The One I Missed

another one of my first reads so he's kinda stuck. i've been reading him for a long time, hoping he'll hook up with some girl and then in july he did, but then in august he didn't so i'm sticking around, hoping some more like i'm his mother or something. i dunno why i'm hoping he'll hook up - maybe it's because he seems like such a nice guy and it would nice for him to have someone other than his cats to play with at home. ooh, i hope he doesn't read this because he might not like what i just wrote.

It's about the woman who, looking back on it, I probably should have pursued and perhaps even married.

Growing up, my family would often take a summer vacation on Cape Cod, which is that dangly bit on the eastern end of Massachusetts. Cape Cod is a lovely place, with wonderful beaches on both the ocean and the bay sides, a wealth of used book stores and scenic places to go, a number of old buildings, whale watching opportunities, and the Cape Cod Rail Trail, which is an old railroad line which has been paved and is now a lengthy and scenic biking trail.

Sometime in high school, I made my one enduring friend from the Cape, a fellow named Matt. Matt is - if I recall correctly - two years younger than me. He's also from Canada, and his family would drive the ten-hour drive to the Cape themselves for a number of years, and for several of those years they rented a cottage in the same neighborhood that we did. Matt and I quickly discovered that we had a number of common interests, including science fiction and gaming. We played many hours of Star Fleet Battles, and later he and his family became the first folks I played Bridge with. (We played very badly.)

At first, it was just Matt, his parents, and his younger brother Danny. (Matt and Danny had the same sort of turbulent relationship that my sister and I had.) But the second or third year Matt's cousins Leah and Meghan came along as well. Leah is, I think, a year older than Matt, while Meghan is the same age or a year younger. (Danny was several years younger than all of them.) Being a teenager and therefore pretty sensitive to such things, I thought they were both very pretty. But, at the time I wasn't particularly interested in dating, and the logistics of dating someone in Canada - tricky even for an adult - seemed insurmountable for a teenager.

So, we all had a good time, became good friends, and I exchanged regular letters with Matt, occasional letters with Leah, and maybe one or two with Meghan. (I probably still have them all, actually. I've saved my correspondence for many years.)

One summer, then, I went up to visit them in Ontario. I don't remember at this point whether it was towards the end of high school, or early in college. My guess is that it was probably right after my freshman year of college. I stayed with Matt and his family, and enjoyed their lovely rural house which was situated right near a lake suitable for swimming in. Matt's mother had started what I guess was a sort of coffee house and breakfast hang-out, which the whole family chipped in to helping out with. This sucked up a bunch of their time while I was there, although Matt was mostly given leave to hang out with me while I was there.

One day, though, it turned out that he and Danny were both needed in the shop, so Leah ended up spending the day with me and showing me around the city where they lived.

I think it was that day that I realized that I really found her attractive. She was very pretty, intelligent, and she was a reader. More to the point, she seemed to enjoy reading speculative fiction. I don't actually remember at this point if she read science fiction, but she read fantasy, and she picked up a fantasy/horror book I noticed in a bookstore and remembered reading and enjoying, and she enjoyed it as well.

(Now, of course, the real potential for embarrassment here is that Leah or Meghan will read this entry and tell me that I spent that day with Meghan. Boy would I feel like a world-class oaf, then. I don't think so, though.)

I also remember that Leah confided in me about some things going on with her at the time, and being very flattered that she felt able to do so. In retrospect I naturally wonder if there was some mutual attraction between us. We certainly got along fine, and I felt like we'd become good friends. There wasn't - I think - the sort of friendly sniping that went on between, say, Matt and I. I guess there was some earlier on, but it seemed like it lessened over time. I guess you might say we had a more mature friendship develop over time.

Sadly, I drifted apart from the whole clan over time. In college I started dating Kathleen, which lasted until the end of college. Leah went away to college (she was younger than me and they have an extra grade in Canadian schools), and we wrote a couple of letters, but that was about it. And it never seemed like it got any easier to contemplate dating someone who lived in Canada while I lived elsewhere. Although I dimly recall that I did consider proposing it to her at one point - maybe during my 'down period' during my first year in graduate school. But I never did.

We contacted each other through e-mail a few years ago. She was dating someone pretty seriously at the time, and by now for all I know they've gotten married and maybe even had kids. I don't know. That's the last I heard from her. (I heard from Matt around the same time - I think he contacted me and gave me Leah's e-mail address, actually. Haven't heard from him since, either.)

In retrospect, well, I don't really have any regrets. After all, how else were we supposed to handle things at that age and in that situation?

But I do feel that it would have been nice to have had a shot at some sort of relationship. I've long had this gut feeling that we would have gotten along really well. Maybe she was the one for me. Or, maybe not. After all, my memories are pretty hazy today. But, it would be nice to know.

I don't have a big ache in my heart over all this. But I do have, maybe, a little hole. And every so often I do think about Leah.