Thoughts from Ocean City, Maryland

I don't know exactly what kind of closure I thought visiting ocean City might bring. There was no rush of emotions, although I'm sure I could have worked them up if I tried. Ha ha! That would have been a pointless waste of emotional energy. Instead a took in my surroundings, imagined what it might have been like 45 years ago, and breathed out past yearnings.

Another childhood friend, an earlier love of mine, when he found out we'd eaten dinner at Hooters on the beach (Hey. it was walking distance from our hotel and open when most places were closed...), suggested their crabcakes but I'm not eating crustaceans. His response, "Well there's still pit beef, Thrasher’s fries and Smith Island Cake!!" Gail and I didn't find pit beef or Smith Island Cake this trip, but we did share an order of Thrasher's Fries and they were not only an Ocean City original but fabulous too (with vinegar on top)!

Gail wasn't interested in walking down the old fishing pier or across the sand to the water's edge. It was cold and windy, and she was tired. While she sat on a bench on the boardwalk with her book, I took a walk by myself. I didn't walk all the way out the pier by myself, instead I walked as far as the steps down to the sand and underneath, like I imagined we might have done at 14... 

Had it been warmer I'd have taken my shoes off and put my feet in the water. Had I been more relaxed I'd have sat in the sand and gazed out over the ocean... Instead I picked pieces of shells and pebbles from the line of debris left by the waves and tucked them into my pocket and, just for old times sake, wrote a note in the sand... One like we used to write in the snowbanks along the creek during the winter we spent together in 3rd grade. And then I scuffed it out with my foot.

"The box" is is pretty much packed, the memories, hopes, and wishes tucked inside. The box has a cover but it isn't quite sealed up. I haven't yet found the perfect ribbon with which to tie it shut... but I know that's coming too.

Ocean City 2025

Ocean City, Maryland has been a long awaited destination. I have waited 46 1/2 years to get there.

I was just 14 years old in the fall of 1978 when my father's late-in-the-year, October vacation took us south to Virginia where we went camping near Williamsburg for a week. I'd been asking for months prior, even as far back as summer, "Can we go to Maryland?" I asked over and over and over again, but it wasn't Ocean City on my mind back then... My wish was to find my childhood friend Joey, the boy I'd met in 3rd grade, the one I'd been writing to for five years. I was a young girl in love with a dream.

Part of our vacation took us to the Manassas Battlefield, the Battle of Bull Run, and one day we took a ride to Washington DC where we visited the National Mall, Lincoln Memorial and Smithsonian Institution. It was on that day that my parents drove to the little town of Clinton, Maryland and found the home of my special friend. He wasn't home but his step dad told us where to find him at a little pizza parlor down the road... 

Back at Joey's house our parents visited over coffee while we played board games in the living room and laughed at the antics of our sisters and his dog. We visited twice (I think) and on one of those visits Joey said he wanted to take me to Ocean City. It was one of his favorite places. I'm honestly not sure if he wanted us to come back another time during that trip, or if he was hoping for a whole new visit when the season began anew, but it was not to be. Mom and Dad felt like they had "worn out their welcome" and we headed home with no plan to return.

Joey and I continued to write letters. A few letters one year and a few the next, until James came into my life and my dreams of one day (possibly) being with Joey again faded away forever. It was an impossibly difficult dream to release. My dreams today are obviously no longer the same, but the hope of one day reaching Ocean City never went away. This was one of two pieces to finally completing the process of bringing closure to my childhood love story.

Windows to the Soul

It was just an old family album full of photographs from days long gone and I suppose everyone has a few gawky childhood photos that they would rather not remember. My worst school picture was the one taken in the seventh grade when I was five months shy of my thirteenth birthday. A blemished complexion, long, greasy hair, and the nervous expression of a child entering junior high and puberty at the same time. Perhaps somewhere along the way my mother complied with my wishes to destroy the pictures because I did not run across them last night. Instead I ran across others.

Two high school photos; one taken in the fall of 1979 when I was a sophomore, and the next the following autumn, early in my junior year. It isn't as though I didn't see the swollen eyes previous to last evening. They would have been quite literally impossible to miss, yet last night the contrast between the two images struck me in a new way. I never did drugs in high school. I didn't smoke or drink, yet there in the second photo, all over my face, is pain. Deep, searing, mental and emotional pain... One picture full of hope and expectation, the next apprehension and despair. The hopes and dreams I'd carried for the previous seven years had been dashed to pieces and destroyed forever. I wasn't pregnant yet, but it wouldn't be long. I was caught in the trap of feeling no longer worthy of the one I'd loved since childhood (Joey), desperate to hold onto the one with whom I'd lost my virginity (James), and barely more than a child.

