It felt like spring had sprung as I quizzically looked around at people who were bundled up as if they were expecting a reenactment of the great blizzard of 1963 that had covered Maine with several feet of snow. My mother explained how once I became acclimatized that I, too would find anything under 50 degrees as being cold. I laughed at that thought and still to this day as I reach for a sweater when my arms feel chilly, my mind drifts back to the time when December in Northwest Florida felt much like an early summer day in Maine to me.The overall culture shock I felt faded somewhat in time as I acclimated to my new surroundings. The accents, the general lifestyle and the attitudes all became understandable as soon as I allowed the osmosis to begin. In the last 40 something years I’ve become the epitome of when North meets South. I keep my New England heritage close at hand often wearing it as a badge of honor, yet I also embrace the easy going ways the South has helped me incorporate into my persona.
As soon as I arrived home from the airport that first evening, I was greeted with a telephone call from Bruce. I was elated to hear his voice and quickly shared how different Florida was from Maine and how I was looking forward to sharing this whole experience with him. Bruce and I talked several times a week and wrote letters to each other everyday. Often times I would get more than one letter a day. Each letter was filled with words of love that I savored by reading over and over again in the privacy of my very own room. Having my own room seemed like a dream come true. I had almost forgotten what little things like privacy felt like. Often times, I would read Bruce's words as I would imagine him softly touching me. The union between mind and sight is a powerful combination especially when a person’s heart is thrown into the mix. It wasn't anything sexual in nature. It was soothing and made my heart steady and sure. If a heart can smile then mine smiled on a daily basis. It felt great being happy!
As soon as I arrived home from the airport that first evening, I was greeted with a telephone call from Bruce. I was elated to hear his voice and quickly shared how different Florida was from Maine and how I was looking forward to sharing this whole experience with him. Bruce and I talked several times a week and wrote letters to each other everyday. Often times I would get more than one letter a day. Each letter was filled with words of love that I savored by reading over and over again in the privacy of my very own room. Having my own room seemed like a dream come true. I had almost forgotten what little things like privacy felt like. Often times, I would read Bruce's words as I would imagine him softly touching me. The union between mind and sight is a powerful combination especially when a person’s heart is thrown into the mix. It wasn't anything sexual in nature. It was soothing and made my heart steady and sure. If a heart can smile then mine smiled on a daily basis. It felt great being happy!
Mike Morra and others also wrote to me, but Mike wrote to me almost everyday for almost a year until we both faded into obscurity. We developed a close friendship filled with mutual support. Mike and I role played in our words to each and became two characters we had created that were a mixture of all the icons of that era. He was my “pig brother” a male who much like Reagan in The Exorcist was demon possessed and prone to spewing rants about a whole host of topics. Mike had a soft side also and one I totally adored. He became the brother I wish my three had been to me at the time. Our chemistry was one of an entertaining spunk mixed with overtones of vulnerability and honesty.
My relationship with Charlene picked up where it had left off when she left many months before me. We talked on the phone often and wrote to each other. She had met a guy, had fallen in love and was planning to get married. She had asked me to be her maid of honor. Like typical girls, we had plenty to discuss as she planned her wedding. When I told her about Bruce, she was blown away and elated that I, too had found love. We talked about the future and looked forward to having a close friendship for the duration of our lives. We dreamed about having a normal life filled with a terrific family and living in a houses with the proverbial white picket fence. We laughed about us being normal. Our kids would grow up playing together and Charlene and I would grow old together sharing our most intimate secrets along the way. We were both so sure that's just how it would happen.
Soon after arriving in Florida and starting my new life, I knew I needed to tie up some loose ends from my years of running foot loose and fancy free. I enrolled in a local adult high school program offered at Pensacola Junior College to obtain my diploma so I could eventually go to college. I started classes with enthusiasm and the best intentions (yes, Dean I hear you!), but soon found that everywhere I went drugs were so much a part of life and that coping with their existence wasn’t as easy as I had imagined it would be. Daily I was offered drugs from my classmates. Without a strong local support system, I decided to forego getting a diploma and take the test to get my GED instead. I avoided talking to Bruce about feeling outnumbered and tempted to get high. I thought he’d be disappointed in me and worry that I might cave in and get high.
My relationship with Charlene picked up where it had left off when she left many months before me. We talked on the phone often and wrote to each other. She had met a guy, had fallen in love and was planning to get married. She had asked me to be her maid of honor. Like typical girls, we had plenty to discuss as she planned her wedding. When I told her about Bruce, she was blown away and elated that I, too had found love. We talked about the future and looked forward to having a close friendship for the duration of our lives. We dreamed about having a normal life filled with a terrific family and living in a houses with the proverbial white picket fence. We laughed about us being normal. Our kids would grow up playing together and Charlene and I would grow old together sharing our most intimate secrets along the way. We were both so sure that's just how it would happen.
