I dreamed about you last night. Earlier that evening, I had been going through some old papers and had found a letter you had written to my mother 30 years ago, after the divorce. That’s why. 

When I woke up, I wasn’t angry: I’m not angry anymore. I suppose I could be. You and my mother divorced when I was eight, and then you wafted in and out of the periphery of my life for a few years, and then—poof—you were gone. Twelve years went by—no phone calls, no letters, no nothing—and I thought you had died. Seriously. Why else would you not be in contact with me?

I went to high school and dealt with all kinds of drama, inside my head and in my house, and I went to college and got married, and you missed all that. One night—I was 25, then—you called, just out of the dark. I didn’t recognize your voice. At first, I thought it was someone trying to scam me. But it was you. And for the next few years, you wafted in and out of the periphery of my life again—the occasional phone call or letter, but never meeting face-to-face—and when I called “bullshit” on that, you bolted again, presumably for good this time: it’s been at least another twelve years since I’ve heard from you.

I’m not sad, either. I used to be, especially when I was a teenager, but then, I spent most of those years getting dragged around the yard by my whack emotions and f’ed-up expectations of life anyway, so, it’s not like your absence was anything more than the fries to the McShit Sandwich I was eating back then. After your second disappearing act a dozen years ago, it stung when you wouldn’t answer my phone calls or letters, but you know, after a while, I just shrugged and said, “Well, screw him,” and went on with my day. Because, you know, I had been going on with my day without you for quite a long time already.

No, when I woke up this morning, I just felt regret, like you would if you had passed on buying Microsoft shares in 1980. I know you understand money, so that’s the analogy I’ll use. The older I get, the more I appreciate how much of an opportunity has been wasted for you and me. You could call tomorrow—with a name shared by only two other people in the U.S., I’m not hard to find—and we could reboot our relationship, but there’s no making up for lost time. Like cash, when it’s gone, it’s gone. And though you can reasonably be sure that you can lay your hands on some more cash tomorrow, or the day after that, eventually, there comes a day when you’re not going to get paid anymore. And I know you know that. You’re like, what, mid-sixties now? How many more tomorrows, how many more opportunities are you going to squander?

If you wandered back into my life, you might like what you would find. I have your intelligence, your passion, your sarcastic wit, your animosity for the corporate Muppets and those who believe what the TV tells them. I’ve become what you might have been, if you had made different choices. You ditched me, and that torqued me for a while, but I’ve fixed most of the broken parts inside me. For the stuff I haven’t fixed yet, I turn the radio up really loud when the clanking noise starts, and I keep it cranked up until whatever’s busted stops making its racket.               

And that’s okay: it is what it is. Much more important is that my kids don’t have belts snapping off their flywheels and pipes dragging along the road, sparking as they overdrive down the highway with the dashboard dead. You should meet Elizabeth, my older daughter. She’s become what I might have been if the machinery had never broken. Not that all of that was your fault. Some, but not all. The fries, as I said.

So, just regret on my part. I lived with you for eight years, which becomes a more and more trivial amount of time the older I get. Eight years—hell, some of my t-shirts have lasted longer than that. In contrast, I’ve had my younger daughter, Ally Jane (as much a clone of my mother as Beth is a clone of me), for 10 years; Beth for 16 years; my wife Joni for 24 years now, counting the time we were dating; my best friend Pat for even longer than that. Eight years—crap, I can do eight years standing on my head. It could have been more, should have been more, could still be more, but that’s entirely up to you. 

In my dream, you were pretending not to be who you are, pretending not to know who I am, and for some reason, I—not fooled for a minute—went along with your pretense. If you are still alive, if you are still out there, there’s still time to stop pretending. But if not, I’ll keep going along with you. And without you.    
   

Posted September 2009