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Sunday, 9 February 2020 06:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaffy_rTime Is Too Much With Us
I just found myself in tears as I listened to an album, one I first listened to in 1975, in Charlottetown, PEI, as a freshly minted reporter at the fine old age of 19-going-on-20. I listened to it with Janet Sears, one of my newsroom colleagues, and one of my closest friends at the time. She was a sweet-faced, wryly funny woman of character, toughness and complete goodness. We were dealing with heartbreak, but we were dealing with it together, and she helped me with her laughter. I hope I helped her, as well. She died of ovarian/cervical in the late 1990s, and I miss her.
I didn't mean to cry. But yesterday, my brother called me and told me that Joei Stevens, my first boyfriend, my first love, the boy whose virginity I took (and he mine), died last week.
I saw him again, a few years ago, and it wasn't a bad conversation. He'd been a theater major when we met - my mother worried about the fact that I was 16 and he 21, but she had him over for dinner, and decided he was a good boy.
He was.
The world was a little too much for him; he was an anomaly in his farming/fishing family. They loved him, but didn't understand him. He ended up becoming a librarian, and I think he liked that a great deal, but I think he might have faintly regretted, or more than faintly regretted, not having stayed in his theater world. He never, as far as I know, had another serious relationship after me. He lived alone. I am glad to hear from Mac that he had friends who visited him for the very short time he was in hospital (something like a day).
But he's gone, too.
And last week, I learned about Maggie.
I know it's what happens at my age.
But listening to that album unexpectedly kicked me in the teeth.
I just found myself in tears as I listened to an album, one I first listened to in 1975, in Charlottetown, PEI, as a freshly minted reporter at the fine old age of 19-going-on-20. I listened to it with Janet Sears, one of my newsroom colleagues, and one of my closest friends at the time. She was a sweet-faced, wryly funny woman of character, toughness and complete goodness. We were dealing with heartbreak, but we were dealing with it together, and she helped me with her laughter. I hope I helped her, as well. She died of ovarian/cervical in the late 1990s, and I miss her.
I didn't mean to cry. But yesterday, my brother called me and told me that Joei Stevens, my first boyfriend, my first love, the boy whose virginity I took (and he mine), died last week.
I saw him again, a few years ago, and it wasn't a bad conversation. He'd been a theater major when we met - my mother worried about the fact that I was 16 and he 21, but she had him over for dinner, and decided he was a good boy.
He was.
The world was a little too much for him; he was an anomaly in his farming/fishing family. They loved him, but didn't understand him. He ended up becoming a librarian, and I think he liked that a great deal, but I think he might have faintly regretted, or more than faintly regretted, not having stayed in his theater world. He never, as far as I know, had another serious relationship after me. He lived alone. I am glad to hear from Mac that he had friends who visited him for the very short time he was in hospital (something like a day).
But he's gone, too.
And last week, I learned about Maggie.
I know it's what happens at my age.
But listening to that album unexpectedly kicked me in the teeth.
