I have, like everyone, experienced personships that used to be good but turned into something irreparable; ones in which I lost respect for the other or otherwise ended up not liking them; ones which faded away and I’m not sure what happened; ones where I liked them but they decided they didn’t like me enough; or simply that one or the other moved away and it faded out. All those kind of scenarios. I certainly have regrets about particular personships fading out, am sad they didn’t last. But that doesn’t make the entire personship into a negative thing. There are still good experiences I acquired during the times I was in good association with them. I benefitted in certain ways from all of these associations, no matter how they ended, particular to each of these individuals I spent time around. And that’s something I can always carry with me. I can look back and reflect on the positivity of those times and moments. It’s even possible to appreciate those times more, in retrospect, than at the actual moments in time when they were happening (an unfortunate truth).
On the topic of appreciation, there have been multiple times I’ve ended up feeling, in retrospect, like I hadn’t had enough appreciation for a person and the gifts and traits they brought with them when they were still actively in my life. During the actual moments I spent with them, there was a touch of blasé in my state of being. It wasn’t intentional, but I think a product of my very limited experience with authentic connection, a lack of ability to actually integrate my inner self into the moment and harmonize with another person. It’s a sad realization that there was something great about someone that I did not appreciate as I should have or did not give a better effort at connecting with. I may have consciously liked certain things about them but perhaps I wasn’t able to form a more integrated and streamlined feeling of their essence that reached the level of my soul, and it didn’t find its way to being something more meaningful to me as we interacted in real time. And now I miss not having those people and their characteristics around me, that opportunity to connect with them. But as I said, I was still able to experience some degree of positive, enriching, meaningful times with them.
I’ve noticed that I’ve been thinking about some of them these days, ruing their loss. And so I had this idea to write a post dedicated to consciously commemorating the good experiences within certain personships that went sour or just faded out. It will be putting a positive spin on the memories of my lost personships. In this file folder of people lost, there are a couple I ended up just not liking in the end, a couple others in which I played a part in letting them fade away because at the time the association didn’t feel important to me for whatever reason and/or I was too unwell to maintain them, a few that have outright ghosted or rejected me, and a couple personships where we’d still respond if either of us reached out but we are mostly out of each others’ lives and a distance has made it’s way between us.
So then, let’s get to the people of my life past (and perhaps a little present)!
* Rafael, I feel, is one of the most quality people I’ve had the privilege of being friends with. He had the presence and attentiveness to really notice what made a person unique and appreciated them even more because of their quirks. I see him as a model for being present in the reality of one’s personships, being proactive in connecting with others and truly enjoying the good in those personships. He also was not shy to show his appreciation to people. Quite a few times he outright told me that he appreciated me and our time together, that he really liked this or that about me. Additionally he was caring and supportive in the sense that he wanted to make sure he wasn’t imposing on any boundaries and always found ways to go the extra step in being helpful or making little accommodations or just extending nice gestures!
It didn’t take much for you to be content in the moment — you were full of love and life and made your own fun wherever you went, saw something worthwhile in every situation and interaction. It was great how we’d be out and about and you’d see a spot that inspired you to go make some kind of dramatic or fighting pose for a picture 😊 You were always up for little adventures, to seize life and have a ball! I really enjoyed being around you ~ you were pleasant, goofy, open and easy going. I have quite a few good memories from the times when we would hang out. We were both bright eyed and bushy tailed, stepping into the adult waters of life. These were the times of my very first move from my hometown — SoCal to Washington.
The day we spent walking around downtown Seattle is a good memory….I was really present, and felt like I could be myself and really enjoy the experience. We admired the Space Needle, happened upon an Andean street-performing band, and checked out those underground shops, which was a cool, clandestine-feeling shopping experience! Being the unique guy you were, you had interesting activity ideas up your sleeves, like the custom paper mache mask making session you held at your apartment, where we lay down plaster-soaked strips, let them dry and harden to the shapes of our faces and decorated them. The times we went to the pool hall were always fun, playing our amateur billiards games and drinking beer (the only time I ever drank alcohol at that time 😛). I remember your observation that the times I crossed my feet a certain way were when I tended to make my random great shots! You unlocked the code to good pool-playing!
You were pretty selfless and generous. It was so nice how you regularly drove over to my place out in the foresty boonies because I didn’t have a car then. As I was a socially anxious type, you really tried to help me feel at ease and cared about too, since you knew I didn’t feel like anyone really cared about me. You were someone who was quite sensitive to another’s experiences and really absorbed what they had to say. You really made people feel seen and showed that their inner world and what they were trying to express were valuable in that space. I truly feel like you cared without strings attached, which is definitely not a common find.
