TheBanyanTree: Love Letters

[Margaret R. Kramer]

I finally managed to get a little bit of time to begin cleaning out our
bedroom closet.  It was like  opening a time travel ship and zooming back
into the past.

I found a beautiful navy blue formal gown that I bought 28 years ago and it
fits me!!!!!  Losing weight is like going back into the past and being young
again instead of an old fatty-fatty two by four.  I’m going to bring this
gown with me on our cruise for one of the formal nights.

Since I’m smaller again, I set aside my “fat” clothes to donate.  It’s nice
to be able to fit into my small clothes and not have to donate them.

Then I opened up my old file cabinet and found piles and piles of printed
emails going back to 1995 when we first went online with good old AOL.
Remember those days?  That’s when AOL charged by the minute or something
instead of a flat monthly rate.  I remember having a $116 charge from AOL
because I was online so much.  I used to write my email offline and then
dial in and send it to avoid being charged per minute.  And AOL was down
every morning for upgrades.  Gosh, that seems like the age of dinosaurs to
me now.  The internet has changed so much in the last 10 years.

The piles and piles of email were from my first online lover.  We wrote
several times a day.  We did online chats.  We got an 800 number so we could
call each other without being charged astronomically for it.  We did
actually meet twice.  Once in his hometown and the other time we met in
Philadelphia and drove to the Reform Party convention in 1996.  Remember
Ross Perot?  We also toured Gettysburg during that trip.  It was heaven to
sleep and bathe and be with him every second.  Talk about a teenaged love at
the age of 40.

But we weren’t meant to be.  He was married and I was married and he wasn’t
going to leave his wife for anything.  After our meetings it was up and down
and finally we just stopped.  We just started emailing again at Christmas.
This time I don’t keep the email.  They’re only about day to day things and
nothing about love and sex.  I’m going to be in his hometown for my job
later this month and we’re going to get together for lunch ONLY.  My son
said, “Don’t cheat on Ray,” and I’m not.  Ever.  Not even for my middle age
crush.  But it will be fun to see him again.

The other pile of email was from Ray.  I answered a penpal ad of his on AOL
and off we went.  It wasn’t love at first sight for me, because I thought he
was disgusting – sex, sex, sex.  But we met three times in person and then
he decided to leave his wife and I ditched my husband, and he came here to
St. Paul and we’ve been together for seven extremely happy years.  We fit
each other like a hand and glove.  We move in the same direction and we are
on the same page.  Every day that I wake up and see him sleeping next to me
is a pure joy.

So my big crush moved into a little crush who turned out to be the love I
looked for all my life.  It’s amazing what’s found in a bedroom closet, isn’
t it?

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
Be a star!

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

We loved with a love that was more than love.
--Edgar Allan Poe