On paper, Scott and I were an odd couple. We met when I had just started college; he was already established as a junior high school teacher (clarification: not one of mine). I was just beginning to enjoy the freedom of living on my own away from parental supervision; he was the father to a three-year-old boy. Though I only possessed a fledgling concept of politics at the time, I identified as a liberal on account of the 'openly gay' thing; Scott was a staunch conservative, an out and proud Republican, and somewhat of a closeted homosexual.
Yet we were together for over five happy years, and prior to this weekend, we had not spoken for about the same amount of time thereafter. I believe the last exchange we shared began with him telling me that clementines were in season, and how he remembered that they were my favorite. For some reason which escapes me now, I felt assaulted by this information, told him that I just didn't know how to respond when he appears out of nowhere with something like this, something that I interpreted as a way to make me feel guilty about breaking up with him.
It made little to no sense, even to me now, but the only way I can explain it, other than saying I had a terribly off day, is that Scott and I were together during a very tumultuous time in our lives (as the less angry, more zen-ny Alanis Morissette would say). This tumult carried itself forward even after we ended the relationship, and the easiest, most humane thing we could do for each other was to cease contact.
I received a text message early Sunday morning from his phone number, a number that at once was familiar and foreign, almost like an image out of a dream. I read it to myself a few times, felt the sequence of digits ignite a few neurons that had lain dormant for many years.
(Sidenote: I didn't have a cell phone all through college, convinced that it was a fad--why would I want people to call me when I am not at home?? Of course, cut to 10 years in the future, as I sit in the cafeteria finishing this post with my phone on the table and within my peripheral field of view. Anyway, in order for me to call Scott, I actually had to dial his number on my $10 Wal-Mart phone at home, and I did it enough times to permanently (I think) wire it into my synapses, even if it took a few minutes to reactivate them.)
By the time we volleyed a few messages back and forth, I learned that he had injured himself in a skiing accident and severed his left patellar tendon just about clean through. Eventually, I called him in his room, and we talked for about half an hour.
And here, I originally wanted to spend a good amount of words describing my relationship with Scott, the things we used to do, how I learned to be in an adult relationship by making all of the rookie mistakes (silent treatments, ultimatums, breaking up just to get attention) and coming out with a better understanding of what makes love work. But when I wrote it all out, the details seemed quite irrelevant to what I really wanted to say, which is simply that I was glad to have heard the voice of someone whom I had once known so well and loved so long ago. All of those memories, those times we've shared, good and bad, would not have changed or enhanced this very basic fact.
We are different people now, in very different places in our lives, and I wouldn't want it any other way. Still, I always considered the radio silence between us to be wrong, a mistake, and even if we never speak again after Sunday, I'm glad we did this once; the mistake had been corrected. Of course, it sucks that it took a near inadvertent amputation to do so. Probably sucks more from his vantage point, I imagine. So I guess in this one post, I can be grateful for two things--the other being all of my intact appendages.
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