I don’t know why I care; certainly the knowledge that she must be out there lingers unquestioned.
A search through my browser history will demonstrate that every two or three weeks, I find myself looking for traces of her. Yet, when I do, I am simultanesouly disappointed and relieved. Why do I look? In life, Julianne kept a bizarrely low profile; she hated other people knowing what she was doing. She was the most private individual I’ve known. I don’t think I quite appreciate how deeply she let me in, nor fully understood the extent to which she would end up compartmentalising her life when I was no longer the primally intimate force in it I had once been.
I must presume that she’s moved on, that she’s paid off her debt (largely in part to the property settlement that left me deeply in debt); that she’s found a place of her own that isn’t the type of shithole she lived in after she left me but while we were still in communication; that she’s been dating others, fallen in love–I have no reason to not believe that she isn’t romantically involved with Josh, the guy she dated for a year and a half before we met, and whom she left to entertain dating others when I first asked her out. I have no reason to not believe all these things are true, andI accept them, but it’s easier to simply accept them as abstractions, and not know, not have the presumptions verified.
I’ve tried so hard to purposefully distance myself from her–because I know I’m still not over her. If she once again were even the remotest presence in my life, I’d break down and try to figure a way to make it work, and if I couldn’t, if she’s moved too far on, that I’d kick myself once again for the choices I made that led to the end of the marriage and then our subsequent contact in the first place. It’s a kind of self-destruction I know I’d bring on myself and which I cannot afford to, no matter how much I love her. So, I maintian distance.
She sent me a birthday card and a present; I ignored it entirely. I almost would prefer her to think that I don’t exist or care anymore. That’s better than the forever temptation of wanting to resurrect something that hurt me so deeply. People ask me if I miss Califrnia–more than I’d like to admit; it’s one thing to think of each new day in each new place as an adventure. But the best days of my life were somewhere else, with or without her–a place that I feel exiled from simply because I can’t stomach the thought of being so potentially close to her and to not be with her. To be in such geographic proximity and to yet maintain distance in our personal lives. It is far easier to be 1500 miles away where it isn’t a faint possibility.
But distance melts away with new social networking. When I first joined Facebook about three months ago, I entertained a few searches, and was relieved/disappointed to find she hadn’t yet made her way here. But with each new friend from my past, deeper and deeper connections to my past were forming. After Juli and before Juli were fine. But the degrees of separation kept narrowing with each new friend. Luckily, I’ve altogether avoided friending anyone who might still have a connection with her. But the other day, the photographer at our wedding, and an old mutual acquaintance (who was a closer friend to her than to me) contacted me. I ignored him.
But I can’t go on like that indefinitely. How much power do I give this one person to dictate who I will and will not be friends with? It’s not their fault. They didn’t particiupate in the demise of our relationship (although those who watched it unfold and chose to remain her friend despite its end, I still resnt and have a hard time forgiving). But the merest inkling of a connection is like kryptonite to my social soul. I don’t want to know what’s going on in their worlds, simply on the offchance that their path may intersect with hers, and then I’d know about it.
Well, it was a matter of time. After watching a tech interview with the founder of a new social connectivity service called Gist, it occurred to me that the entire world is about this connectivity; this is our future. Despite how private she is, our paths are bound to reconnect, no matter what I do. I performed a Facebook search, and sure enough, there is a new profile with her name. A search of friends don’t reveal anyone who’s a common connection, but the location of the two friends she has clearly show that it’s her. And so now what? Reconnecting with her is a button-click away. Why would I do it? Why wouldn’t I? She was my best friend for eight years, and since then, I haven’t come close to that level of personal intimacy and I miss it terribly. Her biggest lament about ending our marriage was that she’d lose her best friend. We both did. But to touch that soul again would be like putting my hand deep into the fire, expecting the heat to not burn my hand.
She’s out there in the world. But, what did I expect? Why do I care?
How much of my past must I destroy to move forward? Like a riptide, it continues to pull me under and draw me back: in my soul, in my mind, a yearning so real it’s in my body.
But I’d still rather set fire to it all than relive it another second.
