Happy Birthday

I don't always remember
to stop and write it down
but I remember always
the smile and the frown
the greatest gift of loving
unconditional and true
and the greatest pain of losing
what once was me and you

From faded memories
like a haunting song
from Phantom of the Opera
it reminds me of you

Before responsibilities
decided right and wrong
from Seasons of the Heart
still the best we can do

Is give it all away
when the muse calls
forever and a day
the heart falls

and there is no end
though life moves along
I am still here, my friend
singing this song

it just goes on and on and on and on and on...

Someday I might even write the perfect chorus
for us
(maybe in another life)
With words that make it all make sense in time
in rhyme
(maybe I will be a wife)
How uninhibited love would not ignore us
adore us
(in a world rushing past love)
Even if we forgot how to rhyme
in time
(to whatever's above)

we all say we want a heart that's true
we all say that is too hard to do
I don't know about anyone else, but I still believe in you
In my fantasies, in my my memories, true love still shines through

so I just want to say
in my own personal way
let the old music play
so I sing on this day

I believe you always knew
true love is still true
Happy Birthday... Dear Amy
Happy Birthday to you

A Matter of Trust

When I used to write to you, I did so with more unconditional trust than in any other state I knew. I found myself there because I knew I trusted myself and the love I felt for you more than anything I had ever known (and perhaps more than anything I will ever know). It was the purest most innocent most completely open honest desire I can imagine. It still exists, perhaps even lives, somewhere deep inside of me. Not a "return to some previous moment" or fantasy of what might have been, but a trust so completely certain, there is no greater comfort. It is something within me, something I experienced, and if that matters to you or anyone outside of me, great. It doesn't have to, because it is y feeling and independent of anything else.

Stepping outside of that complete peace, freedom, security, and certainty, the world is as it is, quite imperfect and rather cruel. For me, personally, the whole mess of lies and deception that we did not want to face is still one of the deepest sadnesses in this life experience for me and I do wonder what might have been, but more in a chuckling speculation than longing, if you know what I mean. I'd like you to understand and even share an understanding someday.

That is one reason this blog exists.

I wonder if those hundreds of pages of words I wrote to you still exist. I would love to read them today, to see myself at the peak of obsession with you, to remember just how devoted I can be. I wonder if I would laugh or cry or seek professional help lol.

When I look back, I wonder why we couldn't just accept our feelings and move on together, instead of putting the feelings of another ahead of ours. Was it not love for you, was it just a game or fantasy? Was it all my influence and you just along for the ride? Those are questions that only you can answer, but somewhere along the way the caring stopped at your end. I mean the active shared caring. Perhaps you cared inside and just buried it. Sad if you did, hope it didn't hurt to much. Hope it doesn't hurt now.

All this may be meaningless if the caring was never real and that could be too.

Still, I know I trusted so unconditionally that I violated my bottom line, honesty, just because you wanted me to. I trusted you to decide what we should do and what we should share. You were my god at the time, as close as I ever came to following someone on completely blind faith. You became the fantasy icon of what falling in love could mean and I wrote so many words, so many songs about falling in love with you as the imaginary inspiration, the star I was wishing upon.

You didn't deserve such a pedestal? :)

Well I thought you did :)

Somebody had to keep the dream of love alive in me. After all, I was not going to give in (never give up, never surrender) to the "grown-up" demand for compromise and conditions on my love. The child inside remained free of the inhibitions and rules this culture places on love. Unfortunately, bringing that out of my mind and into practical reality could get me arrested lol, soI keep it in fantasy, in words, and in my heart and mind.

I still search for the one who can inspire me to such a profoundly intense unconditional trust. I still live to love and be loved, in spite of the pain of loss and betrayal and abuse I've experienced at the hands of others. I still must try giving it all in a relationship, for when I stop trying, I see no point in continuing to stay alive. Staying alive can be a struggle sometimes, after all. Especially as the years pass.

All the dreams of true love and family have had their fleeting moments, a few years here and there, but nothing's lasted. A couple of people call me dad or look to me for support, but from an emotional distance. I still pay the phone bill for one of the kids I adopted, just to keep in touch. I am, on some levels and from some perspectives, a lonely old man. I'd be sad about it if I wasn't enjoying the life I live so much. :)

I've never been what this world might call normal, I suppose.

Anyway, there will always be a place in my heart for falling in love and for family - and for you.

I wonder how you've grown and what matters to you today.

I welcome you to share anytime.

First Dream

I dreamed of loving you
before I knew you
before we met I dreamed of living happily ever after
with you

Just waking in a dream of love for the first time in a very long time, years perhaps, maybe decades. Dreams are so seldom remembered for many years I thought I simply did not dream. I'd always wake up so happy to be alive and aware and rested, even when I was not rested. Waking up to consciousness was always the most exciting moment of the day, moments between sleep and awake when perfection seemed real and the beautiful peaceful euphoric world we could only imagine was as visceral as the stretching of the body. Before the reality of the current state of humanity lost in fears and doubts could touch me.

