I will always remember the weekend of September 12-14,1987. That weekend was the happiest yet, the saddest weekend of my life. Before that weekend I had experienced one type of loneliness. After those fateful days I would experience a completely different type of loneliness. One of the few things I had thought about before the age of eighteen was loneliness. In fact, I had always seen the benefit of being alone, because I had not been especially enthralled with high school social life. I thought of loneliness as an escape, not something to be feared. All my life I had felt different than everyone else, but I had learned to accept my loneliness. My perspective on loneliness after the age of 18 would, however, change dramatically.
Around March of 1987, I came up with some very deep eccentric theories in philosophy, psychology, and mathematics. My theories and philosophies became who I was and how I acted. With overwhelmed excitement, I tried very hard to tell my friends about my theories. After trying over and over to explain my theories many were still confused and didn’t understand. To make matters worse, I started hating my generation for their immaturity, lack of understanding, and their enjoyment of futile things. I started becoming a stranger to my friends and desired the company of the old and wise instead. All these things and more inspired a great sense of loneliness. My theories were also inconclusive on the question, why we live life. The theories I had been concentrating on for so long had failed to answer my most basic questions, leaving me alone. The loneliness of not knowing why I was alive and what mattered most, hidden from me as if I had to experience it, not learn it.
I remember that fateful night of September 12, 1987 very clearly. I was watching a very interesting movie in the theater. After the movie, I almost compulsively turned to the seat to my right to discuss the movie with my friend and noticed there was no one there. I decided I would give my grandparents a visit, so I drove to their house that was nearby, hoping to find company, but they were gone. I got some of the “world’s best popsicles” from their freezer and sat in a chair in their dimly lighted living room. I thought I would go through life with few understanding me, life’s meaning not found, and desiring but hating my solitude. More than ever I felt the weight of life and the prospect of sitting in the darkness with no one, alone.
As I sat in my grandparent’s house, I heard the door open. Almost to my surprise my dad, a man and his wife walked in the living room. My dad and his friends (a Dr. Ed Lov and his wife Ignav), whom I vaguely remembered, were nearly as surprised to see me as I was them. I did not usually like the company of my father’s friends so I prepared for a quick exit. We introduced ourselves and after talking a while, I attempted to make my exit. I was walking out the door, when I felt something very strange as if fate was holding me back. Dr. Lov asked me to stay a while. My dad had told him that I played the piano. So he asked me to stay and play them something. I relented, and started to play on my grandparents’ baby grand piano, which sat fairly close to the couch where everybody else was sitting. Almost ironically, I started to play the Moonlight Sonata, which is kind of a “lonely” song. After playing this piece, I started to explain what that song meant to me and why I played it. Eventually after talking a while, and almost before I knew it, I started trying to explain my eccentric theories.
It almost seemed to be my last desperate hope, for someone to understand my thoughts and perspective. Almost after each sentence, I felt the need to get up and leave, feeling I was “getting nowhere”, but Dr. Lov didn’t seem to be confused like so many others. In fact, he started adding input and we started to have a wonderful discussion. I didn’t think it would get any better. Then while in deep discussion, practically without my knowledge a girl walked in and sat on the couch.
I figured the girl was Dr. Lov and his wife’s daughter (she was). At the time I put her to be somewhere around 16-18. She was extremely beautiful- way out of my league.
While I was talking I was suddenly interrupted. I almost kept speaking because the voice seemed so quiet. Then she repeated what she said. It was Aras (as I later figured out). The question ran chills up my spine, because of what she asked. She asked about what I was talking about, but the way she asked it seemed like she was on a “similar page” as me. She was, in fact, very much so. Soon we were plunged into discussion. Her parents and my dad left us alone. I hardly noticed. I was nervous and felt unworthy to be in her presence, but I ignored that and continued talking. It seemed like everything in life I was misunderstood on, she understood, and felt very similarly about. There was an explosion of discovery, by the time we finished talking, my theories had expanded in a different light with her additions. Not only that, my theories on the meaning of life had expanded. The meaning of life was not based on logic. Logic and reason proved it. The meaning of life is love, and being together with that one person that understands you the most, and stopping at very little to be with them, besides their own choice.
That night was one of the happiest nights of my life. But that next morning brought sadness, which I believed to be almost beyond reason. I figured out the reason the Lov's were staying at my grandparents house was that they were leaving for New York that Sunday and needed a place to stay.
No sooner had I found happiness and fulfillment, then had it left me the day after. Aras and I exchanged addresses and then she left. We have talked now and then and exchanged letters. Unfortunately, a thousand miles apart, she has a boyfriend. I only hope that someday we will meet again. I pray to God that she will choose to give me her heart because she has already taken mine. I will always remember September 12-14, 1987, as the happiest, yet saddest days of my life. The loneliness of being misunderstood and not knowing the meaning of life was replaced with a different kind of loneliness. The loneliness of not being with the person that took away my other loneliness.
Justin Bancroft ©2009| Home | Selection Page