The Johnsen Family

Well, not exactly lost - I know exactly where she is (alive and well I would hasten to add.) And the “friend” status was apparently in Facebook terms only. What caught me by surprise was the sense of loss from someone choosing to sever an ephemeral virtual connection based on a decades-old relationship. Who knew?

She and I had dated in high school, and I guess you could say she was my first serious girlfriend. Despite that, it turns out I didn’t actually know her very well. After dating maybe nine months, we parted ways for reasons I didn’t understand at the time and she indicated she didn’t remember now.

She reached out to me about a month ago and is somewhat responsible for my joining Facebook – I’d resisted before now figuring that johnsen.org covered my navel-gazing and being-findable-on-the-net needs. In the conversations that followed, I discovered that she’d grown up (a lot faster than me) to be a really cool person, and I was kicking myself for not having known her better then or in the years in between.

I guess the interest was one sided on my part – a brief “Goodbye” email today was the announcement that I wasn’t on the friends list anymore.

I can guess at reasons why – old boyfriends aren’t always appreciated by new husbands; our politics were (at least according to profile data) rather opposed; I was apt to try and make humorous commentary on status updates that was sometimes perceived as being in poor taste – my brand of humor is not for everyone. Still, I don’t believe I made any major social blunders, and I promptly apologized for the minor ones.

The irony is that I really don’t know any better today why she “broke up” with me this time than I did when we broke up 25 years ago.

Even though I am happily married for nearly 19 years to a wonderful woman who tolerates my faults exceedingly well and has done a remarkable job of civilizing me, the echoes of a 15-year-old’s emotions post-abrupt breakup are bouncing around my head. Annoying, that – I did not invite them in.

Echoes eventually decay; as do relationships left untended – and they can’t be revived later with great big piles of fertilizer apparently.

Goodbye, old friend.

This is one of those watershed dates in my life, where there is “life before” and “life after.”

Actually, as of this date, we’re not quite friends yet. In fact, I’m generally pretty resentful of the guy and his other friends, and their smothering concern for me that they express with self-righteous homilies. How can these people be like this?

Looking back now, I understand – they were trying to do for me what someone had done for them in the past, even if I was a reluctant participant in the process. In the months to come, I would come to appreciate that concern and see the value in the seemingly trite sayings.

Thanks, Bill.

Today I discovered that I had within me the willingness to lay down my life for someone else.

I also came to know irrevocably that I could kill another human being to defend her.

To all the dads of the daughters I dated over the years – I get it now, and I apologize. Thank you for not killing me.

As it works out, this particular karmic debt is not so bad to pay off…

It is a crisp, clear day in Monterey. In fact, it is the coldest day in 83 years. 40 degrees ambient; and with the wind chill from the coastal wind, the effective temperature is easily in the low 30’s/high 20’s.

Through a confluence of planning brought about by compromise with my soon-to-be spouse, we are holding a wedding on the beach at Lover’s Point (my idea) on a day that is less than ideal for outdoor activity (she favored a wedding sooner rather than later – perhaps because she was concerned that I might change my mind.)

The bride didn’t wear blue; she was blue. My brother in law commented: “This warms my heart, but no other part of me.”

The day started with the family rallying at our little cabin in Scotts Valley before  heading down to Lover’s Point. During this trip, Sherri’s parent’s elected to stop along the way to acquire some film for their camera. This is before everyone had a cell phone and could Twitter what they were doing to a thousand friends at once.  The rest of the wedding party stood in the chilly breeze, with an increasingly anxious bride wondering where the heck her parents were. In a fit of pique she exclaimed, “This is the worst day of my life!” (Maybe in her life up until then it was the worst; I would deliver many more worse days to her life in the years to come – because I love her and that’s what husbands do for their wives.)

Presently, her parents showed up with profuse apologies for their tardiness, and we got on with the business at hand.  I think it worked out okay…