And so here we are... is it the final scene? a final chapter? it seems to be but the truth is we never know when that final chapter is really written... and though this feels like it fits the description what has been resolved or explained? anything? everything? can both be true at the same time? and what happens when one chases ghosts only to actually catch one? the reality is we can't catch one as they will slide through our grasp just like the apparition the are... and so goes Veronica... the haunting sound of her voice through a phone line like an old recording, a cassette tape left in a box, dug out in the midst of cleaning out the spaces in my head, the old photographs, taken on disposable cameras, photos that have began to fade just a little as they recede into a private history once scribbled out in forgotten yellow-paged notebooks and found in those same old and dusty boxes... and then comes the hardest part, where one has to look back and understand the past while living with it in the present, where i have to look back and give a brutally honest assessment of the person who lived those things... which poses the question, what happens if the ghost you are chasing turns out to be you?
As those final conversations took place and texts were exchanged i said i hoped that we would keep in touch from time to time... who knows if that will happen... and should it happen? one of the things that had popped into my mind once the waves of different emotions had rolled over me was this... how much damage had i done? not just to Veronica but to everyone around me? back when i was known as El Kono and now as the Big Hairy Carol Brady... what sort of destruction have i left in my wake? and can i correct it?
I felt it was best to let things lie... we said our goodbyes in so many words and i explained that i would work on getting her a copy of that story, to give me some time but that i would let her know when i sent it... five or so days after she got back i received a text simply saying, "i can't wait to read our story", and of course the "our" in that sentence stuck, words being one of the most haunting things humans have created... then a week after that came another text, out of the blue that said, "can you explain to me why, in my entire life, everyone wants me to be the other woman and never just the woman?" followed by her apologizing and that she was just having a sleepless night... it arrived at 5am my time... laying there alone there was a sadness that blanketed me... again, how much fucking damage did i do to this poor girl? and how do i tell her i have no idea? that her intelligence, independence, fearlessness (not to mention her physical beauty) made her ridiculously attractive yet frightening at the same time? that it would take a fucking helluva man to handle her? i've never been one to believe in the "true love" bullshit, relationships all require work, have peaks and valleys, but maybe that guy, the guy, had stumbled into her life but was too wrapped up in his own little world to recognize it? and once again that quote came drifting back in...
The question arose in my mind... had those brief few months in her life being involved with me fucked her up to this day? yes she said i was the first and only person to not only see her but hear her but what did that mean? had appearing out of thin air again fucking two and half decades later done it again? as we hear the music begin to drift in and the credits begin to roll i'll let the audience decide on that... the answer is probably yes and no with valid arguments for both sides... so to steal a stolen line from that last song posted, here we are...
While there was a bit of selfishness in the act of tracking her down and contacting her there were no ulterior motives in it other than to see how she has been, to hope that she was healthy and happy and all that greeting card bullshit we wish upon those we have loved, it's not the first time i've done this... there is a curiosity to see how the people who have affected my life have been... there are things learned from those interactions and this is no different... the fact that she so close changed the dynamic of the situation and there is a part of me that wishes she would have been in Hawaii, that maybe it would have been better... yet the fact she was this close was probably the best thing that could happen, maybe the way to heal old wounds is to open them back up and let them heal properly so to speak, to reach a point where one can be brutally honest and lay down those cards and accept the outcome...
Distance provides perspective when painting the canvas of our lives... after the initial rush of blood, of the longing and lust and love, the infatuation and daydreams, there comes the point of sobering reality, the point where the high wears off and one realizes that high may be detrimental to the person as a whole... ask any addict, we understand that feeling acutely yet it won't stop us from chasing that high and if/when the moment of clarity comes and we grasp it, roll it around in our minds and with any luck learn from it and move on... we don't forget it, we don't ignore it, we just understand it a little better, the world isn't going to stop spinning and so we move through days...
And so what have i gained from this foray into chasing ghosts? extraordinarily enough it has reminded me, given me the opportunity to go back through the vaults so to speak, to re-write and revise these stories from the lounge, from my life, it gives me the impetus to possibly send them out into more than just the blogosphere, like i said earlier what happens if the ghost you're chasing turns out to be you? and the you reminds you of what you really wanted to do? the circular thinking of the half-ass philosophical stoner, the social misanthrope navigating a world that seems entirely absurd and writing about it for better or worse, not under the illusion of money or fame but because it's what he (i) does to make sense of things... and because it's the only work i enjoy doing, in fact it's not really work at all... printing off the pages, re-reading, re-writing, those acts spurring new writing, in a way i need to thank Veronica again as the history of her and i seems to be that she has always given me much more than i have given her...
The epilogue... once again it was a beautiful foray into living... and being life it wasn't perfect, it was part comedy and part tragedy, there was beauty and love, there was pain and heartache, it was that beautiful mess which we call existence if we are brave and daring enough to attempt to live it... in the end, amidst all the back and forth between Veronica and i, i realized there is one thing i had never told her... and so while i toiled and tinkered with a dying printer in hopes of putting it in a letter i finally succumbed to the easy and modern way and texted it to her... it stated very simply that i had told her a lot of things over the past couple of weeks but the one thing i had never told was that i was sorry... sorry that i made her feel despicable, sorry for making what she termed, convenient choices, sorry that i was so wrapped up in my own world that i was unable to see anyone else's... and yet even then i was lying... because i would not trade those times for anything...
So once again, here we are... the last words of a tale that i needed to tell... but this time she'll get those last words, that when it came to love she stated simply, always have and always will, there is no doubt that what happened between the two of us has had a lasting impact on both of us... but as Veronica so aptly put it... it needs to be buried, again... and this time it will be buried... for good... Goodbye V.
cue the music... roll the credits...
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