Wake-Up Call

Ever have a time in your life where you think you had it as good as it was going to get ... that you just couldn't imagine it being better or needing or wanting another thing ever again? ... well it happened for me in the summer of 1973 ... BD was taking a couple of summer courses to stay current in her chosen profession .. I had landed a job with the Department of Regional Economic Expansion ... and I had sublet an apartment from a friend of mine for the summer just adjacent to the university ... so I had gone from failing second year to this in 3 years .. unbelievable ...

At the end of that summer I began my final year .. and the pressure was on ... BD was expecting marriage .. I had a thesis project to come up with ... I had a job to find .. but there was another issue rearing its ugly head between BD and I that I only figured out when it was too late ... being my mother's son ... there were a few things that in my behaviour patterns that were right out of my mother's playbook ... and she was now in a position to start thinking along the lines of .. what if this guy is just like his mother ... what if down the road somewhere he turns in to a masculine version of her ... ?

So her birthday and Xmas came around and I probably did the usual utilitarian gift as opposed to a ring ... and to cut right to the chase .. there was a phone call in February where I said some things that you can never take back ... anybody who has been there knows exactly what I am talking about ... for BD that was the end .. and when I say the end .. I mean the end ... it was like she had been renditioned .. or never existed ... she literally went silent .. 

I was devastated ... it was two months until final exams but I was spending all my energy trying to contact her ...no one stepped in .. not a friend of hers .. not a friend of mine .. no one in either family ... it was like a twilight zone episode where you wake up and one thing has changed while everything else remains the same and no one knows what you are talking about ..

I am not proud of my behaviour during this period of time .. March and April 1974 ... a couple of examples that make me cringe .. I had tracked BD down to a Howard Johnson's outside of Moncton ... we did talk .. she simply said I had to stop trying to contact her ... another time ... I hitchhiked to the school where she was teaching and sat in her car until she came outside .. I don't remember if it was open or I had an extra set of keys .. I don't even remember the conversation ... I hitchhiked back to Fredericton for classes the next day ..

I was literally stalking her .. and that wasn't going to win hearts and minds ... I remember my mother yelling at me over the phone for my $70 phone bill .. I forget how she came to see it ... back in the day where $70 was a significant sum ... that was the sympathy I got from her ... I was suffering PTSD big time ... and I still had a thesis to finish ..exams to write and job interviews to take ... February to June was the worst time of life .. the summer of 1973 seemed a lifetime away ... a lifetime? ... no .. a fucking world away ...

Phil - (9 January 2021 - San Patricio de Melaque - 7:21 PM)

Krome Koan - 'Sometimes I wrestle with my demons; sometimes we just snuggle'