End of days August 31, 1985

  

It’s almost Labor Day again, the end of August, and another year clicks into the slide projector, leaving only images behind.

This has been largely the summer of Safire, though perhaps it has been more the summer of change, of people leaving, Safire the last of the batch destined to leave by mid-September.

Letting her go may well be a big mistake.

She says she loves me, yet I can’t see myself continuing to be involved with her. Or maybe anyone.

Pink Floyd called my condition “comfortably lonely.”

Safire wants a commitment I’m not willing to give. I have told her several times she’s welcome in my life, even though I am always conscious of the wedding ring she wears, even when we make love.

Something isn’t right. And I suspect the reason I allowed all this to progress as far as it has is because I know it will come to an end – a definite date when it all cuts off and we become individuals again, unconnected, a legacy left over from Fran when I felt the need to disengaged long time before the event actually occurred, and was actually relieved when it transpired. I could say the same thing for previous romances, though those were much more painful.

I guess I just can’t maintain the level of attention required to have kept up those relationships, a need for alone time, even if sometimes that’s painful as well.

Recently the ghosts of the past – Louise and then my uncle – have made it difficult for me to find real peace. The isolation I enjoyed (enjoy being the wrong word) in my 20s is impossible to attain now. I have roots caught up in other people’s lives and cannot be disentangled without causing damage to them as well as myself.

For all the dislike I have built up against my uncle over the years, I cannot abandon him in his hour of need.

The same is true of Louise, although she needs to have enemies in her life, and often betrays those people who get too close to her – as we all do I suppose.

I tend to hurt those who are closest to me, pushing them away and then pulling them back.

Louise does the same thing, finding excuses to rid herself of a lover, and then seeking them out later to see if there is any fire left in the smoldering coals. She did this to me several times. Yet most of her friends tend to be disposable.

I suspect I’ll regret losing Safire in the future, when I glance back at this summer with nostalgia for what might have been, perhaps should have been, but never was.

As it is, I’m relieved the summer is ending and look forward to the chill of the fall, and the changing leaves, and the sense of new beginnings Fall always brings.



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