I was reminded today of someone that I think about from time to time. An ex girlfriend, of sorts, and someone I’m never sure if I wronged or not. Water under the bridge, of course, and Elizabeth is happily married with kid, so no major scars for life, or anything like that. It’s just that I can never figure out what happened, there. I mean, we were wrong for each other, everyone knew that including us, but I still look back with this sense of confusion. Shades of “Hey, man, what the hell happened?”

She was a very intense person, even though she was a fairly calm and quiet girl most of the time. There were a lot of emotional issues that we had in common, I think, which I wasn’t ready to cope with, and a few that we didn’t, which I definitely wasn’t ready to cope with. I don’t think she really knew the measure of me as well as she thought. I am more in a few ways and far, far less in many ways than she seemed to think at the time. I was far too crazy at that point, I think, to be involved with someone who respected me. I think I made her a little crazy, too, for a while. I have noticed that people that got close to me during that time got a little crazy, or maybe just had it uncovered in themselves. To quote a former friend, “I don’t know if that was you, but it looks like your work.” The poor girl almost certainly deserved better treatment, and since I’ve lost her number and her parents refuse to give messages from me or any of the other people who’ve tried to get back in touch, I guess that’s where things will stand. A shame, definitely, but like I said – she’s happy now, and I’m happy now, and sometimes the universe turns without the closure of a belated apology.

But why, you may ask, am I reminiscing about Elizabeth? Why drag myself and my loyal readers through a description of something that, for all intents in purposes, is ancient history? After all, it’s not as if this is one of those wounds that still aches, or injustices never righted, like some of the other things I mention from time to time. No, this is just a slight imbalance never corrected, not one of those weights on my soul. So why? Because I started thinking today about what the right person for me now might be like. Not what they’ll look like, or what their specific attributes will be, or anything so specific, but….what will I feel like when I’m around them? What will an afternoon with them, sitting and reading without talking, or a long drive during the silent stretches be like? The answer is complicated, more feelings than words, a combination of different people in my life that I’ve been that comfortable around. My parents, of course, a few close friends, etc. People I know that have a sense of peace about them, even if not all the time. The thing that struck me, that made me think of someone I haven’t thought about in a couple of months or more, was that one of the people that had that quality was her. In fact, even though we never had those peaceful moments in our oh-so-short relationship, deep down she always had a touch of something amazing, something restful and renewing. I always admired that, even though I never really thought about it on a conscious level, and I realized that this quality is something that I hope to find. I think I will, and this time, I think maybe I can return it.