Some things in some of the compartments I am quite happy to forget about and hope they never re-surface to see the light of day again. Some things truly do need to stay out-of-sight-out-of-mind. I've become blissfully ignorant of them and am content to stay that way.
Sometimes I make a simple, happy discovery, like when I unearthed a half a package of my favourite Mexican coffee (Cafe de Olla - can't get it in Canada) when we moved back into our condo and unpacked the kitchen. I am making that half package l-a-s-t!
John and I were up in the attic at our cottage this week, rooting through boxes he moved up here a while ago from our condo storage locker. I wasn't expecting a trip down memory lane, as most of the stuff in the attic is his. I was quite disconcerted to unearth this 8 x 10 black and white shot from my early 20's when I was doing a bit of modeling.
I was upset to see how young and fresh-faced I looked, and it triggered a weird kaleidoscopic re-experiencing of my life since age 24 when that shot was taken.
It's even more of a shock for me to see this image because I have so very few photos of myself in my 20's. That was the decade I spent with R., and he took a lot of photos which we had nicely organized into many albums. When we divorced, he made a specific request for custody of the photo albums and I graciously gave them all to him. After all, he took most of the photos, and it struck a chord in me that it appeared he wanted to keep these mementoes of our life together. He didn't want me any more...but he wanted to keep pictures of me, and us...odd, but whatever.
About eight years after giving R. the photo albums, I wound up working closely with a girlfriend he'd had for a while, quite long after our divorce. She was an odd young woman who became quite fixated on me (apparently because I had succeeded in getting R. to marry me, and she had failed in her efforts to do the same).
We did speak a bit about R., and she told me she'd asked him about his ex-wife. Apparently he wouldn't say much, but it did come across that he felt I'd rather inappropriately "gotten busy" with someone else (after he'd left me for another woman...sort of along the lines of the "Friends" Ross & Rachel "we were on a break!" episode. Good grief.)
I digressed - my point was she had asked him to show her photos and he said he didn't have any. She claims he told her I had kept all the photo albums and then burned them! I was so shocked. I can understand him declining to show her the photos, but to portray me as someone who would withhold and then destroy these items of sentimental value was quite a chicken-shit thing to do. It also made me think he either burned them (and can't take responsibility for their destruction) or he keeps them squirrelled away and secretly looks through them from time to time. I'm not sure how I feel about either scenario.
Given my reaction to seeing this one photo I found, I don't think that I'd want to see those photo albums, even if given a chance to flip through them. Youth is fleeting and I don't need to be reminded that I didn't appreciate it or make the most of it.
Todo bien. (It's all good.)
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