It was the eyes that caught my attention last night. These are the eyes I struggle with today, the upper lids swollen and droopy, hanging like curtains. Thirty years ago allergy injections relieved the swelling and my eyes opened up again, allowing others to once again see into my soul, but time and tears have rendered them perpetually puffy and me searching for a way to relieve the swelling. I'm trying a saline nasal spray along with a nasal steroid in hopes of clearing passages and reducing swelling. I have an appointment for a routine eye exam in another week. I know repressed (or is it suppressed?) emotions can wreak havoc on our bodies, leaving us susceptible to unexplainable chronic pain and disease, but can it also affect our eyes?

Old Boxes

Finally being able to admit and express my grief has been healing. For close to 40 years I felt unable to say my heart was broken at the loss of my childhood friend. It felt like such an admission was tantamount to unfaithfulness (I was accused of that once by one of my own children for simply reading the old letters) and even very early on I was desperately afraid of hurting the guy I'd married, even though my relationship with Joey was no secret from James.

Joey and I shared the fall, winter, and spring of 1972-73. We walked around the block on cold winter days, each asking the other if their feet were cold. (He wore cowboy boots in the snow.) When it was getting dark, and it got dark early, he always walked me home before heading home himself. In the spring we walked some more, and then suddenly he was moving away. I never even met his mother, never went in his house. He had come to mine instead. There are no pictures of us together. Not one.

As a young girl I dreamed Joey into what I wanted him to be. (Isn't that always what we're tempted to do?) But dreams are not reality. Reality is that God gave me a special childhood friend, a box full of letters to cherish, and the incredibly wonderful opportunity to see my friend when we were 14 years old and my family was on vacation in Virginia in the fall of 1978. I was in heaven! (I had my very own football player!!! Number 87.)

Today I'm healing. I honestly am. I've done enough internet stalking (ha ha!) to settle my heart. I am absolutely nothing like the woman Joe married, and I don't find myself attracted to the man I see in pictures. I find it strange, and I am intrigued, even amused, at my lack of attraction. I don't see anything terrible or offensive, I'm simply not drawn to him. He is a complete stranger and yet we are connected by a few months of time and a string of childish letters. (I love it.)

I've dragged taped-shut boxes from place to place for over half my life. Today I'm unpacking those old boxes and letting go. The little box of letters will be forever cherished, but I can stop grieving. It's time to smile at the memories and move on. 

The Little Orange Box With the Dog On Top

It's just a little box.  Slightly larger than a standard letter envelope and maybe an inch tall. I don't remember it's original purpose, only that I asked Mom if I could have it. It was the perfect box in which to keep my little collection of letters. In time I glued a magazine picture of a floppy dog on top to make it look more special. For a good portion of my childhood, and well into my teenage years, it was kept safe in my dresser, tucked into a corner of a drawer. I always knew exactly where it was.

Every so often during my school aged years, a new letter would turn up in the mail box hanging just outside our front door. Mom always seemed just as excited as me. If I happened to be down the street playing, she would call out that a letter had arrived and I would run home as fast as I possibly could. Once the letter had been open, read, and savored, it would be placed into the little box along with the others. By the time the collection was complete there would be a total of fourteen letters received over the course of 8 to 9 years. From 1973 to 1982.

The story started when a new family moved into our neighborhood. The brother and sister rode my bus and the boy was in my grade, but not in my class, The house they lived in with their cousins was down the street and around the corner in a place I often passed but never hung out. It was only when I took my dog for a walk around the block that the little boy's sister asked my name and said, "My brother loves you." Not long after that meeting my mom noticed a little boy walking back and forth, and hanging out in front of our house as if he was looking for someone. "Who's that out there?" she asked and I replied "Oh, that's Joey," and promptly decided to take the dog for another walk.

I've written about Joey a few other times. Our friendship ended abruptly. Almost violently abrupt. There was no chance for me to explain, no undoing what had transpired between letters, only the heartbreaking knowledge that my final letter would wound him deeply and I would never ever hear from him again. A piece of me died when I answered his letter in January of 1982. A piece of me still grieves.  I've let the memories go over and over again, yet our friendship was such an integral part of my childhood that those memories come back time and time again, usually when I least expect them. It's almost as though I am missing something important but don't know what I'm supposed to be finding.

Memories can be painful, even good memories. Every corner of this house holds memories, a whole lifetime of memories. The wall reverberate with them. When the house is still and quiet, and my present family is gone, voices from the past are speaking. Not only are Mom and Dad here, but my sisters, and others as well. I don't literally hear voices, of course, but the past is intensely vivid and I miss those days gone by...

