Jack Boots Through My Garden

Do you know what a Jack Boot is? It is a deep lugged leather armament designed with one purpose and one purpose only: To ensure that everyone knows the wearer is coming or has already passed. The Jack Boot is designed to leave a mark.

They have left their mark on my once peaceful and serene life. The Ghost of Relationships Past has hitched up his Jack Boots and stomped his way through the garden of my routine life. He trod right up to my Vault of Emotions, kicked in the door and ripped out feelings long since forgotten. Why did the Ghost of Relationships Past decide to pay me a visit? Because a girl who was a very important part of my life many years ago has returned.

As you might know...my Mom calls me up a week or so ago and tells me that a letter has just arrived at their home in Utah and the return address just has one name: Mandy. No last name, but as soon as she says the name, my stomach drops, my heart leaps and my kidneys do a slight little tango as my spleen sits there, (much like spleens are prone to do). At first I tried to convince myself that this was ANOTHER Mandy that I have known for many years and recently got married and perhaps it was a birth announcement of her soon-to-be-born child. However...I knew it wasn't. Don't ask me how I knew...I just did. It was from HER. THE Mandy.

Let me take you back...many years back...in fact, almost half my life ago. As we walk down Memory Lane, I invite you to take a look at a happy young couple. A blond-haired boy (with a full head of hair I might mention), eager about life, excited about possibilities, anxious to get his life going, and overall oblivious to the major hints coming from the companion by his side, and an equally fair-haired lass with the looks of a super-model, the brains of a college professor, and the love (for this boy), that knew no boundaries. For several years, theirs was a relationship of parry and thrust, a constant misunderstanding of the other person's intentions. Oh there was no doubt that they both cared for each other. Far more than either had ever experienced before. Observers of the young couple would whisper among themselves about how perfect these two really were for each other, if they could only get their heads on straight and bearings on course.

But alas, it was not to be. The boy soon left on his mission, as was always expected. It was never a question that he wouldn't go. The question was..."What would happen when he did"?

The mission soon played out to be a proving ground for their relationship. Although he had told her that he didn't want her to put her life on hold for two years, he secretly hoped she would. And although she had every intention to wait for him, no matter what the cost, at the end of two years...she hadn't exactly stayed the course.

But it was no fault of her own. No...the full fault of that falls back upon the boy. Through a series of letters, the penultimate of which was a letter asking that they "slow things down a notch", and the ultimate being a letter from said girl's sister telling the boy that he will NEVER know how much he hurt her, the relationship was left in tatters on the Battlefield of Love, (I hate that battlefield), never fully regaining its once supramundane status of invincibility.

Over a year later, he tried to re-kindle what was once there. The letters started again from Russia...and for quite a while, they only flowed in one direction. Then towards the end of said mission, a few bare-bone letters made their way back. But the damage had been done. Miscommunication had once again stuck its evil little finger in the light-socket of love and the black mark of scorched plastic could not be erased.

Oh they tried. But it was clear that neither of them were ready or willing to make the sacrifices needed to put one's heart on the line again. They say that "Pain is temporary and Pride is forever". Whoever said that was an ignorant moron that never truly knew what pain could be.

A few failed dates, weeks of non-talking, and several half-hearted attempts later, and they both kind of drifted their separate ways. Oh they stayed in touch on a purely superfluous level. He got caught up in a career. She found another to love and was married. After that...silence settled his big fat butt on the toilet seat of their so-called-relationship and took a dump.

It's been a long time. 7 years? 8 years? 9 years? Something in there. And then this letter...with no last name.

I had to wait almost a week before it arrived. Obviously during that time I did a lot of thinking. What was in the letter? Why no last name? How come it had a Payson Postmark (she was supposedly living in Salt Lake)?

The letter finally arrived. It was very surface as far as detail is concerned. But it was exactly what I had suspected. She is single again. 2 kids. Living in Payson and working in Provo. And she just wanted to see what I was up to.

I can't even comprehend the courage it must have taken her to write that letter. To make that effort was enormous. To what end was she playing this gambit? I guess that will take time to know.

I wrote her back. The majority of said letter was about everyone else in my family and what they have been up to. I might have mentioned that I was in California, (ok, I did). But all in all it didn't say much.

She called last night. It was weird...but at the same time, completely natural. I had forgotten how well we connected...when we weren't getting tangled up in our (my) own fallacies. I hope she knows how glad I am that she tracked me down.

I know some people's thoughts: "What now?" "Are you going to date her?" "What's going to happen?"

The answer is...I don't know. On one hand I guess that whole idea of "living happily ever after" could find itself being replaced with "Once upon a time...."

But it is too soon to tell. Besides...I kind of like the direction things are going with my life.

Editor's Note* If you made it this far...thank you for your patience and congratulations on your tenacity. I know this entry was pretty random, but I appreciate your reading it. I needed to get some thoughts out.