so far...

The Girl Most Likely To Be Unloved

A time travel short story (rough draft)

The classified ads at the back of the magazine were absolutely fascinating, but none so much as what I saw in the July 21, 1922 issue I opened one particularly lonely day late in 2012.

My darling A., it began, I know not where you have gone, but surely it could not have been willingly. The months since you disappeared have been absolutely agonizing and after what you said the very last time I saw you I find it so hard to believe you’re gone forever. You once said where you come from there is something called ‘missed connections,’ where people can advertise their pain over loss or missing out on chance meetings. Here in our town we just have the classifieds so I thought I take a stab at it. You always lovingly laughed when I called you the cat’s pajamas, but, my dear, you are and always will be to me. Please, please return. My love always, C.

How beautiful and charming and…wait, Missed Connections!? I was reading the magazine off of my ereading device, but it was reproduced exactly as it would have been in 1922. As I moved to the next month’s issue, another ad addressed the same way caught my eye:

My darling A.,You told me once you loved this magazine and that you read it from cover to cover, even though most of the time the issues were very old.It occurred to me that you might not know this is for you unless I mention specifics without being too specific. The sadness in your eyes, your conviction you would never ever be loved, that you felt in your youth you would grow up to be the girl most likely to be Unloved, all of that pulled me in, made me want to make you happy and prove how much you could be loved. Your eyes, green as fresh grass, your hair, so different than any other’s, and your love for books, music and animals made me want to stay with you always. Wherever you are, please know how much I care, how much I long to see you again.I cannot help but believe you would come back if you could. I know I did not imagine the love that shone in your eyes. Please do not imagine mine because it’s there and with all my heart it always will be. Yours Forever and After, C.

I dropped my ereader, not noticing or caring, two things I’d never do normally since I valued it more than life sometimes. I had no way of knowing who the writer was or why I even thought for one second it could be anything more than just a very very weird coincidence. Even if I were somehow lucky enough to track down a physical copy of the magazine, it hadn’t been a current publication since the late 30s. Who would be around to share old records with me? (Assuming they kept track of who sent in the ads or even if they had to take names to publish them?)

I had to believe it was a coincidence because there was nothing else to do now was there?

But apparently Fate (or the Universe) or maybe just C. herself had other plans. The next day, late morning, I received a package in the mail. When I opened it and slid out the letter another envelope fell to my feet. I picked it up, then read the sheet in my hand:

Dear Alison,

I don’t know how to explain what is enclosed in this package. To be quite honest, my family has always thought it the oddest thing to ever touch our family history, or anyone’s really, but we respected our great aunt’s wishes and have not opened the enclosed envelope. We know no more than you do, only that our Great Aunt Celeste explicitly stated upon her death bed that this letter was to be delivered to you.It is because she was an amazing woman and someone you always respected that we abided by her wishes, though how she could have known about you in 1933, the year she passed away, is the most bizarre thing ever.

Sincerely,

Maureen Hill

Hands trembling, I touched the second evelope as if it were somehow alive and then I softly slipped my fingers under the edge and pulled the flap open.

My darling Alison,

How much time has been wasted these past ten years. To wonder what had happened to you for over a decade and then discover the knowledge was with me, hidden as it was, the whole time breaks my heart. I can only hope the delay will not affect anything about our future, though given what I’ve come to think of as your past and my future, I worry it’s destined to never work out for us.

You buried a box in the bottom of my treasure chest. I write as if you will know what that means. I am being so illogical and silly about all of this so perhaps I should start from the beginning.I do not want to give you all of the details because in the letter you left you firmly state not to, so all I can tell you is: In January of 1922 we meet in Baltimore. In Lexington Market.

This, oddly enough according to you, is both by accident and on purpose. And there is no doubt when we meet that time stands still. So maybe it makes sense that it had to be disrupted for us to come into each other’s lives. You said in the letter that if I wrote you with something concrete about yourself you would believe me and do your very best to return for good, to stay with me so we could grow old together. Please, whatever it takes, come back to me and stay. Your fidelity, your loyalty and your chastity are just three of the things I adore about you, but there are three very important things. I would never laugh at you and how you see love and the world. You are mine and I yours for as long as we have together and forever after that. Love, Celeste

May and December have never been so lovely. Beautiful, extremely moving and just plain wonderful, Touchwood is the kind of story that is both deep and mature and makes you wish you could find someone like Louisa in real life.

It can be a bit frustrating at times when Louisa and Rayann fail to effectively communicate with each other, especially in the beginning, but it's also 100% believable.

As a complete softie for May/December romances, I love the dynamics between the two main characters and how much each woman cares for the other. Even the love scenes are nicer and more touching than in most lesfic: "You have my heart and just about every inch of my body.” Rayann smiled slightly. “I think the little toe on my left foot is the only part of me you haven’t left an indelible impression on.”

