Everyone has a dream. My dream was this. That I would marry my high school girlfriend.
No one impacted me ever again quite like you. Every time I have love and lost, I retrace my steps through my deepest loves.
They go all the way back to my puppy love. My puppy love was more like a good friend. We never even kissed. When she broke my heart, You were there to pick up the pieces.
Remember the Sandie Hawkins dance. The brown reversible puffy jackets. Yeah, I kept those for years after, well into my marriage.
You represent my biggest mistake. A mistake that I never even acknowledged or learned from as you put it, until you decided you never wanted to speak to me again. My life lives the irony of not learning until people finally decide to keep me accountable. Hit that deep abandonment wound. Forgiveness has found a way to enable me somehow. Fear of abandonment. Fear of being alone. Fear of losing my best friend. I couldn't just sit around and let it happen, so I self sabotaged. It goes even deeper than that. Low self esteem and self worth so I can't actually allow myself to have something good. You were right, I didn't learn. Because you forgave me, I learned the wrong lesson. I learned to hide instead of to do what is right. I learned to lie instead of to be honest.
Your dad was my hero. He is the reason I am who I am today. How could I be paralyzed by getting kicked out of my home and starting from scratch when he had to leave the country. Learning math, though he hated math. Learning computer science, though he hated computer science. Then, he found an apartment for me when I couldn't find one. He paid a few months rent to make sure I had a home. I felt horrible when I wasn't good enough for his little girl.
Remember watching Jurassic Park. I annoyed you so much that day. I'm sorry.
Titanic and Elle magazine. You made me secretly love both. Shh. Don't tell my guy friends.
You were my only visitor in the dreadful place of Utah. I had to hide your clothes and sneak you in and out everywhere. I broke the washing machine. But we made a midnight run for a half gallon of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream and I rode you and Alane on my bike.
Remember when I came over for a week and hid in your closet? I thought I would be in so much trouble when I finally arrived home and it was devastating to know that no one even noticed I was gone. That was life growing up. I stole $25 from my older brother, went to Target several miles away, bought some toys, got lost on the way home, asking a stranger if they knew where I lived, then arrived home thinking I would get in trouble but no one even noticed. No one ever noticed. You had to be my girlfriend and my mother, making me ground beef, tomatoes and rice or lap sung.
Remember roller blading on the tennis courts. You'd always pretend to fall and take me down with you. So smooth.
The car accident, totaling the mustang. Just a couple bruised knees but we were okay. Riding to the beach with the top down, playing children and Depeche Mode. I want somebody to love, love me passionately. Know my inner most thoughts. Know my intimate details. Beautiful words.
Junior Prom. What a great adventure. Grabbing the cabin near Santa Cruz. I think about it every time I drive up the 1. Was it Bonny Doon road? Getting a flat, almost missing our prom, puncturing my foot and jogging a half mile to get a tractor to pull us out. My top hat, braids and cane. I felt like the million dollar man with you by my side.
Every lunch break, I'd rest my head on your legs. Almost as if I owned you, I'd make sure everyone knew you were mine. Most importantly, I knew you were mine. Thank you for making me feel secure.
Precious. That was like our little baby. I remember disciplining her. I always thought that one day, it wouldn't just be a dog. It would be a real baby.
Remember getting scam letters of becoming a millionaire. We believed it and that life would actually allow us to be together.
Hanging out near the Physics room, at the movie theaters at the swimming pool in your UC Davis apartment. That's when I first started going places just to feel connected to a lost love. The swimming pool near Lanview. Going up to UC Davis.
You believed in me. I'm so thankful for that. You already predicted that my goals of going to UC Berkeley and teaching college level math would one day come true.
You wrote the most amazing letters. My high school yearbook, which I only have today because my mother never let me throw it out. Maybe that's why I couldn't move on, because one is supposed to burn every single thing, to keep them from holding on. The letters we exchanged even when I was married. I loved writing. I lost my passion for many years.
20 years later and I still sob. Probably, because my MO was to stuff it and keep going. Jump into another relationship quickly. Never actually sit with the physical pain. The pain that seeps into the lower left rib and doesn't allow you to breathe. How can one forget how to breathe?
I'm glad you had your one child, which you always wanted. Your career which was incredible to see how determined you were to make it. You always were kinda stuck in how things should be done. Remember when you pulled out from school, pissed at the driver who didn't wait for you and then got pissed at the next car who you needed to pull out because they thought you would wait for them.
Fourth grade. You had the same demeanor about you. I was just this goofy, dorky space cadet, in my own world. Annoying boys.
Physics class. George Shuttinger. The reason I went into signal processing at UC Berkeley. We would always poke fun at him and he was always so delighted. We studied so hard together and your notes were so well color coordinated with different color pens for different types of information. We had so much fun in that class. All the contests and competitions.
Lam, Kim, me and you. We were four peas in a pod.
I wrote my first songs on the piano for you. Midnights of madness, you held me in your arms. All of my passion and all of your charms. Why don't you come back to me, I'll show you the way.
You didn't even believe what I believed but you supported me in my spiritual walk. Trying to understand morality and where I fit in with it. Teenage years were confusing and religion made it even more confusing. It was then that I formulated my beliefs that still hold true today. Though a whole other element has come alive for me today, to see it as living water.
Thanks for making me feel like I belonged. Thanks for giving your whole heart.
<SI> Scott Izu, PhD
Copyright January 2019
