Forever

His name was Steffan.

We all called him Fen. Amongst other things.

Fin-Ter. Fender. Lego-Legs.

I didn't know him. Didn't know anyone heading into my first year of high school.

I'd lived away the year before, my friends were all a year ahead and moved on and I was new and shy and quiet. Unsure of how to make friends. Sensitive to social rejections real or imagined.

I joined band. The only elective I had free that year, my other courses already spoken for by the program I'd moved high schools for. Played the flute. One of several girls sitting pretty in our chairs while the rest of the instruments made real noise, serious hoots and clashes.

I'd wanted to play drums, percussion, so I'd steal glances at that section whenever we had a break. Or were warming up. Or packing up.

And that's where I first saw Fen.

Fen played the bass. Electric. Stood just behind the percussionists with their kettle drums and snare drum and cymbals . He seemed shy too. I don't know how I knew this; there's sometimes just a feeling of kindred spiritedness with other shy people that I can't explain. Maybe it's the smile our eyes have when they catch, before they look away, but he seemed shy. Except with me.

Not that we talked. But he made me laugh. He'd do silly things when he'd catch me looking. I have a clear memory of him spinning around and around on the floor, his hand on his sheet music as if he were a human top. He always had a smile for me; a twinkle in his eyes. Eyes that weren't quite hidden behind his hair.

I don't remember when we first talked, or how or why, but I was nervous of him. Hell, I was nervous of everyone, but something about him was both comforting and nervous-making.

But safe. And scary. All at once.

Fast forward through months and a year and Fen and I are friends. Not hang-out-at-the-mall friends, but friends nonetheless.

He's sort of on the fringe and I never feel like I fit in anywhere and maybe this is why I feel safe with him.

We have conversations deep at night that teenagers have no right or need to be having. I tell him that my soul looks like quicksilver. He tells me his is sealed in a box with curtains covering the only window and he'd open the curtains for me and for his wife. No one else.

It's never romantic between us. Probably because we're both scared. And shy. The idea of being with him terrifies me. Terrifies me because it'd be too much. Too intense. Too close. He'd know me.

I don't know where our life would take us. I'm still scared of him. Utterly terrified of letting him that close.


I move away, he writes me once. A letter I still have. Talking about memories from high school. Shared stories. The one time I yelled at him because I thought I saw him smoking.

Remember? He writes. I was flicking off the crumbs from a fig newton.

I smile, my eyes laughing as if he's back across the band room from me.

Later that year he starts dating someone. Has a girlfriend. I'm broken hearted. Had never imagined he'd move on from me. Never imagined he'd kiss anyone unless it was me. But I tell him I hope he's happy and I remind him about the time his lizard jumped when he was feeding it and latched onto his nose because I want to laugh.

I keep the crying until I'm off the phone.

I let him slide away.

My second or third year away from home we reconnect. He says he has friends in town. He'll come visit. Stay with them. We can meet up. See each other. Go out. Talk.

I know this is it. Can feel it in my bones that if I meet up with him we'll end up talking into the night and once the sky grows dark we'll kiss. His lips will touch mine and it'll all be over. I'll follow him everywhere. Follow him into his lifestyle that's so very different from mine. So very free and wild and full of adventure and nowhere near the safe, close, normal, expected life I've built for myself. So I let the phone ring.

The night he comes to town and we're supposed to meet up, I let the phone ring.

I don't pick it up. I don't answer. I don't take a risk and see what happens.

I don't jump.

I don't try.

I don't find out what it would be like to be held by him, embraced by him, physically, not just emotionally loved by him.

I let him slide away.

I send him Christmas cards, hear from him once. I apologize for being too scared to meet up with him. And then he's gone. Out of my life. I don't hear from him again.

He doesn't exist outside of my memory. None of my friends have kept in contact with him and he's a non-presence on the world wide web. I know this because I search for him regularly.

Until I found him.

A few months ago, one of my random searches of his name popped up with a website. And you know how the internet works, so a few clicks later I found a picture of him.

Older.

Mature. A man.