 

There's a group called Pure Bathing Culture that does a really dreamy cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams." I love it more than the original, almost. 

I think of it as literally "dreamy," because it's far more wispy and surreal than the original (though Stevie's voice just can't be beat.) Listening to it, I feel like I'm inside a very pleasant dream:

http://purebathingculture.bandcamp.com/track/dreams-fleetwood-mac-cover

I was listening to my copy of Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon on the way into work today and, as always, sighed a bit at the last line of "Love."

Love is real , real is love
Love is feeling , feeling love
Love is wanting to be loved

Love is touch, touch is love
Love is reaching, reaching love
Love is asking to be loved

Love is you
You and me
Love is knowing
we can be

Love is free, free is love
Love is living, living love
Love is needed to be loved 

Of all human needs, love may be the absolute strongest. 

Physically, it may not be as dire as the need for food, but for me it's always been the most intense. If I didn't have to eat to survive, I'd gladly trade all the food in the world for love.

The only time I really enjoy food is when I'm sharing it with people I like. One of the hardest things about being single is finding the interest to cook just for me.  Cooking is always most joyous when you're doing it for someone else.

The truth is, except for reading, most things are better when experienced with someone else...and even reading can be enhanced when you discover how others feel about what you've recently read.

At some points in my life, the need for love has been so strong, and the isolation so overwhelming, it's like a tree falling in an empty forest. This is most bad during the middle of the night, when things are so quiet where I live, I feel like I'm the last person on Earth.

Never having found someone to love who loves you back can wreck havoc with how you feel about yourself. Friends and family (especially friends who tend to be more unconditional with their love, if you ask me) help a lot, but there's something so appealing about growing old with someone special that I've never been able to shake off completely.

As I often do I Googled for ways to feel better about this: 

"Just because no one loves you today (or you perceive life that way) doesn't mean someone won't love you in the future. Be loveable and love will find you"-Yahoo Answers

“We can’t hate ourselves into a version of ourselves we can love.” ~Lori Deschene

The rest of the article this quote appears in can be linked here:

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/7-things-to-remember-when-you-think-youre-not-good-enough/

Kindle Highlights...

Back in bed she folded the sheet tightly across her chest to give herself a feeling of being held…

I highlighted that quote in a favorite book because I thought I was the only one who did that on particularly challenging nights and the words soothed my heart. I'd read the novel before, but that particular night I remember pressing a button on my Kindle that showed me several other people had highlighted that passage as well...which made me feel less lonely, less freakish.

Sometimes I mark passages that are the exact opposite of my personal experience, but still deeply affect me...this is what I would think of as a fantastical dream speech that I always wished my mom had given when I tried to come out twenty three years ago. In this part of Touchwood (by Karin Kallmaker), the main character's mother is apologizing for not embracing her more in the beginning:

“I’m glad. It was hard…hard to go inside, but once I was there and I looked around at all the gay people I found myself thinking of them as different. And then it came to me that while I was there I was the one who was different. I knew then, how you—all of you must feel. Made to feel different everywhere you go. And I felt so terrible."

She pauses, then looks at her daughter with tears in her eyes (both of them are crying, actually):
 

"I don’t care about who you spend your life with as long as the person’s good to you."

My parents, especially my mom, did not react well when I tried to tell them about me decades ago. They were so upset, so full of harsh words and non-acceptance, that I grew scared and, after a week of their continuing to tell me I'd end up out of the family and go to Hell when I died, I gave in and told me I had been "mistaken."

I've tried again over the years to explain to them that I am gay, that I'm not going through a "phrase" (a twenty three year long one?) but they still believe it's a sin and say if I bring up this "nonsense" one more time they don't want to see me anymore.

When I read the scene above I started wondering if parental acceptance of adult gay children is the norm or the wonderful exception. I hear all the time about other gays and lesbians who find warm reception when they come out to their families, but I also still hear the horror stories...those whose parents tell them such horrific things as "I'd rather you were dead."

I thought all my recent misery was coming from the feelings I have for someone I shouldn't. But I realize that, even though it still hurts sometimes, it is going to get better with time and I can certainly understand and accept she cannot ever like me.

But knowing my parents are never going to change their minds and that I feel honor-bound to not be who I truly am so that I can be part of their lives..well that both saddens and weighs me down, not like my cozy comforter I sometimes pretend is one big hug, but like the anvil Wild E. Coyote was always trying to drop on Road Runner.

In the meantime I clutch to those Kindle highlights, not the ones I make as much as the ones I see underlined when I'm pausing at the same passage. Another marked section perfectly sums up the frustration and pain of unrequited love: 

Why can't I be happy just knowing her? Why do I have to want more?

Knowing there others are out there who feel the same is better than nothing...and is almost sometimes something.