The strangest things occur to one.

I felt compelled to contact my first ex-fiancee (oh, what a heartbreaker I am) - who I broke up with, so sweetly, the weekend before Valentine's Day, 1989, in Union Square. Anyhoo....haven't spoken to him since January 1990 (another story for another day, believe me) - I may have had a letter or two after that - and thru the magic of the Internet, I've managed to track him around over the years. Never contacted him (G always found that super-weird of me). Never felt the need, or the desire to make this guy feel bad, or to dredge up a long-gone past.

But, I don't know....I knew he lived in Alabama, although not coastal, I thought, maybe his wife's family, or his own, had relatives down there (his family as far as I knew were still in SC)....I knew he used to live in NO...I'm sure his students (he's a professor) were affected, I don't know. I felt like I had to check in, somehow.

Talk about awkward. I don't know how or why I did it, but again...I just felt...I don't know. And I'm sure he was baffled, to say the least. I don't know what to expect. I'm sure my college buddies would be stunned.

Sometimes you get the urge to do stuff like this. Maybe it's a mortality thing?

It just occurred to me, he's probably located this by now. I'd originally intended to print the correspondence; out of respect, I don't think I will. Wary, curious, pleasant, not necessarily in that order, would be how I would describe it. He's married with children now.

We were almost married, once. Almost half a lifetime ago. Engaged when I was nineteen, a tiny diamond I proudly showed off at the MSE Library at JHU (I had to go to work, you see, after our little excursion to the mall led to our picking it out, and he getting driven to the mall with his friends to pick it up, then he had to go to work)

He did the bended-knee thing on C-level, the Science Periodicals section where I worked.

The mall excursion was fun, White Marsh, I believe, where the "Metro" ran to...one of the jewelry stores was having a party and we slugged some champagne with the drunk-ass staff. We bought the ring elsewhere, at Littman. Had to get it sized, for my big piano-playing hands.

We didn't have a particular plan. But my god, things are coming back to me clear as day.

I read Bride's magazine from time to time and picked out a shocking red Mexican wedding dress.

My friends making fun of Brides magazine with me.

Thought about getting married on campus.

I did give the ring back. The story of that weekend, and the subsequent days, in my apartment, is a long one. The previous days, too.

I seriously, seriously haven't thought about this in years, much less gotten choked up, emotional about it.

Yes, I'm human. Terribly human, after all.

The strangest things occur to one.