Letters

It Happened

I think it really happened.

I’m not sure it happened but if it didn’t happen I wish it happened.

How do I know if it happened or if I imagined it happened?

So how have you been? It has been so long. I believe this happened. Did it happen? 

It was the time when we went to that place, I can’t remember the name.  

We had the best time. We sat at the bar.  It was a full rectangle bar so we could see people across from us. We drank Budweiser in a bottle. Ate linguine and clam sauce and wild chicken with black onions.

Peggy was the “waitress.” She looked like Marilyn Monroe. She was the girlfriend of the owner. The “owner” but the place was not in his name because he had a criminal record for being a bookie. 

The bartender was his son. His name was Mike. He liked to wind up the monkey with the tambourines and put it on the bar in front of us. You flirted. I watched.

Frank Sinatra was always playing on the jukebox. And Jimmy Roselli, a local singer who “made it.”

Mike the bartender was a wannabe mobster. He drove a Cadillac. 

You went on a date. I didn’t go as the third wheel.You decided he wasn’t rich enough for you.

We went back often. We had linguine and clam sauce and wild chicken with black onions.

Did this happen? I can taste that linguine.

I love you. 

P.S. It was DeMartino’s Lounge. Tell me this really happened.

Not sure if it makes sense to have a title to the letter: if so, let’s title it Beautifully Lost.

Mark asked Meg to write a letter for the site, but I intercepted the request. It’s funny because people ask Meg to do things, but what I know is Meg doesn’t do anything. At least, I don’t want her to.

That’s been my goal since the day I met her, March 10, 1998. I committed to her being free, without any obligation or job.  And yet, it seems that every day I’m faced with someone who wants to give her something to do. Now, you might say that I took on this letter because I wanted to have mine be the first on the site. It’s true: there’s a part of me that feels that way. But what I said first about taking care of Meg, about making sure she doesn’t do anything, is the main reason I’m writing this.

This morning, as I do almost every morning for the last 27 years, I went to Meg’s house. I could express where she was emotionally – she was confronted. For most of her life, she’s been operating by controlling things and getting jobs done or making sure that people are getting jobs done. But now she’s in a new relationship, a beautiful relationship, where that doesn’t fly. She’s in a place she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know her schedule. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.

“I’m lost,” she said.

This is not an uncommon phrase for her when she’s in a bad place. In fact, we’re both in tough emotional places often. But it is common that we get to a great place every time we get together.

I told her she was “beautifully lost,” and as she usually does, she picked up her phone and wrote down what I’d just said.

Beautifully lost.

I went on to explain: in this day and age, we’re never lost. We have technology, GPS, texts, emails, social media, Life360. A connected world tracking us 24/7. The time of being a child, playing outside, biking around on great adventures, getting lost, was over.

Until now.

This beautiful relationship has you beautifully lost.

Let go and enjoy the ride.

Jason