There was this one really sweet moment after you had dropped me off back at my place and I invited you inside for snacks and chats. As you were about to leave, we were in the doorway and you gave me a really big hug, kissed the top of my head and said you loved me. I was quite surprised by it. It was not romantic in nature because I’d said I wanted to be friends and you respected that. It was simply you being the really genuinely caring guy you were and also that you felt that level of connection with me!
We actually gave each other nicknames early on, and I chose Rafael because it was random, cool-sounding and not a name typically given to someone of your race 😆You really liked it and it turns out that was your favorite Ninja Turtle lol! Then you named me A-9 because it sounded cool and kinda gangster (which I was the complete opposite of…I needed some gangster energy). After that I only called you Rafael, to the point that years later I could not even recall what your actual name was!
We kept in touch over the years and at one point I was visiting potential areas to live in and was up in Portland couch surfing. You drove down to meet with me and we were both really happy to see each other! You gave me one of your pick-me-up-off-the-ground hugs and then turned to my couch sitting host, who was small in stature, and proceeded to do the same to him lol, thanking him for taking good care of me. My goodness, I do enjoy your exuberance and over-the-top-ness. That was an awesome reunion commencement.
* Jay and I had something really nice. Perhaps we were both guarded in our own ways, having a bit of a natural aloof quality to our personalities. We didn’t really expect anything from one another, but had an underlying openness and receptivity. Our energies really worked well together…things were easy between us. Pisces are supposed to have good chemistry with one another, perhaps even more so with the same birthday 😂 that was mind-blowing when we found that out! We really enjoyed one another’s company, the mostly low-key hangouts and conversations. There even came to be an emerging mutual attraction, the possibility of something deeper and typical friend boundaries a little blurred but still, our personship had a kind of light innocent aura. I’d never experienced a personship of this kind before.
I met you at a time in life where I was just beginning to bud into the world, fresh, innocent, full of prospect and inner life, very much immersed in the magical world of Annie, freshly moved to San Francisco. It was a novel, enchanting experience meeting you, spending time with you and experiencing a budding personship with someone whom I definitely felt chemistry and the prospect of authentically connecting more. Our personship had an amorphous quality, though that didn’t take away from how large it felt to me. It was like treading the surface of a big lake with deep colors swirling underneath, ready to manifest in unknown awesome ways…it was there in our texting back and forth every few days, in our irregular meetings when we both found free time from our busy lives, and as the connection and familiarity grew with time. It was that, but at the same time a kind of casual, not super connected level.
The first time we met you rented a Zip car, picked me up at my place, opened the car door for me, and took me to a nice French bistro where we ate fancy cheese and crackers. It was cute how you tried to make a good first impression. I didn’t even know about Zip cars then and on subsequent meetings it was an experience in itself just to pick up a car with you and drop it back off, instead of taking public transport or a cab.
I remember the offbeat ‘auditory experience’ meetup I found that you readily agreed to come with me to. There was not much to say about the meetup, which played a soundtrack mashup with all kinds of sounds, including ambient, nature, and everyday life with some words or phrases intermixed while we reclined with our eyes shut in a dark room. But after we went outside and were walking along the sidewalk you grabbed my hand and we walked hand in hand for a bit — I was pleasantly surprised — and then we dropped into an interesting little place that caught your eye where we shared a dessert…it was dark and cozy with ambient lighting and a little winding staircase inside.
One of my most poignant memories is when we walked around the lake. I was in a really happy mood, being in nature and being with you. There were pathways dappled with the shadows of trees overhead, birds chirping all around us. I spotted a duck family swimming close by while we were on a bridge and I got really excited to see them with all their little baby chicks trailing behind. I ran over and started quacking, to interact with them, and you reacted with something like, “What are you doing?? Don’t do that, you’ll scare them.” But I was just excited and felt like letting loose, being a little dorky and in the moment, while you were genuinely concerned for the ducks’ wellbeing with a crazy human boisterously impinging on their world 😆.
You enjoyed taking drives and we took a few drives at night, once to a peninsula with an amazing view of the San Francisco skyline across the water. Another time we drove to a place with some awesome cliffsides and got out to walk along them — well, it was more like me walking along a cliffside while you held further back, nervous over me being close to the edge — I rejoined you, we walked on a bit more, and at some point you invited me into your arms and we stood there in the dark and the wind, holding each other…it was pretty touching. You had that really sweet sentimental side that came out once in a while. I remember I had a couple moments myself.
