Sigh

As I’ve written, I am looking for a former lover/FwB, Morgan, I knew my last year or so in undergrad. I’ve asked two sources, only one has gotten back to me, a longtime friend, and he didn’t remember him, but did remember the first name. I can understand why, actually. It wasn’t my longtime friend’s job. He booked, we had a stage crew chief and I directed publicity. However, since I know when and where I first seduced Morgan, and since it was our favorite watering hole, I’m almost surprised he didn’t have a face to go with the name. But, boys will be boys and my longtime friend is definitely a straight male. I haven’t heard anything from my second source as yet, but I kind of thought he may not check his e-mail regularly based on what my former besty wrote back. I really miss her. It’s a damn shame she’s married to an ass.

I have been very dissociative since July 4, especially today. I had to go to the main post office to mail off the final known insurance and benefits forms and almost rear-ended a car in the lane ahead that had stopped to make a left turn. Thankfully, I have quick reflexes when I think about my insurance rate getting higher. I just barely missed him by turning into an adjacent lane. If I was six inches from the rear bumper of the other car, I would be surprised. It’s one thing to dissociate at home and quite another to do so while driving. If I tell my therapist how bad things have gotten, she’ll probably insist that I see someone who specializes in dissociative disorders. As long as things were at least somewhat under control and didn’t interfere with therapy or daily life on a consistent basis, she could deal. I don’t remember ever having this kind of dissociation while out in the world. I’ve had other kinds, but in their own way, they were better.

In trying to find a reasonably thorough explanation for the condition, I ran into one that said dissociation is a risk factor for PTSD. Nooo! Ya think? Thankfully, I haven’t had any flashbacks and the memories I’m getting are, for the most part, either benign or pleasant. That is, they are where Morgan is concerned. The most present memory of Glenn, I truly hate to say, was the last time he actually communicated with me. Believe me, it was anything but pleasant. Then, he cut me off with no explanation, apology or anything. I was devastated for weeks. It got so bad that I attempted suicide and almost made it. There are days when I wish I had. Today isn’t one of those days, though. Today, I just want Morgan to be OK and I want me to be OK as well. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask, but I guess it is, at least for now.

Robin Thicke shares love and sensuality on his Sex Therapy CD

There are other, happier memories with Glenn too. They give me good flashbacks that are more visceral body memories than visual. Let’s just say that I can’t listen to Robin Thicke’s Sex Therapy CD at all anymore.

In re-reading the above paragraph, I am just sad. His non-responsiveness is why I had to ask myself if he was a narcissist. Narcissists love hurting people and watching the fall out. I don’t think he is, but there is that possibility. I am hoping my mom was more on the money when she said that I represented a threat to his marriage. Otherwise, I just have to lay this down to simple cruelty. I don’t want to do that. That would hurt even more than I’m hurting now. If my longtime friend can interrupt his working vacation with his wife and stepson to play phone tag with me and temperamental cell coverage, then Glenn can pick up the fucking phone or type. I guess 17 years doesn’t count for much. Yeah, there’s something that I’m missing and I think I know what it is. He can be cruel, but not this time, although that is the unintended consequence. I’m going to look at that in my next post.

On another front, I got to hear Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s three-hour concert from the Prudential Center in Newark taped in early May. It was great! The only song I missed was Thunder Road. I’m going to guess he played it within the first 20 minutes or so because it wasn’t there for the close. Between the van and my iPhone, I got to hear LOTS of Bruce and that made me happy.

Bruce warms the thrilled audience for then-presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama

I saw him in person performing an acoustic set when Obama made his last campaign appearance here in 2008. Alas, the view was horrible because it was raining lightly and I was slightly behind and on the side of the podium because that’s the space that was set aside for disabled people. I think I’ll have a word about that when I get back in touch with the campaign. I took photos, but I can barely see him. I had a great view of his younger kids who traveled with him on Obama’s plane. That was the second time I’d heard an acoustic version of Thunder Road. The first time I heard it was at the funeral for NBC’s Meet the Press anchor, Tim Russert, who died tragically, but quickly, while doing what he loved–working politics. I sobbed for hours because it fit so well with the very romantic story of Russert and his wife, also a journalist, but whose name I can’t remember at the moment. She works for Vanity Fair. Russert and Bruce both had an affinity for this city and Russert had more than an affinity for Bruce. He was a diehard FAN! It was only logical that Thunder Road be performed at the funeral. The acoustic version changed my entire perspective of the song, even more so the second time.

I don’t mean to write a disjointed post, but I’ve just remembered something. Yeah, the bar I hung out in with my group of friends was almost always crowded, and I could/would often find Morgan there smiling wickedly once I made my presence known. Even so, at that time, an interracial couple composed of a black woman and a white man, especially a redheaded wild man who was visibly older than his “companion,” should have been noticeable. I have to grin thinking about it. I got pretty good at pussy blocking. There were times when Morgan got a kick out of it and there were times when he left me sitting there steaming. It was probably about 60-40.

Detroit’s Bob Seeger & The Silver Bullet Band’s Greatest Hits CD is a must-have for any rock & roller.

Now that I think about it, it’s kind of funny. No, it is funny! I admit to being a bit hypocritical since I just wrote a letter to Glenn this past weekend that decried the possessiveness of straight women. Well, although I knew I was bi, I didn’t come out until I was in my late 20s, many years later. So, I guess I had reason to behave like a possessive hetero girlfriend, although we weren’t girlfriend and “boyfriend.” We were friends who very often found ourselves exchanging bodily fluids of one sort or another. Bob Seeger & The Silver Bullet Band’s We’ve Got Tonight is appropos for both Glenn and Morgan at different times. I hate to admit it, but I kind of miss those exchanges. He was definitely one of my better lovers. Halcyon days. *sigh*

I also remembered why Morgan and I didn’t make our liaisons public unless they happened in public or semi-public spaces, which was frequently where they started. There was already a really intense relationship going on between a staff person and a student that was not making things great in the organization. For that matter, it was making things difficult throughout the department. I remember sitting up with both of them at different times, drying tears, seeing that they didn’t get too drunk and just listening. I was younger than both of them. I’m sure our faculty adviser, a colonel in the Army Reserve, wanted to aim a Sherman tank at our office at times. We kept him in aspirin and Mylanta. I think it was my longtime friend who said he wasn’t having any of it, especially since our stage crew chief was in the midst of a nasty divorce. The only person who knew who was in my bed, or whose bed I was in, was the intermediary I contacted to reach the aforementioned second possible source of information regarding Morgan. At that time, about the only thing we didn’t do together was sleep with each other or anyone else.

I’ll end with Bonnie Raitt and I Can’t Make You Love Me. That song was released long after undergrad, but I’m pretty sure it was at a time Glenn and I were still seeing each other. Whenever I’ve heard it since then, he’s the one I always think of and it almost always makes me sick to my stomach. It reminds me of the day he told me he was going to marry someone else. I thought I’d die right there, but I didn’t. I cried all the way home, including the days I spent with a cousin who didn’t know what to do with me. Neither did the flight attendants. Had it not been for Jeff, someone I don’t think I’ve written about here, I doubt I would be alive. Or, if I were, I would have been self-medicating my way into an overdose or cirrhosis of the liver or both. As much as I loved Jeff, and I did, I’ve never loved anyone like I love Glenn and doubt I will. I’ll have some sort of relationship with someone, I guess. However, emotional intimacy? I can’t see it.