The boy I'd loved and known is a man. A man who doesn't look like the boy I knew. A man who may not have anything of that boy left in him. A stranger. A man living as an artist. Living the life I wasn't brave enough to pursue.

But above all the rest; a man I don't know.

And I wish I knew him. Wish I was the woman standing next to him.

But this incarnation, this version of me isn't, wasn't ready for that. I don't know who I'd be now if I'd met him that night. Don't know who I'd be if I'd moved into his place back in grade 10 after a painful fight with my parents when he offered; said his Mom wouldn't mind.

I miss him. My Fen. Steffan.

I miss the feeling of having my heart living safely in another person, and having that person in the background of my life.

Fen will always be in my life, he was so much of my growing up. Was my anchor during my worst years, my light and steady rock when I was drowning and flailing and hopeless and dark.

Fen understood and never had to say anything and he was always there. I always knew he'd be there, and I'm sorry I let that slide.

I've stopped sending him Christmas cards; I asked him to contact me if he was still getting them.

He didn't, so I won't send them anymore.

I know this hasn't explained it, this post. Hasn't explained enough the connection we had, the safety I felt just knowing he existed in my life. I'll never be able to put into words what Fen was and is to me and for me and who he is and the spirit that I hope he's now letting free, but I love him and am so grateful to have had him in my life when I did and I'm so grateful a part of my heart and soul and spirit will always have him safely inside.

I wouldn't be here without him. Never imagined he'd grow up.

But we both did.

Love you, Fen.

What I Did

So, Fen. Fen who never quite falls out of my mind no matter where he is or how far away from my life his life might be.

I wrote a post about Fen in October. My Dad got sick in November. In December, C-Dawg told me about a friend of hers who reconnected with an old high school not-quite-a-sweetheart after all these years and they're now together, happily.

Fen was never my high school sweetheart and I'm not sure he should/would/could have been, but I all of a sudden didn't want to have the ability to perhaps contact him again and not take it.

So I took it.

I emailed the contact at a site where Fen's name showed up and I awkwardly told them who I was and that I was looking for my old friend from high school.

And Fen emailed me back.

We've caught up briefly, momentarily, in the last month or so and he's away right now, travelling, so I don't have any more to tell you. May not ever have anything more to tell you except that he's a man. He's a grown, beautiful man and I can't reconcile that idea with the awkward boy I fell in love with so many years ago.

I both know exactly who he is and have no idea who he's become and it's . . .

It's something.

I want to know him but I'm scared he's grown into something beyond me or who I could have been or who I imagine he might be. And I'm not even sure I'll get the opportunity to find out.

But at least I reconnected.

At least I didn't let him slip away entirely.

I hope to never have to.

Fen

Do you guys remember Fen?

I guess I never really followed through on telling you what happened with him, but it's been on my mind and I guess now's the mental time.

I just re-read this while I was thinking about writing this post and it broke my heart all over again.

Back in Spring, I got in email contact with Fen and after he returned from his time away, I sent him a link to the post I'd written about him.

He thanked me and said it had been great re-living those old times and some of the things he'd forgotten about. He said that we should catch up by phone or Skype and I gave him my numbers and told him I felt...awkward, like I wouldn't know what to say.

I think I thought for a while that we'd arrange to get together and that things would be amazing and we'd figure out how to make the distance thing work and then time passed and life went on and while I'll never close my heart or life to him, I think I was ok with feeling like there was some sort of closure.

I haven't heard from him and I guess that means our lives aren't meant to be together.

I do hope that if he ever travels over this way he'll contact me and we can meet and see each other and just... be.

So I guess I just wanted you to know that I didn't really have anything to add to the story. I heard from him and then I didn't and while my dreams and imagination would tell things differently, this is where things are.

I love him, I miss him, and I wish things were perfect.

Ok

Making lists calms me down, so I'm going to try to make a list here.

