A Conversaton with Elizabeth
1998
The Past

From:          larry.m.mixson@bvs.com
Date:          Tue, 24 Feb 1998 14:10:31 -0800
To:            Elizabeth
Subject:       Re: the past
 
I did not believe I was getting "touchy" about relationships in my discussion, but perhaps it may have come across this way. It is a drawback of the communication medium that does not convey as much as speaking in person. There is a list of dozens "emotioncons" :-) that many people use in the email to add some emotion to what they have written. I have found them awkward and thus seldom use them.

I know what you mean about time alone. I find that both Julie (my wife) and myself need both activities to do together and time alone. Julie several times a year will take 3 or four day retreats to the mountains or visit her parents (now only her father) alone. Her being gone also gives me time alone and I have several activities I do without her, e.g. going camping with the Boy Scouts. On the other hand to stay connected we need to do some activities together, hiking, getting away a weekend together, going to garden show, taking courses at the Smithsonian, Yoga class. We also tend to have separate friends that we spend time with. I try to be careful about the "I" and the "we" but I am sure that I don't always use the right term.

You are probably right about the triangles. Julie in her MSW studies and work often mentions the "triangles" and what they mean. I guess that I was thinking from geometrical view that there is a line between you-me and me-Julie but not you-Julie so it does not, in the geometrical sense, make a triangle. The past-present-future is and interesting triangle I had not thought of.

It is interesting what one remembers and what one does not. Here is what I remember. Parking my bike outside of Zoology class I first saw you locking up your bike. [link 1974 Elizabeth] I remember thing you were attractive and followed you in the door, when you took a seat just in the door I sat next to you. It took several classes before I got brave enough to talk to you but by the end of the semester were talking regularly and I asked you over for dinner. That's when I lived with Bill who played the same record over and over, Tommy by the Who, as I recall. I finally got fed up with living with Bill and shortly thereafter moved to the house in the woods. At the time I believe you were more or less living with a professor in Micanopy although you spent quite a bit of time at my place. Around that time you found a little, and I mean little, one room "house" in Micanopy.  The main thing I remember about that place is that we got into some argument and I walked out, intending not to see you again. Halfway back to Gainesville I turned around and went back to see you and then drove you to Titusville to borrow a car from your father. In '75 I moved to my Aunt's house in the country in Micanopy where shortly thereafter you moved in with me. I don't remember visiting you at AGH. On July 4th 1976 I had a 4th of July party at my place and then the next day moved to Melbourne. You continued to live at the place in Micanopy for awhile, at least until the lease ran out. In Melbourne I got a place across from the beach and lived there for three years before buying my house on Easy Street. [link 1979 Easy Street]  Funny thing, I again don't remember you visiting in Melbourne. I met Julie at work in 80 or 81 and we got married in 82.[1] I was married when I ran into you at UCF for I did not start back to school until after meeting Julie. Some months later I tried to look you up but you had moved away and again I lost track of you. I forgot about the $300, it seems like you needed it to move somewhere. When I graduated from UCF I sent you a graduation notice, I believe at your address in UCF. I was surprised some months later when you sent a reply from Alabama.[2] I still have that note. I am not sure why I never replied but have always felt that I should have done so. That was the last I had heard from you until your email. As I mentioned before, a couple of months ago I did a search on the net for you but found about a hundred B.J.s. several in Alabama. I did further search in the medical/psychology areas thinking you got your Phd and might have published something. I did send an email to a B.J. in Washington state who seemed like it might be you but got no reply. It seems that we are somehow connected and it was time for us to reconnect.

Well, talk about writing too much...
Larry

[1] We got married on November 6th, 1981.
[2] The letter was from January 1985 and was sent from Tampa, Florida. See story.

Nighthawk