Imprint

So I just heard about the death of my first mentor on what would have been her 68th birthday.  Our relationship was a fraught one--a lot of good, a lot of bad, and a lot of ugly. I haven't spoken to her in decades, but the news made decades ago seem pretty immediate. She filled a lot of gaps in my life, and I suspect I filled a lot of gaps for her as well, or our relationship would not have lasted as long as it did.

She also opened my world in a way no one else at that time could have, and for that I owe her a debt of gratitude.  Most of the signers of my yearbooks Junior and Senior years did not go to high school with me; they were my peeps--the peeps she introduced me to, my first glimpse into the fact that I *would* find my people.

(I could do a whole other riff on John Lennon, but that might need to be a separate blog)

One of my friends and I remembered her over dinner.  She saw a lot of things I didn't, but she always does. 

We had kept up with one another sporadically, or, as she remembered me.  I wasn't exactly a priority, so she eventually fell off my priorities as well. She reconnected with me shortly after I got married, but then I didn't hear from her again, guessing she was annoyed I didn't invite her. I'll never know. I had tried to reconnect with her after younger was born, but she kept ghosting me, and then ended up in the deep south with her partner. I lost track of her after that. 

When I noticed her obit in my inbox, oddly after the fact but on her birthday, I found myself looking for her on social media.  Whatever I was feeling fell away. I know from before she had a rough life, and it never got all that much easier. And when every single person you've ever loved has departed for the underworld, there's not much left to do but to join them. 

I've all but forgotten the hurt; she *saw* me, and whatever she exploited in pursuit of her own ends kind of doesn't matter now. It's done, and anything I lost wasn't anything I missed. 

Til next time.