For the first time in many many years, I dreamed of you. We talked. We kissed. We were more tentative than the first time we embraced. Yet you did not pull away. It was almost all curiosity with a passion that waited for more conversation and more time together. Who were we now. Were were those eyes we would both be so lost in, so trusting, so in love. So many years have passed. Could we, would we give the time it would take to catch up? Not to go back as if we could return to those amazingly uninhibited moments of passion, lust, and wonder of first love, but to learned all about each other all over again. Two lifetimes, almost three more than we knew when we were first together all those years ago.

I wondered who you were the year after we parted, what did you learn, what path did you follow. Did you explore love with another among our small group or did you reach out beyond. Your beauty and sensuality surely attracted many others,but who was the lucky one - or the lucky ones - to know you as intimately as I did. Who knew the secrets of your heart. Who knew them over the years. Who knows them now.

One of the last bits of conversation I remember was suggesting we go away for a weekend and lay in bed, mostly, like John and Yoko, focused on nothing but each other. Giving an hour or few, however long it took, to sharing each year that has passed since we last talked. Perhaps a kiss for each year since we last kissed. Perhaps an embraced for each years since we last embraced. Just you and me and the memories and the sharing. Sharing caring.

I was still dreaming of you when I woke enough to hear the song outside my window. I slept with the window next to my bed open for the first time in more than a year, ore than a few years, perhaps longer. Could that have influenced my dreaming? Did you come in through the bedroom window? I found no silver spoon when I woke lol. Oh, but all kidding aside, it was a wonderful few moments of magical feeling in that space between sleep and waking, to still remember dreaming.

Here it is now, the memory of the dream - and you. May this inspire even a fraction of the smile I was felling as I woke. Yes, as I said, mostly curiosity and ever so tentative exploration of each other, the you and me we are now after all these years. Did you really want to or was it just a moment's curiosity. Did I... yes, I did. Remembering and writing this has restored my faith in the eternity of love once again (it needs some restoring now and then in this temporary existence among superficial minds and insecure bodies (and/or vice versa, if you know, if you still know what I mean).

I welcome you into my mind and world with open arms as I always have. You still live in my heart. The biggest room by far. The most powerful passion I've ever known. Whether we ever touch upon that again, it remains alive and well. Whether we ever take the few tentative steps, outside of this dream, to satisfy our curiosity about who we are now and where we've been in our lives, these words are smiling at the possibility. I still do want to know. Feel free to add to these words... or reach out in any way... as you wish.

As I close this writing, I am remembering all the letters we wrote and sent to each other.

Did you save any?

honest love,
memory

Still... I Am Alone

my heart is broken
in so many places
in so many pieces
by so many people
I chose to trust
I don't mean lust
just simple trust
trust is a must

I don't know how much more I've got left
I keep hoping
I keep trusting
I keep loving.

Still... I am alone.

I don't think I understand people anymore
Maybe I was wrong and never really did
I thought there was a time I could understand
Maybe I was just a foolish kid, I'm still a kid
The grown ups play games I don't want to be part of
They seem so careless with everything they touch
They don't seem to respect honesty or trust or love
I want more than anything, so do I want too much?

my spirit still flies
but slowly, weakly
aimlessly waiting
hopelessly wanting
still hopelessly hopeful
someone feels the way I do
in all innocence
a heart still true

how are you?

I don't know how much longer I've got
I keep hoping
I keep trusting
I keep giving
I keep loving

Still... I am alone.
still... I am alone.

I keep hoping
I keep trusting
I keep giving
I keep loving

Still... I am alone.
still... I am alone.

Once upon a time I thought you understood, but maybe it was just a dream we shared that we were not ready to bring into reality. I wonder how happy I'd have been if I settled into your kind of life... stable... family... the whole career and home ownership routine. That never interested me alone. I tried it - bought the house - built a career - fell in love... but none of it lasted. I built the career but did not fall in love with the best friend I lived with for 8 years... no matter how hard she tried (and she tried so hard), the spark was never there and the fire never started. I may have still be pining for you at the time. I moved to the warm climate I longed for and bought a house and tried again, but that didn't work out either. I gave up the house and put everything I owned, some treasures and lots of other stuff, in storage and moved to another country just to fall in love again, but that was a failure. Penniless and on the street, I started over. I have not fallen in love since. I have not had a lover since. I have not had a real home since. It was twenty years ago this year.

I lived with my best friend for most of this decade. It was a happy time, though no romance left me lonely. She finally fell in love and left and now I am alone again. Not so naturally. Living in a room in some guy's house, sharing a bathroom, saving money, working and playing softball and eating out too much and wondering what comes next.

