An opportunity may exist to find she who has been lost, but then I have seen such opportunities appear in front of my eyes in the past and they have proven to be little more than elaborate mirages. Time crosses over the boundaries and fills me with an emotion that I have never been able to define. Sometimes it feels like the potential end of a road that has always been too dark. At other times it seems that it may be anticlimactic. Beyond the simplicity of those two reactions, there is so much more.
Once upon a time a very prophetic man told me that my curse in life was that my muse had taken a human form. She was the only one who could push me to realize the things about myself that no one else could even begin to understand. At times she knew me better than I knew myself and she tore me down with a purpose. She tore me down to show me what I was hiding and what I was afraid of. For her I stopped hiding these things and I stopped being afraid. Without her I may never have found the way. At the same time she knew how to make me feel better about myself without seeming to try, even though I knew it took her a great deal of effort. In the end she determined that she would do me more harm than good and that the love I had for her would destroy me if she stayed. We were never together. We were always apart. That was how it was because it was too dangerous otherwise. We were strong in the ways the other was weak and weak in the ways the other was strong. If Hollywood had written the script we would have gone into some mad "you complete me" ending before the end credits rolled by. Instead, we locked horns and bit back hard enough to fill our mouths with blood while pride did our talking. The ending came abruptly and without any fanfare and she disappeared. That was October of 1995.
It should be noted that I have the job that I have because I tend to prove myself capable of finding anything. If I have enough motivation and reason I can dig up any information, and that became much easier with the expansion of the internet. Being the tracker that I am, from time to time I will search for her, but I refused to begin an exhaustive search of the countryside, I just look in a few new places where I won't upset the balance. Whenever I receive a sign that reminds me that I must look again, I begin the search once more. In the past these searches have given me disconnected telephone numbers, abandoned post office boxes and other information that is no longer current. Then, today, because I have been driven the last few days by a fever to change the tide of my life, I took on a new tactic. Instead of researching her, I researched her parents, whom I am fairly well acquainted with but haven't spoken to in seven years. They retired and moved to South Carolina about five years ago.
A search brought up some curious information leading to a website for her mother's 45th high school class reunion. Her mother had made a notation in the guest book for the reunion that stated she had moved to South Carolina with her husband and that her four children consisted of two married sons and two unmarried daughters, one of which had moved to South Carolina with them soon after they retired. A little more poking around, and Mr. Psycho Stalker Detective had found evidence that the daughter that moved to South Carolina was in fact the Muse. That would put her a little more than four hours away from my present location, and that is a bit insane.
Why the fuck am I writing about this? This could be one of the major pivotal events of my life, depending on whether or not the information pans out (at the very least her mother will likely give me the information I need). To understand the relationship is important, and the fact that I am now married makes it easier and not harder to see each other again. The ridiculous physical attraction and "wanna be my girlfriend?" stuff that undermined us in the past will have a safety valve. The river flows in mysterious ways, and perhaps the time is finally right for us to openly understand each other and embrace without discontent. She'll mock me for taking so long, and I need that. I need to be reminded. Sometimes I defeat myself, and she who was like my ethereal sister would never let me fall on my own lance. She might drive it through me herself, but not enough to wound me, only enough to wake me up. I've been sleeping too long and now I wonder which is more valuable to me, the pain of not seeing her for so long, or the hope of seeing her again.
No one ever really understood our relationship except the two of us and I usually was so clouded in those days that I made myself not understand. There has never been anyone I have ever known who is more important to me, relevant in ways that a best friend, a lover and a wife could never be. Yet, time changes many things and should I find her, there are seven years of changes in what has been the longest separation in the nearly two decades since we met.
The journey of self-discovery goes on forever.
There is no whistle at the end.
There are no prizes you have won.
There is just the next event on the blue highway to forever.