not get close to another human being and it took many years to un-wring that mess.

After many cross words spewed down stairwells and across hallways, we went our separate ways, neither knowing what truly powered the other. It wasn’t until many years later that I came to understand the inception of all disastrously immature behavior that passed between us. The event gave me pause to instantly forgive not only him but myself. In the middle of a fashion design class, for some reason, we started talking about significant others that had become famous.  My X-boyfriend, a local personality had come up in conversation, and I mentioned our connection in high school. You think it only happens in the movies, but the room really did become become silent enough to hear pins drop.  I looked up from my work and the woman across from me, with a look of disbelief, said her roommate (a man) was dating my x-boyfriend from high school.

I remember that moment as if something in my life had died and simultaneously exploded like a beautiful phoenix into the air. The clarity that came with finding out a person that caused me so much heart felt pain was gay made the moment palpable and the only thing I could say as I set down my arms on the table was, “That makes complete sense.”  I understand now and all is forgiven. Not only were they set free, I was too.

We spoke later through letters and I’ve kept those letters as a reminder that we move through this life with the ability to grow as human beings and loving ourselves is tantamount to loving others.  It’s so easy to get caught up in revenge or harbor ill feelings because let’s face it, hatred is as powerful of a drug as is love, but love is, with my utmost respect for the cliche, what makes the world go around.