Saturday, October 21, 2006

Revisiting old loves

Sometimes a blog opens up an interesting discussion in the comments section, and I wonder how many people get back there to join in, or whether I should bring it into the main blog. So I am going to do that now, and continue here from my previous post.

Pauline asked if I would try and contact Sy, and I replied that I would dearly love to do so, but that I have not found anything to locate his present whereabouts. I followed the clue about the University of California, and the clue that his doctoral thesis was about cancer of the liver, so he may well have become an oncologist. But although I searched an American website for locating doctors by name I didn't find him in San Francisco, and I haven't time to search the whole of the US! Anyway, he's probably retired by now, even if he's still around.

I did once find another old boyfriend on Google, though, as he has become a well-known author in the UK. I sent an email to the college he seemed to be connected with, but nothing came of it, which is probably just as well.

There was another doctor, a surgeon, whom I very nearly married, and with whom I continued to exchange Christmas cards for many years. Thirty years after we had parted, I found myself in the town where I knew him to be working at the general hospital. I surprised him with an unannounced visit, but it was not a rewarding occasion. I was saddened to find that the aspiring young surgeon I had known was now greatly aged, with hands already so badly affected by arthritis that he could no longer operate properly. And inevitably, as we had both married other people, we really had nothing to say to each other.

As Knowleypowley said, "should the past be kept in the past?" I reckon it's just some sort of vanity trip really, to want to revisit old loves, like writing one's memoirs! Indeed, I see that my memoirs are in danger of turning into a history of the men in my life! The pieces I have written which have the most feeling in them – my ‘mood’ pieces as I tend to call them, are all about blokes it seems, and I begin to feel a bit embarrassed about it!

So I’ll write another one for my next blog …………..!

3 comments:

Lillie said...

I look forward to the next one. Writing about the people in my life has always been the most satisfying. A tribute, perhaps, to those who have influenced and cared for us. And a challenge to try to "draw" them in words.

Sharon J said...

I often think that revisiting the past can destroy some wonderful memories but I still have a tendency to take those walks along memory lane and take the chance. And one can say that the past is also the present because without the past, the present wouldn't exist. But does that mean we should dig around in the past and perhaps upset the present? It's hard to say. We just do what we do, I guess.

Gattina said...

Many, many years ago I were engaged to a very handsome man but it broke up because to many women ran behind him. 3 years ago I saw him sitting in the theatre where my husband and I watched "barefood in the parc" During the entre-act I greated him and almost fainted, he had become a real old man with grey hairs looking much older than he really was. From there on I couldn't think of him anymore as a handsome young man ! Another dream lost !