Life Uncovered.

So as KV moves out into his new place, I’ve been prompted to clean out closets, storage rooms, and drawers. As I open boxes and look way back on the shelves, little pieces of my life reveal themselves in the clutter. Yesterday I came across an old laptop that ushered me through my last doomed Austin dot com, a long relationship, several moves, good times, heartbreak and many other life events. I powered it up after 4 years of sitting dormant and browsed through the files, photos and other electronic memorabilia and went on a little techno-trip down memory lane. I read letters I never sent and looked at low-resolution photos from Austin, Dallas, Delray, Atlanta, all places I’ve hung my hung over the years. I read resignation letters from my various jobs, early versions of my resume, and even a pre-blog electronic journal I kept for a few years.

Rarely do I think about the relationship I had with C but reading my thoughts and seeing photos from our many years together prompted a flood of memories. In retrospect, we made a good go at it. For two completely different guys attacking their first adult-sized relationship together, we faired pretty well. As the years have past, the many mistakes I made have become more obvious and the differences that eventually tore us apart are much more apparent. Had we met recently, given my life now, the drastic changes I’ve made professionally, personally and emotionally, I don’t think we would have made it past a first date. That being said, what we did accomplish, what we went through together and the life lessons we learned from it were a very necessary step in our growth as people and more importantly in our ability to source and find more compatible mates in the future.

Honestly, even though I’ve had relationships since, it does hurt a bit that we don’t really stay in touch. He makes no effort whatsoever and mine are few and far between. I wish I knew what sort of emotions I stir up inside him when I do wander into his conscious; good, bad, indifferent? If and How he explains our relationship to his friends? I’f he ever misses “us”. No matter what the answers are, I will continue to believe that he, like I, focuses on the many good times we had, the short yet close-to-perfect life we built for ourselves, and the love that was shared between two guys who gave it all they knew to give.

The laptop is now has been wiped clean, all files erased and is now sitting in my trash can. I know erasing your past isn’t as easy as clicking delete, but as my forefinger clicked down on that mouse, I let go of a lot of difficult memories and stored all the good ones to be remembered periodically for the rest of my life.