Former Lovers (and Near Lovers):

I was insincere, or at least a bit too emotional, when I wrote previously about former lovers.  They occupy a strange place in my mind.  And for clarity, they're not all former lovers; they're former "intimates," some of whom I had relations with that were never physically manifested, though I am sure that these were intimate relations nevertheless.  Anyway, the point.  The point is that getting sober, or getting older and getting sober, had for a long time possessed me by cycling back intense and crystal clear memories, memories that I felt, at least, were sharp and accurate and intensely vivid, so much so that they sucked me from my present state and overcame me at times, entrancing as they were--to relive the past without reliving the past.  To examine all angles of a series of events without having the weight of decision-making in real time.

Except.  Except that I never had these types of reshuffling snapshot live-feeds into the past when with any lovers/former lovers/intimates.  And so you see that this group of relatively select people, people who I felt a vulnerability I cannot try to write, except to say that I ceased to feel a separation vis-a-vis my body and the world and the other person, such was our connection, also happens to be the same people I cannot access in my new found sobriety.  And I look back at those times now with a fresh layer of nostalgia for the child-like innocence that those times represent, and also, I wonder: why don't I cycle through these memories as well?  What is it about incredibly close compatriots that keeps me separate from them now?  Why can't I taste at least the memory of their sweet elixir, and at least get my shit straight about our interactions?

I can force myself to remember the objective specifics, but it is not the same.

Odd phenomenon, I thought, or didn't think.  And this was really want I mean to detail in the previous post.  And instead of actually working to describe it (yes, it is work), I simply did what came much easier (and resulted in a much cheaper post, though it still stings to get a rebuke in the comments like that--almost like a former lover scorned that he/she is not remembered appropriately).

To be clear: it isn't as if I don't remember these people.  I can tell you about all of our interactions.  I can tell you where we went, how we went, what we talked about, generally, etc.  It is more about the energy or mood of our interactions.  I don't think it means that I have forgotten.  I have a sneaking suspicion that it is more about my own inability to {insert appropriate verb here},.