Soon after arriving in Florida and starting my new life, I knew I needed to tie up some loose ends from my years of running foot loose and fancy free. I enrolled in a local adult high school program offered at Pensacola Junior College to obtain my diploma so I could eventually go to college. I started classes with enthusiasm and the best intentions (yes, Dean I hear you!), but soon found that everywhere I went drugs were so much a part of life and that coping with their existence wasn’t as easy as I had imagined it would be. Daily I was offered drugs from my classmates. Without a strong local support system, I decided to forego getting a diploma and take the test to get my GED instead. I avoided talking to Bruce about feeling outnumbered and tempted to get high. I thought he’d be disappointed in me and worry that I might cave in and get high.
Kinsman Hall hadn’t prepared me for the realities I was now facing and I felt awkward and uncomfortable in blemishing our perfect relationship with the harsh, ugly realities of life. I did talk to Charlene about my dilemma and was somewhat surprised when she confessed to me that she was using drugs again. I begged her to be careful after learning she was using methadone along with other drugs and was probably strung out again. I wondered just how many people who left Kinsman Hall fell so easily into old bad behavior and resumed their old ways. Those thoughts made me even more fearful that drugs would once again touch my life and suck it dry. I was honestly scared.
Not long after coming to Pensacola, my grandfather had a stroke and my mother and stepfather returned to Maine to help my grandmother with him. Since they didn't want to leave me stranded here in Pensacola while they were gone back to Maine because I didn't know anyone here and I hadn't learned how to drive yet, I went to Key West to stay with my step sister and her family while they were gone. That was the beginning of the end for me.
On my way to Key West I stopped in Miami to visit, Rick and Lucille. At first I thought it might be awkward seeing and being around anyone I had known previously from Kinsman Hall, but it wasn't at all uncomfortable for any of us. I mentally noted noted at 5pm, the surrounding area in which Rick lived smelled liked garlic and I was on sensory overload. My mouth watered. My eyes watered and my stomach started growling The smell of garlic and the overpowering smell of coffee from the football stadium close by made me know nothing was wrong with my nose. I also noticed that the Spanish speaking people often times seemed to speak rapidly and unusually loud especially at the beach. As I watched many groups of people on the beach, so many of them appeared to be arguing and I never understood why. Rick and Lucille laughed at my fascination with Spanish people and at all my observations. For them, it was nothing out of the ordinary since it was something to which they were accustomed. For me, it was a whole new experience and I wanted to drink as much of it in as I could. I would have been blissfully happy remaining on Miami Beach all day soaking in both culture and sun, but I had a bus to catch.
I was still in Key West the day Bruce called me to tell me Charlene had died. It seemed like what he was telling me just couldn't be real. I heard his voice. I heard what he was saying. I heard the words, but somehow he had to be wrong. Somehow he had to have gotten the story wrong. It must have been someone else who had died. I sat there speechless. I couldn't move. What was I going to do? I was so far away and she was supposed to get married in a few weeks. OMG! For the longest time I couldn't speak and it took me years before I could even shed a tear because I knew if I started crying I wouldn't be able to stop. It felt like someone had reached in my chest and ripped out heart.
It wasn't long after Charlene's death when Bruce confessed he too had started using again. I was numb. I had nowhere to go, no one to talk to and no place to hide. I so desperately needed someone. Anyone! Every fiber of my being hurt. If I had been able to curl up into a small, tight ball and roll away it would have made me happy. I knew as soon as Bruce told me he using shooting dope that things between he and I were over even though he didn't say that. I saw the writing on the wall. I didn't need the actual exit scene to know what comes next. Whenever we talked after that it was from behind my wall and the wall grew thicker each time we talked. I had decided to go back to Maine to my hometown for the summer to see my brothers and friends. Bruce didn't like that idea and frankly, I didn't care. I knew that seeing my friends wasn't the wisest idea, but at this point that didn't really matter to me anymore. I just needed to do something...anything would suffice!
By the time I left Maine in August and headed back South, I was convinced Kinsman Hall had been a wasteful way to spend two years. Yes, I too had gotten high. Bruce had called several times and tried to convince me to come to New York so we could work things out, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. I kept expecting him to show up on my brother's doorstep to whisk me away, but that didn't happen either. Nothing happened other than the fact that we went on with our own separate lives without each other.