After getting to know one another well enough you began inviting me over to your place — that felt big and special each time. The first time I spent the night you got all excited over your idea to sleep in the loft, having never done that before. We brought a mattress up there and hung out and slept up there and it was really fun — a small space with a low ceiling, a little alcove just for us. A couple times I rode the bus over to your place and for some reason that experience really stuck with me — I guess because it was just a happy expectant time, looking forward to meeting with you, and there was time during the travel to just sit and really feel and reflect on the moment — free from work duties, I could relax and be in the moment, and I actually have this special person I get to go see who I’m starting to connect with, who wants to spend time with me, and in his personal space! Like, wow. Those were really happy times. I actually had a couple very realistic dreams of taking a bus to your place many years after we stopped talking, interestingly….although with a haunted element where at some point there was a realization in the back of my mind that I wouldn’t be seeing you or the bus would never arrive… Maybe 4 months into knowing each other you gave me a key to your place in case you’re late sometime or whatever and I was honored by that!
And the times you came over to my place! It had a little bit of an errant air to it…there was an empty room that hadn’t been rented out and when my roommate got home from work we went in there without my asking permission from the landlady. A room to ourselves! Oh, my goodness. I never actually had my own room while living in San Francisco. But ‘lo and behold, there’s an opportunity just a few steps away — what luck, eh? We went in there with my bedding and your laptop and watched movies and cuddled. It was our room lol 😊 Me and my technology lag…I was mildly impressed whenever anyone had their own laptop (in 2012), and even more so, a tablet! (I’d never even had a smartphone or data plan, not to mention laptop, at that point.) A part of me in my magical young adult Annie haze was like, awww he’s sharing these experiences with me on his cool devices. Hilariously, the morning after you left, my roommate, who I believe didn’t have much experience with guys herself, had this surprised and joking reaction over us spending the night in the spare room. The kind of person I was factored into that, because I really was quite innocent-minded, demure, with a somewhat childlike aura. She then said dismissively something like “Well, it’s none of my business what you do in your personal life!” It was just funny and ironic to be seen that way.
The qualities in you that I really liked were your interpersonal presence — how you were very attentive and had this carefulness and intentionality about you, like you were really putting in a good effort, and how that showed the meaning you felt in your interactions. You also had a gentleness about you, and a willingness and ability to adapt to different personalities. You gave me space to express myself, had patience and were overall very accepting. I also appreciated your cool-headed logical mind. I feel there was a certain amount of foundational similarity, actually, between us. There was a bit of an intensity as well, underneath your cool exterior, as you had jealous and possessive tendencies, like when you’d jokingly say, “You are all mine,” which was both endearing and at the same time made me think ‘Woah, easy there now.’
Your nickname for me was Ice Queen, inspired by my freezing hands and feet lol, and also Rani…probably inspired by its similarity to the name Annie, and I came up with Raja for you. Hells bells, I even intentionally kissed you on our last morning before I left San Francisco, you having tried to get a kiss from me throughout the time we’d known each other (around 6 months), and me true to my form, unconsenting. But it did feel right to go for it at that time because I did feel a romantic compatibility with you that might have come to life if I’d stuck around longer. After we said our goodbyes you surprised me with a luxe cab service, a sleek black car with tinted windows to take me back to my apartment. I remember thinking that the driver probably either thought I was well-to-do or in a relationship with a well-to-do person, neither of which were true…I’m just me…not-well-to-do, sweet little Annie 😋. When I climbed out of the car, my dad saw me from the 2nd floor window of my place where he was waiting before driving us away. He said to me, “That was a fancy car you drove up in.” I had told him I was spending the night at my friend Emily’s house (because spending the night at a guy’s house was reprehensible in the Christian culture he was identified with). I told him it was just a regular cab and that’s what some of them look like out here. He probably didn’t buy it…he’s good at putting two and two together lol. I had spent the previous afternoon with some girl friends who wanted to have one more get together and you had requested to see me afterwards one last time, which I most gladly agreed to. As the evening wore on a bit late I got a text from you saying, “Don’t forget about me!” It was really so sweet….it was characteristic of the no-expectations-don’t-want-to-impose vibe but we do have something meaningful going on and I’d really love to be in your company 😊
Now, for some bummer-ese, events happened afterward which resulted in my biggest and most painful interpersonal disaster and loss of connection. But the moments I wrote aboot here are tribute to all that went right. I am glad for them and can look back on that time in good spirits. I hope you can too.