Double Post (Because I Didn't Write Anything Last Night)

Sunday, June 28, 2020

I woke up a little late, took my shower, and logged into Church Online, but partway through I made a last minute change of plans. I hopped in my car and drove to my son's house as quick as possible. I didn't want to miss "Worship in Our Yard." I arrived early, in time to soak in a warm hug from my boy, and visit Numbers 7 and 10 before any other guests arrived. I haven't been to physical "church" since March 8, sixteen weeks. It was the perfect morning, the perfect gathering, and I left perfectly blessed.

It was a lazy afternoon (I even took a short nap on the living room carpet). Mid afternoon I met my friend Chris and we drove out to Canandaigua where we met two more friends for dinner in the Beer Garden at the Rheinblick German Restaurant. So fun and so yummy! Another wonderful weekend.

June 29, 2020

I've found that cleansing (and healing) old wounds can be a detailed process, especially if the original wound isn't dealt with properly. It might even need to be reopened and cleaned again. The "wound" I speak of doesn't ache and bleed like it did years ago. The deep and hidden grief is past, and the raw, throbbing ache hasn't plagued me for a very long time. I can't even recall the last time my heart needed stilling due to the pain. I thought it had healed, yet I've found it helpful in recent years to revisit the wound and drain any remaining debris. (Are you confused yet?)

I've written about Joey a couple of times (here), but the years of battling deep loss are difficult to admit. I grieved his loss silently and alone. How could I admit to the heartbreak inside when I had married James? I couldn't. I had little ones to tend and a guy who needed me to love him. I buried the sorrow over and over again until the sands of time dulled the ache.

Joey was a childhood friend who "loved me" according to his sister, and that is where our relationship began. Our time together couldn't have lasted more than 6 or 8 months while in third grade. He moved here in late fall and moved away before school was over in the spring. He showed up at our door with his cousin and sister one spring day to say goodbye. It was the last time I would see him because he was moving. That could have, and maybe should have, been the end of the story, but even as a child I had an overactive heart. When a letter arrived a few months later, my mother talked to neighbors and hunted down a return address. It was 1973.

James entered my life the summer of 1979. I'd never had a "boyfriend" other than Joey, and Joey still had my heart. Through the years I'd received a handful of letters, a few school pictures, several phone calls, and we had stopped at his house in October of 1978 while we were on vacation to Virginia. This lonely girl couldn't help but be smitten by the handsome football player of her childhood, but there was another boy in town, one whose heart was hurting and I became entangled in another web of hopes and dreams. (Cleaned up story here) Each time my heart returned to the thought patterns of my childhood, I took a few minutes to grieve and then pushed the sadness from my heart and mind. I couldn't live there.

When things unraveled between James and I, I found the need to seek out the little box of letters from the child/teenager of whom I'd once dreamed. It wasn't  re-connection I was looking for, it was closure (again), and I found it, like I had before, reading the letters. I didn't find the boy of my dreams tucked into old envelopes, but a guy with some self-centered tendencies I'd been blind to as a girl.

The internet has the unthinkable way of making what was once totally impossible, possible. It's way too easy to learn a smidgen (or two) about those we once lost track of. My childhood friend appears to have done well in life. He has a beautiful and successful wife, two handsome, now grown children, and an incredibly huge house on the banks of a well known river. I've stared at him in photographs, trying to catch some glimmer of the little boy/teenager I once knew, but the years have taken a toll I know nothing about and he is unrecognizable to me. I wouldn't have given him a second glance had he bumped into me on the street. At least I don't think so. Maybe my subconscious would know something I didn't pick up on with my conscious mind. ?

My friend and his wife live in what looks to me like a mansion. It's for sale. Over $1,600,000.00! A mansion has never been in my plans, especially one with five bedrooms and five bathrooms that all need to be cleaned. (Can anyone really use that many bathrooms?) There may have been days of raising children when I longed for a place to escape, but 7400 square feet seems a little bit overkill. (I have absolutely no clue what my old friend does for a living. Maybe he doesn't work at all... Ha ha!) I'm not glitzy and glamorous. I don't even wear make-up other than mascara. She is the national sales director in a extremely well known company, and has won numerous awards. (What does one person do to win 13 all-expense paid trips and 19 cars?) Oh, my! More than anything I am amused. I genuinely hope and pray they are truly happy.

Maybe all those years ago my mom thought our puppy love friendship was cute, but in reality she had no idea how deeply I would entangle my heart in future hopes and dreams. I'm sure she thought the relationship would slowly fade away and become nothing more than a sweet childhood memory. Maybe it finally has...

