Old flames

Seems like Valentine's day is an appropriate day for this thought. I woke up composing a letter to an ex-boyfriend, an ex whom I haven't seen in over 8 years, haven't spoken to in at least 7. We dated for almost 5 years, lived together for 2 years and split up when I made the decision to return home to California to help my family take care of my father, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson's. At the time of my decision, the relationship seemed solid. My thought was that we would move to California together. He had a job where he traveled 5 days/week, so from my perspective it was an easy solution for us both to move. His family was healthy and they could travel to him, and he traveled all the time anyway so he could build in stops to visit family on a regular basis. But he said no and proposed several options as a "compromise" including one in which I should consider taking a job as a flight attendant so that I could travel to my family frequently. I had just completed my bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. It took 5 grueling years and I had $40,000 in student loans and flight attendant was not a job that required the hard-earned chemical engineering degree. Was I supposed to throw all that away? So we decided to split up. The breakup was not very civilized, but I thought after 5 years we might still have a friendship and attempted to stay in touch. He was happier for me to leave him alone, so I did. Until last year. I managed to track him down via the internet and left him a voicemail message with my contact information. He never called. It was obvious from my sleuthing that he'd gotten married, so maybe the wife didn't pass along the message, or maybe he really didn't want to hear from me, but how would I know which one it was? I've moved on, my father has dies, so was there any downside to getting in touch and catching up? And so the letter began to take life in my head. I haven't sent it (yet).

Today, on Valentine's Day, when we are reminded of love in an abstract way, and some very concrete ways, I think that Tennyson had it right, tis better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all.