looking at old ghosts

Its funny, the role people who were once inportant in your life have when they are no longer there. The first guy I ever loved, I mean the kind of all encompassing, would lay down and die for you love, was John F Rambo. (Insert your appropriate jokes here, I've heard it all before.) I met him when I was 19 or so, and we were joined at the hip from then on. He understood and accepted me like no one else ever has, before or since. He was not perfect, with issues with drugs and violence and family issues that do not need to be detailed here. My parents hated him, and he loved me. Its been 20 years or so since we've dated and about 7 since we spoke. Our relationship was tumulous and rocky. We broke up, we got back together, we fought, but all in all, I loved him, and I loved being with him. He came to me in the lowest, darkest part of my life. I had been crushed and betrayed by my family. And then, just like that, he came to pick me up. He was there for me, to listen and support me, when I needed him. We were a month away from getting married when I called it off. To this day, for reasons I don't understand, I woke up one morning, and realized I couldn't go through with it.

I was looking back on him, and our relationship together, and I see now, we never would have worked. He and I lived and wanted different things from our lives. After we broke up, he found his way into the Philly music and Goth scene, something that never would have interested me. I finished college and went on with my life. We were just too young to understand that then.

And yet, the memory of him lives on even now. I still hold a part of him near me, perhaps as an example of what I think a relationship should be. But, what we had was not what should be. I, quite literally, did not exist without him with me. I almost dropped out of college to make him happy. I dyed my hair black (NOT a good look for me, trust me on this) and tried to fit in with his friends. He tried to be what my parents expected. He tried to maintain the facade they wanted to see. I really beleived I belonged with him. I have to wonder now, as I look back, why I loved him. I should not have. Every girl has their bad boy in their history, maybe he was mine. I don't know why I hang onto him, even now, considering how sick our relationship really was. But yet, there he is, my very own memory.

He's dead now. January of 2004 he died in a wreck in Cherry Hill NJ. I knew it almost right away, as my brother happened to see it in the obits. I'd seen him once or twice here and there, but I never thought someone who consumed me that completely sould be turned off just like that.

So here I am, a handful of memories and the distinct longing for something that really never existed in the first place. Maybe I'm just looking for someone who believes in me the way he did. Maybe I just want to find someone who makes me feel like I matter more than any other aspect of his life. I'm not certain that exists, but I know I want more than the recent sad excuses for men in my life have had to offer. Maybe that's what he was supposed to mean in my life, to show me what could be, if the right person comes along.