You Can't Make Old Friends

Tommy- Tommy was our neighbor and lived kitty-corner behind our house. We made friends through the board fence that separated our back yards. I think we were three. I remember talking to him through the fence and he was allowed to climb over, or crawl under and join me on my swing set. One day Tommy and his family moved away. I never saw him again and all I have of this memory are a few slide pictures.

Al- Summer of 1969. I was five years old when Al's family moved in down the street. Since I was allowed to ride my tricycle on the side of the quiet neighborhood street, I went out to meet these new friends. Al and I would spend many days that summer "baking" mud pies (To this day he claims they were the best ever!) We picked flowers, and rode tricycles in his back yard. When September came, my new friend and I shared a bus stop and a kindergarten class, while our mothers shared coffee and conversation. After second grade he moved away to Canada before returning two years later. He says we're still best friends.


Joey- I was eight years old and out walking the family dog when I met a brown haired girl who asked my name. When I answered, she replied, "My brother loves you." Thus began the story of Martha and Joey. Joey and I spent the fall and winter playing outside at the playground, the edge of our woods, and walking to and from his house. On cold winter days we walked the ice of the frozen creek and wrote "Joey+Martha" in the snowy banks. In the spring we caught garter snakes, played with his little sister., and then he moved away too. I missed him terribly.

One day a letter without a return address arrived in the mail. My mother searched out an address from one of the neighbors and a long distance relationship began. I was nine and he was eight and a half. There were letters ( a few), and an occasional phone call, for the next eight years. I saw him twice during our family vacation south in October of 1978. He played football for his high school and I was smitten once again. Ah, childhood sweethearts/teenage love... (I have no photos of us together, just a last winter's picture of the creek we walked as third graders.)

Chip- It was the summer of 1979 when I met Al's cousin Chip. Someone new and exciting in the neighborhood for the summer. We played Hide and Go Seek in the corn field, Frisbee in the street, and rode double on my bike all the way to the village. My parents would eventually become his legal guardians and by early 1981, I was pregnant with our first child. We were seventeen. In June we were married and soon after moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico with the help of his older sister. By December we were back in NY state with our 2 1/2  month old son. In January the long awaited but dreaded letter from Joey arrived. (Did I say they were few and far between?) I wrote back knowing I would never hear from him again. I grieved the loss for years, but the relationship had always been more dreams and fantasy rather than reality Eventually I tucked all those dreams into a little orange box along with his letters, and covered it with a white top with a puppy dog glued on top, and left it in my childhood. Chip went back to his given name of James and we went on to build a life together, including our seven beautiful children, and ten (soon to be eleven) grandchildren.

It's been a good life with hard moments. I'm thankful that God is still here guiding me, teaching me, holding my hand, and carrying me when I can't go on. He is good and He knows all.

You Can't Make Old Friends

As I wandered the leaf strewn strip of woods by my childhood home yesterday, I reflected on the people and places that were a part of my early life. I literally spent hours in that little corner of trees and brush during my pre and early adolescence, along with scores of neighborhood children. The "dead end" was our favorite spot.

As a nine or ten year old I once went to the woods with a friend. There was a swampy spot not too far in where we caught polliwogs one year, and in the middle of this gigantic puddle was a bit of higher ground where a large tree grew. From the tree hung a thick vine. Being at the slightly daring age, I decided to swing across the small bit of water separating the tree's island from the rest of the world. It was okay but not very daring and so I got the notion to swing out over the larger puddle. Of course, as luck would have it, the vine snapped and I was deposited directly into the muddy puddle on my backside. The walk home was rather humiliating, although I don't recall anyone but a friend being present, and I was not fearful of my mother's reaction as she was most forgiving in times of embarrassment.

My first "boyfriend" was in third grade and his name was Joey. In the spring of 1973 we were playing at the edge of the woods when we accidentally discovered a nest of garter snakes. We returned multiple times on various days to Garter Snake Hill to catch a snake or two, carry them about and chase the older girls just to hear them scream.

Yesterday I stared up at trees that surely watched my friends and I play in their shelter 40-45 years ago. Some of them are now fallen heroes and some bear the scars of knife wounds where our jackknives carved initials in their tender bark. Here and there a rotted out stump was the only reminder of old growth, and the "crick" that Mom helped me cross on our way to visit friends, buried years ago in culverts underground, is long forgotten.

I I turned back toward "home" and rounded the corner, another couple of friends smiled down on me. They are old and ugly eye sores to many, and have long outlived their usefulness, but the Webster water tanks have been a landmark from the time I could focus my newborn eyes to peer out the living room window of my childhood home. One day one or the other of them be gone and I will miss them too.