I think I creating this writing space to write letters to you because you were the person I trusted my heart with more than anyone in this life. Or maybe because you hurt me best, that is, with the most innocence and least intent. I now the break from you never fully healed... I didn't want it to because I did not want to become like everybody else. I actualize eternal love, forever love, unconditional love and realize it is one stream the innocents know. Like fish swim in a river, unconditional love is an energy stream that children float, swim, splash, and play in until they get out of the water and give up on the dreams the stream offers.

I feel very alone in the stream now. Ageism keeps me isolated. All the grown ups are on the shore, most far from the shore, and innocent children are not experienced or free enough to understand my experiences in this life. I do not wish to be a pied piper or guru or leader of any sort. I do not wish to be a solitary story teller or teacher or parent anymore. I do not want to be alone.

Leaving the water would be like dying.

Staying in the water is hoping another with similar experiences will come along and either get back in the water or will have been living here all along, somewhere in the stream. I am here.

So where has your heart been... and how are you now? :)

The Way It Is (and so it goes)

I simply want to love someone even more than the way I loved you. I keep distraction all around me to try not to feel how much it hurts to have blown the attraction by letting fear make decisions instead of love. I wonder if you loved your best friend more than you loved me or whether you just gave into peer pressure and it destroyed your trust the way it destroyed mine. I wanted forever with you and would have done anything to get it, yet... would I have been happy living the life you've lived? We may never know.

I just want to love someone unconditionally and trust someone unconditionally again... Someone I would follow anywhere... I will do anything for that love and trust, as I did with you.

Would I live a lie again or would I remember how living a lie turned out?

Will anyone love and trust me as unconditionally as I can?

The test of trust is amazing.

Narf.

the way i choose to be

you have become imaginary, but that never stopped me before, after all... life is but a dream in so many ways so i keep in touch as well as i can whether i am asleep or awake, whether it is real or imaginary (or interchangeable)... it is just the way i choose to see they world... it is just the way i choose the experience this life... it is just the way that's right for me, the way i choose to be... and you don't have to explore anymore... and you don't have to want to keep in touch enough to keep in touch... and you don't have to care about me anymore, even if you do or think you think you do too much... you don't have to show it for me to know it (or pretend to be a classic epic corresponding poet)... you don't have to do anything to live in my mind... that's just the way i choose to be, call it cruel or kind... it's just the way i choose to not leave love behind... it's just the way i choose, win or lose, i am resigned... to live and be just the way i choose to be in my mind...

so where have i been?

i never skipped a year, mostly, even if it seems like i did, i wished you well every year on your birthday (happy birthday to you) and a few other days each year when your memory inspired a smile... the memory of being in love always inspires a smile J and i like to smile so i try to remember being in love regularly (i live in love, so i smile a lot, though i've only shared being in love with someone a couple of times in this life and alas, it did not last for the forever i had hoped it would, but the memories of being in love still inspire a smile)...

this could be a long list of place i've lived, things i've done, people i've been with, and so on and so forth (what?) but lists can be so boring and are you really interested in the details?... if you are (and you find this blog and read these words) you will let me know what you want to know and i will share whatever you want to know, lists and all... but a simple answer to where i've been can be found here as much of me has been writing for the past four decades... i started as a little kid but really got serious when went in the army and wanted to keep in touch (and yes there were way more than 16 books and blogs of letters to you, though most were written before 1980)... i wonder if you still have any of those letters i sent to you (anything worth reading?)... ego always wondered if you'd have them when i became a famous song writer... but ego dreams big, as you may recall :)

off the written page, or off the web, i've spent about half this life working ridiculously long hours helping others and the other half in early retirement and i enjoyed almost every minute of both (but definitely got more rest and did many more diverse things during the retirement time)... i enjoyed drugs and travelling after the army and worked long hours at bdc (now bdso, i believe) through the 80s... i lived on ave j and e42nd st with my best friend of the time... she fell in love with me and the feeling wasn't mutual, which made moving to florida in 1990 right in many ways (my love of hot climates and letting her move on, though that took a few years because we had bought a house together in florida)... i didn't work through the 90s, moved to toronto for love in 95 and back to florida in 97 when it didn't work out... back to work in 2001... these days i run a health care facility in orlando florida and through about 90 other people and we take care of profoundly disabled people who can't take care of themselves... i live with a wonderful person who calls me her bff (she's a child of the 90s), though i've chosen to stay away from falling in love for more than two decades mostly because the right person has not come along... i have a couple of people who look to me as a father, one calls me dad, but i've created no children...

there are a whole lot more details, lots of years to catch up on if we are ever to catch up... i'd love to hear where you've been and how you are today... and so i write... i hope you are well, and happy, and know peace... and if you find these words, may they inspire a smile :)