PANDAS AND ME (Facebook post 1/03/16)

Man, not even 24 hours into "The Box" endeavor and I'm already becoming an emotional basket-case. I've been handling old birthday cards and thank-you notes as if they were holy relics, because in a way many of them are; and I still haven't figured out who the hell Tracy from Seattle is. One of the hardest things, I think, is the fact that all this stuff I would normally be posting here on Facebook, I now have to start thinking of as "the work"; which means, in other words, that I really can't be posting this shit on Facebook. Maybe I can sneak in some abridged versions or some "cutting-room floor" stuff, we'll see. And today's post doesn't count.
Now, normally, things like letters and greeting cards don't generally refer to the mundane, the unpleasant, the arguments over what's for dinner, so they tend to portray a rather lopsided, ideal picture of life. But what is striking me at this moment is how fucking awash in love I've been in my life. And I'm not talking about Easter cards from Granny, either, although there are some of those in there. I'm talking real-life, nitty-gritty, down-and-dirty Love. with a capital "L". And what's really getting to me today is the question, the lack of memory, the self-doubt: what did I do with all this Love? Did I give it back? Was I an asshole? Did I see what I had at the time? I bet the honest answer to all of those questions would be "yes" and it would also be "no". And that gives me this kind of dull, pit-of-the-stomach ache, as if I'm watching a Nick Sparks movie (something, by the way, I would never actually do) and I suddenly realized the star-crossed heroine was actually me.
Take Chris, for example. In all the world, I think there is only one person alive right now who even knows that I had a relationship with a guy named Chris, but even that person, I think, never laid eyes on him. But Christopher was possibly the first Great Love of my life, at least the first one that ever actually went anywhere. He was devastatingly handsome, in an early-80s Ralph-Lauren-meets-L.A.Tool & Die-pornstache kind of way; at least that's how I remember him. We were together for about 2½ years, which at age 21 is the equivalent of ten years today. It ended pretty horribly.
We had just moved into a new apartment maybe a month, six weeks earlier. Christopher blindsided me one day with the fact that we were, apparently, breaking up; and it suddenly became clear why he had insisted on looking for a 2-bedroom. Long story short, the next 10 months were spent sharing an apartment with an ex-boyfriend whom I had never actually fallen out of love with. Yeah, not fun, especially as I smiled weakly and waved at his various dates who came over. Then, one afternoon, I got a lift home from work with a friend who was going to come over and smoke a little wacky-tabacky. We opened the door to the apartment and walked inside. While I was at work, apparently, Christopher had packed up the entire apartment and moved out. He left me my toothbrush, the light bulbs, and whatever was in my own bedroom. I haven't laid eyes on him since that day, in 1984.
As you can imagine, I never really looked back on that relationship with a whole lot of fondness. Until yesterday, when I started finding cards, and notes, and drawings, and they were all from someone who, at least at the time, really loved me. It's hard not to read those words and not feel it, even now, a lifetime later. I had been remembering the breakup, the stupid arguments, the bitterness; when what I should have been remembering is walking home hand-in-hand through Arlington after Teppanyaki with strangers at Benihana, at a time when two guys simply didn't do things like that. I should have remembered first nights in new apartments. I should have remembered lazy days in bed watching "The Jeffersons" on TV.
He signed one of his cards simply, "Pandas & Me". At first I had to think, just to figure out who it was from. Then I remembered, one of those stupid, silly inside jokes that 21 year-old lovers would have.
He may have broken my heart, but Christopher also filled it up a great deal.
So, 24 hours into "The Box", and I have already learned two important lessons: 1) sometimes, you won't really know what the fuck is really happening until 30 years later; and 2) I still have some forgiving to do.