Rushing the shaman, 1985

Sean and I met in the summer of 1985, the summer before my senior year in high school.

He was a cute tourist in town with his family on their summer vacation, I was a sassy local who had met hundreds of boys on vacation with their families on summer vacation, but something about this guy bowled me over.

He was sweet, genuine, respectful.  Not something I had grown to expect from a rich kid  who came from the Chicago suburbs, but there he was.  And by God, he liked me.

The day before his family left town to go back to their normal lives, Sean and I took a canoe out to the middle of that northern Minnesota lake and spent hours and hours talking, kissing, trying to deny that it was probably the last time we’d get to spend time alone.  It was a beautiful day and I don’t remember a time since then where I felt so drawn in by anyone.  Those hazel-green eyes of his are permanently etched in my memory.

They left the next day, after Sean and I exchanged addresses to write letters.  He held my hands in his, kissed me softly on the lips with tears in his eyes, leaned his forehead against mine and made me swear we would see each other again.  I swore we would, tears in my eyes as well, but in my heart I didn’t know for certain.  At 17, how much does a small town girl really honestly know, anyway?  I knew my heart was full and that whatever short time we had spent together was going to be something I would keep close in my memory, but I didn’t have the capacity to envision the future.  It was my first time in this position, loving someone who didn’t live in close physical proximity.

His dad yelled that it was time to go, his mom hushed his dad, telling him to just give Sean a few moments more. Now as an adult I wonder what was going through her mind, his mother; was she worried that her son was setting himself up for heartbreak, did she recognize that even though we were semi-stupid lovesick kids that the feelings were genuine, was she just placating her oldest boy and giving him another minute with a girl she knew he would never see again?

I don’t know.  I really don’t.

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Years later came facebook and multiple opportunities to address unfinished business.  I joined the book of face in 2006, when I went back to college to finish the degree I had started after high school.  Like so many others, I saw facebook as just another short-term fad sort of thing, that it would fade out of popularity and the Next Big Thing would garner social attention.  Oops.

I remember being bored and searching for people I had known over the years; friends from high school, old boyfriends, recent boyfriends, on and on. I hadn’t thought of Sean in years, but his smile popped out of my memories just as easily as if he’d been at my side every day since we were teenagers.  I typed in his name and hit the search key … and his profile was at the top of the list.

It had been more than 30 years but I knew the curve of his face in an instant.  Those same smiling eyes, genuine goodness glittering into a camera.  I must have stared at that profile picture without breathing for a full five minutes.

Did I send a friend request or a breezy, cute little message?  Of course not.  I panicked, closed facebook on the browser and sat back in my chair with my heart pounding and feeling like a kid who had just walked in on her parents having sex. I stared at the screensaver  for I don’t know how long, then shook my head to clear the memories.

I’m definitely not a teenager anymore, but the drama is never far from the surface.