I remember

The way we met was so random. I had rear ended another car with my orange VW beetle and instead of anger, the guy could see the sadness that had clouded my driving and took the time to talk with me on the side of the road. At some point, I said I was a singer and he invited me to come with him to a recording studio that night where a friend of his was looking for someone to sing backup harmony.

I remember walking into his home and seeing you and thinking "I'm going to marry him." And suddenly the night went from a date with a man I rear ended to love at first sight with his friend. I remember the fun we had that night even if I don't remember the song. I remember that the name of the wife of the recording engineer had been Deborah, but she'd hated it and changed to something else. I remember being unable to stop looking at you. I spent the whole night wanting to learn all about the shy guy with the sweet smile that lit up his face.

You were so wonderful, gentle and kind and l loved everything about you. I loved being your girlfriend.

I remember how my sad we both were when you moved to the Bay Area to live with your father and work at his soda pop bottling plant. I remember the promise you made to come back for me. I remember the day you returned with your father's truck and took me away from the horrible things that happened to me after you left. I remember telling everyone you were my knight in shining armor who came and rescued me. I remember the driving through the orange groves that became silicon valley and living with you in a room at your father's house. I  being I remember your step mother cooking a thanksgiving turkey she'd had frozen with all the other's she'd won in golf tournaments and how that Christmas she gave us coffee mugs and beach towels she'd found on sale. I remember how fascinated I was watching the returned soda bottles as they rode the the track to be stripped of their labels, rinsed with steaming water then moving on to be filled again with honey and cream sodas and the day you got hurt working there.

I remember our first apartment and getting married in a forest and sitting in the sun by the swimming pool reading books by Phillip K. Dick. I remember sitting in my car with you watching fireworks when I suddenly realized my grandmother, Georgia had passed because her spirit moved through me. I remember the tiny brown kitten we found outside our apartment that I named Georgia and the girl who came to our door needing help and asking to use our phone who stole my wallet. I remember all the nights you would play guitar while we sang harmonies to old songs by the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly and Linda Ronstadt. I remember us waking up to find we were making love. I remember the recording studio you helped Jack build in his garage, and the bigger recording studio you built in the warehouse and recording my song "Don't you be blue" with Patty and Michael. I remember Jack killing himself in the apartment he'd built for himself above the studio because he believed he was supposed to die after a psychic had told him that when he did he would meet up with the love of his life when they were both reborn.. I remember holding up our open hands to let his course cremations fly with the wind over his favorite spot to watch the sunset.

I remember next recording studio and how much I loved singing in the soundproof room - feeling the beat of the drums and guitar you'd played and recorded and mixed down because there were only so many tracks and you had to make the most of them. I remember how talented a recording engineer you were and resenting all the late nights you spent recording musicians who had no money to pay you.

I remember all the trips we took together. I remember the Bucket of Blood saloon in Virginia City and stopping to look at the beautiful golden rolling foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. I remember spending the night parked on the street in affluent Santa Barbara in our VW camper van and listening all night for the police to knock on the windows to tell us to move and how we laughed the next morning that we'd gotten away with it. I remember our jokes about the walk-away tacos vendors on the streets of Tijuana and roaming through endless tourist stores that all sold the same rough Mexican rugs and colorful straw hats. I remember stopping at Moon Lake and driving through fern filled forests and the freezing rocky beach. I remember the trip to Victoria where we could not visit the gardens because of the thick fog and rain. I remember the cockroaches in the motel room in Maui and watching the wind surfers as we walked down the beach.

I remember the night we performed our songs in a makeshift band and the Hawaiian shirts we wore. I remember comedy at the Cellar every Friday night. I remember the Toons and being invited to come up from the audience and sing harmony to John's song "Where are you tonight." I remember all the friends we made and the dinner parties and how everyone loved us as a couple. I remember so much more that I could write and write for hours and still have more to write.

I remember the therapy I finally got for my depression and how it didn't help because no one realized I was bi-polar. I remember all the secrets I kept from you because I could not control my sexual impulsiveness. I remember finally leaving you. I told everyone it was because I was tired of being the only one of us making money, because I could not admit the truth. I did not leave you because I did not love you anymore, I left because I couldn't hold the overwhelming guilt and remorse of what I could not tell you I'd done. I left because you were my best friend and I'd betrayed you and I could not tell you. Somehow it seemed better at the time that leaving for the reason I gave would hurt you less than telling you the truth but realizing too late that did not matter because it was the leaving you that broke your heart.

I remember how you found another love and had the children I was not ready to have with you. I remember I lost our friends and our music and our trips and my best friend - you- but you never stopped calling me over 34 years since we broke up just to hear how I was doing, You were the first person I called when my husband of last 20 years broke my heart for the final time and I was leaving him. He'd been unfaithful to me over and over. I always found out, I called you, because I finally understood how it felt to be betrayed. Maybe I stayed with him for so long because somehow I felt I deserved what he did because for all the times I cheated on you and the husband I married after you.

I'm telling you now what I couldn't tell you then - that I'm sorry. I don't believe that there is only one person in anyone's life that they will fall in love with, but you were my first real love,

I will always remember you.

I share here what other lonely women share on Facebook...

I spent a year stuck in a life that had ended, forced to be a silent witness as my husband and the woman who had been his mistress went into public hand in hand while I spent nights sitting beside my mother in the final months of her life.

As time passed, some days I was so happy I could not stop smiling. Other days I wondered if I would ever smile again. Some nights I was giddy as I texted with friends or emailed back and forth with long lost loves. Some nights I cried so hard I couldn't breathe, then wonder why I kept breathing at all. In any other time in my life, my bi-polar medication was enough to keep me happy and normal, but they were barely enough when there was so much outside of me that was out of control.

I had a "team" who cared for me, but I could only bring myself talk to them when I felt "ok." When I was so sad there seemed to be no future, I didn't call. I didn't text. I did not want them to feel what I was feeling, I closed myself in my room and wished I was stronger, braver, younger, prettier, worthy. I wished for someone, anyone, to come and fill up the empty void in me where I used to feel loved. I didn't call because he had convinced me that I somehow deserved this. I didn't call because I was afraid he would hear and somehow it would all be worse than it already was I didn't call because I was ashamed. I didn't call because this is the life I had chosen and the path I put myself on and there was nothing that could do to reverse time and start over.

I share here, where my friends can't see, what other lonely women post on Facebook: "I just wish there was someone who could hold me and tell me it will be alright"  Links to videos on grief, depression, loneliness... they send out their cries for help that are buried almost as fast as they post by all the other posts and videos and photos and "take this test to see if you...."  The lonely women post and post and post, reaching out to a world that does not see them past their words on a timeline - if they see them at all. And if they are seen, their Facebook friends comment "You can always call me!" "We are there for you!" "You are the strongest woman I know!" "Hugs" "We love you!"

And here, in my little one women world of "what I would have said" and cryptic messages to people who will never read them - I know I am really only writing for myself,