Some names were changed in this one (including mine) because some innocent people are involved.
At near the dawn of time—my time—I had a girlfriend. She was a younger woman. I was around 6 and she was around 5. The thing I remember best from our time together is that when she would be talking to other kids, every now and then, she would pause and say “Huh, Mike?” I was a validator.
I don’t remember if I reacted in any way to these prompts. But given my situation at home, I’m sure it felt good to be looked at as someone who was valued enough to give validation. I often refer to times like this as a quit-while-you’re-ahead moment. As my life would unfole, I would rarely feel like I was worth enough to be relied on for validation. And I little more to the point, sometimes the various people I’ve known flash through my head, and I wonder if any of them could have been the one, the one that would have allowed me to see worth and that I would have thrived with. Could it have been little Carin? Not likely. Even if we had grown up together and had been fast friends, I have to believe at the moment of truth, she wouldn’t want to get messed up with this anomalous heart?
But did we share something deeper? As I began writing this, I was thinking at least she wasn’t abused by my brother. But then I realized: I don’t really know that. If she was, does it—in any way—resonate with her still or did she overcome it and leave it behind. As opposed to mine, her time being subjected to that would have been brief. But as a society, we now know that trauma, no matter how brief, can have a life-long effect. So the question about that random story – “huh, Mike?” is did it stick in my mind because at some level, I knew we shared something deeper.
This much I know about Carin. I think I recall that she was involved in some kind of beauty pageants before she graduated from high school (I don’t know what the nature of those were—maybe something as simple as Homecoming Court). She has been married for a rather long time, and I don’t think she has children. She became a very successful in the real estate industry as an executive. I only know the wrapper, but it looks pretty good.
It doesn’t look like we share much, but do we? It’s funny how lives are carefully stitched together like a rickety old bridge, all head together by tiny fragments in the right places.