Back to 1977

This journal is in turn hilarious and heartbreaking. I wish I could do that year all over again.

Among the mulligans:

I would let my boyfriend go instead of making him feel guilty for dumping me at the altar. I would have asked him to explain in great detail what being gay meant, and I would have tried my best to understand. I would have encouraged him to be as honest with the rest of his family as he was with me, even if it meant his grandmother would cut off his trust fund. I am glad he and I stayed friends. I am really really glad of that. I am glad I was with him right before he died.

I would have kept my other best friend from dating her teacher. (I have had two friends who dated teachers, and this has never worked out well. One of my friends became a teacher and dated one of her students from a college class. This is just WRONG. I'm glad that I intuited this back in 1977).

I would have learned to drive sooner and saved myself some embarrassing phone calls when my friends were drunk.

I would never have gone out with one guy to make another jealous. (That has never worked in the history of dating, and I have tried my best to instill this in my children).

If I had known that my perfect match was coming along in 1986, I could have waited 9 more years. I have had 6 boyfriends in my life, and I could have easily skipped numbers 3 through 5, if I'd known number 6 would be Harvey.

I wish I'd gotten a PhD when I was in my twenties. Well, I did but it was Pamela-Harvey-Daniel instead of a doctorate.

I wish I could do last year all over again. I was a good, good wife, but I wish I'd told Harvey more often how much I loved him for showing up every day and doing the hard work of being married, of loving the kids and me. I wish that I'd listened to him more when he told me to take it easy and not worry, because things could be so much worse. (And they are so much worse now). I wish that he'd known how many many people loved him and how many students still e-mail me, 8 months later, about what a good teacher he was. And I wish that I'd loved him, if not better, then more often. I wish I'd sent him to Italy without me, instead of saving the money for both of us to go for our 25th anniversary--a honeymoon we never had. (I had to use this money to pay for his funeral, and I deeply regret that he didn't know I had Venice planned). I wished I'd cooked him pasta a la mara every time he wanted it. I wish my calamari had been better. I wish I'd brought him coffee in bed every damned morning, instead of him bringing it to me.

I am glad that I never tried to make him jealous. (Lesson learned). I am glad that I showed up at the courthouse one Wednesday morning and married him, without any fanfare. (Another lesson learned). I am glad that I told him that he was exactly what I wanted, the very last time we talked, and I am glad that he knew that I loved him with all my Grinch-sized heart. I am glad that the very last time we made love, right before I left for Sewanee, he laughed out loud with the joy of it, and that's a wonderful way to remember him.

And remember him I do.

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