I've hit three out of five before I even make up the list.
On the drive back from Ohio this weekend, I suddenly realize I've been pulling a Rob Fleming over the past three months, revisiting those crushes from my most formative years. The heartbreaks early enough to pierce devastatingly deep because, as Rob says, "unhappiness really meant something back then." And though I've spent time since then suffering uselessly, as I'm prone to do, I can't say that I've felt the same purity in my pain.
They're not exes. Exes are relationships stretched in every direction until nothing comes as a surprise anymore. And when we parted, there was a mutual understanding that for all our sweat and tears, the pieces would never quite fit. And the realization washed over me slow and cold until hope vanished and left an innocuous void in its place.
Instead, this is a pain born in possibilities. These are relationships separated by chance or time or circumstance before I hardened to harsher realities. In the some far away place, my mind creates "what ifs" and dreams tiny dreams about possibilities that still linger out there in parallel universes. They sting with regret... and more than anything else, I want to know if I passed on something truly amazing for some lack... somewhere, sometime.
I'm the ultimate creature of regret... which is why it was surprising to make up a list of possibilities that results in only five guys. But on the other hand, it's a tall order: a rare combination of lingering magic and unresolved feelings. But most of all, it's an unshakable notion that this same guy who uniquely connected to me then has grown in equally strange leaps and bounds to connect to me now.
Some can't possibly live up to the expectation and are doomed to live more soulful lives in my imagination than in reality. But others still exist in this plane filled with magic ether, and I can't help but think maybe... like the simple chorus of Liz Phair's "Shatter".
And unlike Rob seeking closure, I dream of reopening neglected doors. And the possibilities that exist just outside of my wildest imaginations.
Three down.
Two more to go.
Who's on your list?