I saw Frank last night. I have far too many men in my life named Frank and far too many men named Michael.
Frank, my mentor; the greatest love of my life. I spent 8 years loving him and a few trying very hard not to. When he said goodbye five or six years ago, I couldn’t see him; I couldn’t look at him at not love him. I couldn’t stop myself from loving him so deeply and I couldn’t stop crying over the loss. Cathy asked me last night how it happened.
I had known Frank for about year. He knew everything and I was as naive as anyone could be. I was shy; as I am in any new situation or with new people, but professional around him. Frank had walked over to me at a holiday party; I was standing alone. We chatted for a while about parking lots; I wasn’t attracted to him.
When he said goodbye he came close to me and kissed me on the neck everything inside of me went breathless…time stood still. When I regained my composure I realized that I had stopped breathing and I had to gasp to take a breath. There it was. Nature, at its own directive; I smelled him, the oxytocin hormone flooded my body in a moment and I was his. That wasn’t the moment that I fell in love but it is one of the two that I vividly remember. The other was when he wasn’t talking to me, he wasn’t looking at me, but he was talking to another woman. I was watching him from a distance, listening to their conversation. He was talking about his granddaughter and he said that she was the best thing that ever happened to him. Then woman he was talking to picked up her head looked 15 feet in my direction and asked me if I was his wife. I was embarrassed that she would have asked, that she would have asked in front of him or that my attraction was so easily revealed. It had been so many years since I had met a man who I was attracted to and so deeply drawn to; it was as if I had been sleeping and he woke up the parts of me that had long died.
What I can say without any hesitation is that everything I am today, EVERYTHING is because of him. All that I know, all that I wish for, all that I am, is because of him. I hadn’t seen him in two years and I knew that I would last night. My cousin asked me on Sunday how I felt. I told her that I was fine and when I had called to wish him a happy birthday last September, he told me he was still single; I didn’t ask. He said we should get together and talk, I skirted the subject. I smiled at him last night; he walked over to give me a hug I dove in. I turned my cheek and let him kiss it hello and then he sought out my lips and kissed me again. He told me that he had thinking about me….I didn’t respond. Because I have another memory that would have happened today two years ago, that still pulls at my heart.
Frank and I didn’t talk last night for the rest of the night. But I did walk over to kiss him goodbye. He was with someone and her little girl. He was showing her a card trick so I stayed. He flipped through the cards to show that it was a regular deck. He cut the cards in three and she picked the top card from any one of the three and showed it to me…the nine of hearts. She put the card back into the deck and asked her if she saw her card as he dropped them slowly faced down…there were lots of nine’s of hearts in the deck. He put the top card on the bottom, flipped over the next card and there it was. I don’t know how he did it but she giggled and I thought he was as charming as he was always. There is something very attractive about a guy who can entertain children with magic tricks...
I talked to Elenor a few weeks ago to get perspective. We talked about men coming out of their Prince years and going through their spiritual awakening to become Kings…the existential walk alone through a very dark tunnel…that some men never come out of.
I saw a video tape of Lee last spring and how awful he looks. Depressed and broken over a woman that he loved; but she told him from day one, it would never be him. Her saying so didn't dissuade him from trying. She used him and he gladly let her. I don’t know if there is a woman on the planet that can feel emotionally safe with Lee but what I do know is that Lee began his walk into the darkness. He is the right age for it. Maybe he’ll come out the other side whole; he asks questions but I’m not sure if he’s self aware enough to get the answers he’s looking for.
I didn’t realize it when Frank was in it because we didn’t ever talk about it. I didn’t see the bit of what appears to be depression, but I knew was that somewhere inside of him his wife having left him for another man left him left him far too frightened to ever love that deeply; to ever want to give that much of himself to a woman again. So he focused on building his empire instead.
When I needed to be separated away from him he was still filled with fire and if I can liken it to a bar-b-que what were hot coals and raging flames have changed into a barely visible ember and mostly white ash. He has changed; his hair is a little longer and messier instead of the tightly coiffed police academy look that I loved running my fingers through. I looked at his hands, I looked at his nails. They weren’t as tightly manicured and clean as they once were. His eyes last night were a little less blue; a little less clear. He was far older in his demeanor; his body was a little more broken, a little more Grandpa than the fearless young conqueror that I had known. Two years has made a dramatic difference. He has settled into something else. Maybe it’s andropause, maybe he’s entered his King phase of his life. I have so little experience in what it looks like when a man has come out of the darkness and has remained whole that I’m not sure that I could recognize it.
Being a King; an elder statesman is not an attractive phase in a man’s life to me. The increased estrogen makes them too soft for me to have sexual attraction. I like my men filled with testosterone, in high gear and building their empire. Perhaps it’s different with extreme wealth. Frank is a multimillionaire—no question. Maybe it’s a lack of experience with men who have reached this phase of their lives and want to give to a woman. Maybe the difference is the blue collar ‘millionaire next door’ who is just sort of stayed and settled into the final phase of his life compared to the white collar yes, we can go to Italy for the summer. I’m not sure, but what I can say is that I looked at Frank yesterday, at a holiday party, where it all began many years ago. Once again, I watched him from a distance and I felt deep loving attachment, but not love for the man that I used to know.
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