1980

Elizabeth

The first of November I received a letter from Elizabeth in which she included a poem.

The letter was very moving, I had seldom seen such emotion from her, expressing feelings towards me I hand not seen before.  I was seeing Julie more and more by this time and not sure if I wrote back to Elizabeth, I’m sure I did not call her, but this letter, it made me question if I should have.  

Larry,

I guess I really don’t know you anymore, nor you me. Its as if we’ve each moved thought choice and through condemnation to our own separate spheres of existence, to places apart in time and distance and feeling.

Counting on your feelings towards me has given me stability in times of need. How ironic that now that I no longer need, and instead can truly decide whether I want, there is now nothing to decide on.  But such are the ironies of time and life. No decisions I ever could have made about you prior to this point in my life would have been valid. Although you might say that keep you away was a decision, it was one much saver and respectful to both you and myself than keeping you close would have been. Perhaps I have indeed lost your, as you always warned would happen. But  I have not lost myself and that is far more important. I do not feel buffeted nor shaken the knowledge that you may have, at least and for real, “found someone.” There are no rugs under my feet that others can shake and cause my balance to bumble.

I treasure now the things you have done for me far more than I did at their occurrence. A rather delayed reaction, but you never could penetrate though to what I needed at the time I needed it, but gave token of love I could not understand nor appreciate at the time.

Unfortunately the Beverly you have made all your decision about no longer exists; it was a contortion of time and place. And the Larry I have known is gone too. Youth just loves, while maturity decides whether to or not.  Time rolls on and what might have been passes away.  I gave thought to trying to arrest the course of events. I thought in terms of miles and hours and the gas I had in my car and the work I have to do before tomorrow. If this were the movies or some gay romantic novel, I would be in you arms at this moment instead of sitting alone pushing this pencil across the page. I have become practical and careful of my future. But the spontaneous recklessness appealed to me and died with the thought that I would find you now the practical and careful one. I guess I really groove on freaked-out unexpectedness. Only man can defy the universe with laughing irrationality and sometimes win. Nothing is written in the stars. We only allow it to be written or choose to write it.

Well, I must return to the present decided upon essentials of my life – my studies, something to eat, some quite sleep in the now cool evenings. I would like now for the phone to ring and perhaps to be you. But I not only do not think, but know such will not happen. I wonder that if you phone rang again, it might be me. Why don’t I call?  Perhaps, maybe, but not probably. The young evening will soon become the late night. The stars and planets will shift their course and what is allowed to be written will be so for ever more. The mundanities of life supercede.                                                                             Beverly

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Rosalie Mixson
December 7th, 1980
Bright and sunny day. Home all day. Wish I could go fishing.

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