Madison ended up settling permanently in Eastern Europe. She teaches there now. As often as I fantasized about seeing her again and trying to imagine a future with her, there was none that I could make a reality. We both needed to move on. We had no future that I could make real. I let go.
It’s been a few years since I received an e-mail from Madison. Perhaps thinking about her own need for redemption, that last email was sent on Easter.
The note included one of the kindest things anyone has ever written to me. She knew that I struggled with why she was attracted to me. I kept asking myself, “Why me?” My thoughts were that perhaps I was some kind of loving paternal figure? Rather forcefully, she corrected me, “I was not attracted to because you were older. I was attracted to you, and you happened to be older. That’s all.”
As I read that, the hole in my heart shrank a little, and my need to run to the shadows lessened for a time.
Sometime my mind wonders if we’ll ever cross paths again. Will the desires that first drove us into the shadows ever bring us back together, even years from now? To this day, whenever I make a connection through the Atlanta airport – Madison’s home town – I catch myself thinking of her.
Author’s note: I welcome notes from women about this story, either publicly or via the note option. Chicago440 on the three-lettered chat system that begins and ends with the “k” sound and has an eye in the middle.