What's on my Mind: A List (in no particular order) - by Victoria

1. What to get my Mom for her birthday
2. How I'm ever going to get a date
3. Well, not really a date, but how I'm going to meet my next boyfriend
4. My weight, or more to the point, my junk food intake, and, more to the point, when and how I eat it
5. How I'm handling C-Dawg and her new boyfriend and their relationship and how it's making me feel
6. Some tests my Dad is having this week and what their results might be and where we'll go from there once we know
7. My super relaxing pedicure this weekend and how I'd like to have one of those massaging chairs in my living room
8. Work stuff
9. Friends and acquaintances who are going through difficult health things
10. How I miss the last book in a series I just finished reading and wish I hadn't rushed through to finish it even though I really wanted to find out how it ended
11. What groceries I should buy for the week
12. What I could do instead of eating when I'm upset (see No. 4)
13. When I can run this week, and hopefully, when C-Dawg and I can run together this week
14. If I can find cute shoes that are comfortable
15. That I should get my car washed before the dirt gets, like, permanently etched in there
16. If there's any way I could get paid to not work
17. Why my body still hasn't fully recovered from the car accident and why stress is making it feel worse
18. Why stress is making me forget things
19. Why I'm so tired even though I'm sleeping fairly well
20. Why I had a non-PC dream about a guy I'm really not attracted to but who is a sweet (married) friend
21. Fen
22. How to ask for help and support when I don't feel I deserve it in some weird way
23. Why I feel so guilty about so many things
24. Why some people get paid a lot lot lot an hour
25. How I still don't understand how people write fiction novels. I mean, they say write what you know, but how can anyone know about vampires or space travel or stuff that is imaginary?
26. If I should have done something different out of high school
27. How I'm going to have to stop this list at some point or it will go on forever
28. Why I forgot to put a new roll of toilet paper on when I'm the only one that lives here (see No. 18)
29. That I should maybe just go to 30 so that this list feels even
30. If the 10K is going to be painful

And other stuff

Can't Shake It Off

Last weekend at the barbecue party thing, one of the couples that stayed later into the evening ended up knowing my ex, the one I call DD due to his ridiculous drunk dialing episode after he'd ended things.

Now, DD, for all his (many) downfalls and faults as a boyfriend, is also the ex that I shared the most intense and intimate moments of connection with. Moments so pure, I waited for him for nine months while he was overseas when I should have let things go. I wanted those moments to continue. I wanted us to build on them.

Why am I talking about DD now?

I don't really know.

I just know that when his name came up at the party last week, and the three of us talked for a bit about him, I felt sad.

And for whatever reason, this weekend, I missed him terribly.

I had to stop myself, on Saturday evening, from calling him (I don't have his number anymore, but his work number is available online) or emailing him or something, anything, I just wanted to contact him.

I wanted to contact him and to see if we could get back those moments even though I know all the reasons why we probably couldn't and why I shouldn't. But I wanted to. I missed him... no, I missed US, with every bit of my self.

I know we tend to glorify past relationships at times. To gloss over the bad in only remembering the polished gems of this story or that. And I know, deep down inside why DD and I should not be a couple, but I'm aching for those moments. . . those moments that are forever etched into my heart and soul.

And, no, before you ask, it wasn't the sex. The "best sex I've ever had with an ex award" goes to someone else, not to DD, and as one of my exes pointed out to me, the trust you have in your relationship shows in how easily you enjoy sex, and I guess I never really trusted that DD was going to take care of me, never trusted he was looking out for me.

DD was an addict, of this I'm sure, and we broke up not long after I called him on it.

"I listened, I've heard what you said. Now don't ever bring it up again."

And still I would have stayed with him.

Such was the pull.

And I know how dangerous that pull is, but there's a part of me that would throw myself into that void, with him, with one or two others who have crossed my path, Fen perhaps, or the only boy I loved at the end of high school.

I can not understand why I missed DD so intensely this weekend, or why I thought, with almost all of me, that getting back together with him "just to see" was a good idea. But I did.

I can't seem to shake him off, and yet I know better.



Neil Young - Four Strong Winds (Live at Farm Aid 1995)

What Is *With* Me?

Ugh.

Now it's Fen I'm stuck thinking and wishing about.

What is going on with me these days?

Sigh.