Just Trying…

I be back. Truthfully, before I resumed writing here I hadn’t thought about Alex in 3 years–when her pal Abby had contacted me out of the blue. It’s been 7 years, and my memories of the post-Alex period are hazy. I do recall the pain, and how I scrambled to keep in touch with Abby. Abby was of course hurting much more than me; they’d been BFs for years, and she was in love with Alex. A few others also came out of the woodwork–saying they’d known Alex (as Erika, her middle name) and hadn’t heard about her death.

I started doing some checking to see what else I could find about her. Abby was a wealth of info, but of course she didn’t reveal deep personal stuff, not that I blamed her; we’d never met. I spent time hearing about her; to my shame, sometimes turning my kids away when they wanted to play. I knew I had to do something to avoid the Lynn rut, after all, I had never even met Alex in person. I had felt her substance, and I had fallen in love with it.

 

My cousin, whom I’d come out to before and talked to, was a big help. She & Tim had also tried to find info about Alex’s funeral and burial, to no avail. Abby later told me that her service was private, her dad had been a diplomat. They’d actually lived in Europe before returning to the States. That gave me more reason to suspect that maybe Alex C/Alex M wasn’t her real identity.

 

To this day, I don’t know, and as I said, don’t think much of it anymore. I do know she was a real friend, whoever she was, and Abby had thought enough about me to get in touch again in 2008. (will tell more later) I just recall wanting to avoid the rut, and I spoke to anyone and everyone who would listen. Even my mom. Tim said she & Dad knew how emotionally attached I got to women I liked, and they were concerned.

 

Mom was able to get past her clear discomfort and listen. Tim listened too, and my pal Bobbie, and friend/ex-cohort Yolanda. The pain of loss was almost as bad as if I knew her personally, and no amount of logic–I didn;t meet her–could change that. I knew I had to channel myself elsewhere.

I entered my first spiritual counseling at that time, with the minister of a GLBT friendly church. He also listened to me, then after a few months, suggested that I seek an actual support group. He wasn’t gay or bi, and though he was affirming, he said he couldn;t relate to my emotions the way others like me could. He told me about Stonewall Columbus, a local branch of a national GLBT organization. His church had members affiliated with it. I liked the idea–I could still maybe talk about my feelings, and best of all, without anyone from my parish knowing.

 

I had been so drowning in first Lynn, now Alex, I thought my armor would crack yet again. I knew it would take time to move on from Alex, though we’d only talked 6 months, and there was still the residuals from Lynn and the bigger issue: how could I cope and keep the ‘straight’ face at church? It was at this time that Catholic churches started addressing the so-called ‘threat to family values’ that folks like me posed. So that was on my plate too, I was sensitive to any mention of GLBT people, church or elsewhere. I had started questioning God again, about my acceptability with Him–even wondering briefly if Alex’s death was a message. So Stonewall seemed a place to start a new approach; as convoluted as my brainwaves were then, I could ride them somewhere out of the place I was in.

Teri