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2015-10-11 - 8:21 a.m.

I posted this link before which is how I found it to read this AM. Last night it occurred to me the first person I truly fell in love with was an Italian young man of about 20-22 years old (I forget!) who was the night manager of the supermarket I worked at during college summer breaks. I wondered about the attraction to Italians. I googled his name and read on his family and lo and behold they are definitely Sicilians in NYC area. I knew his father worked in the "garmet district" and the son said he had no idea what his father did when I asked what kind of work. Who doesn't know the kind of work their Dad does? It was after one summer when back at school in the Fall that one of the LI girls on my campus saw me waiting for a phone call on the hall phone and said "You are waiting for your boyfriend to call" And when I said yes, she , being from LI too, asked me if he is a LI boy and when I said yes and she asked "what's his name?" and I told her, her jaw literally dropped and was fixed in this shocked position for a moment. (Seemed like a very long moment to me)

She said "One of the @#7@^^" Brothers?
Very concerned then, "Which one?"

She was clearly more than a bit anxious about this... and proceeded to then say
"Oh good, the baby ..."

I knew what she meant , he was the youngest. But it took a while to fully process why that would be significant.

She said "You don't know what his brother's do" more as a statement than a question, as she figured out by my look at her I was rather clueless as to her concern.

She uncomfortably was in the spot where she felt obligated to let me know the middle brother was one of the most prolific drug dealers in LI at the time.

The Import Export Business of one older brother suddenly took on a clearer light for me. (He lived in NJ at the time, but after two years of dating this young man whenever I was home when he would quickly drop whomever he was seeing to spend his free time with me, I had been to his home. I had been to all the family's homes that I knew of except for their PA retreat where the mother often liked to go to get away from NY. As the boy I was in love with said , Mom was really sick of NY and preferred to be there.)

I sat on the couch watching movies a few times with him and his father. I went to their home and his mom initially was really rude about me not being an Italian girl actually. She made these funny snide passive aggressive comments and he would apologize and say she would get over it. He brought me around his parents and his family and I was honestly wildly in love. She did get over it and I was welcomed.

The boy was Catholic and respected me and never pushed my boundaries of comfort. I never slept with him, but enjoyed enough of what I was comfortable with at which point he was always a gentleman.

I am trying to analyze what it is IN ME THAT IS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND OR HEAL THE PAST.

I made that accusation to the current Sicilian who it is VERY CLEAR I was attracted to simply as there were some unresolved issues for me from that first love.
As in I never made love to him fully.

I think being able to have the possibility of that happen is something somehow unresolved in a weird way. I mean it is so weird to have loved a man but never actually made love to him .

That is in fact perhaps one of the few regrets I have, that my Catholicism prevented me from that kind of spiritual connection with the first man I loved. Because when you are in love and then share yourself most fully it IS A DEEPLY SPIRITUAL CONNECTION.

SO DEEPLY SPIRITUAL AND SACRED SOME RESERVE IT FOR MARRIAGE AS I DID.

So I reserved that shared experience and never really let go with a lover until the jazz musician who became my first husband.
Before I has always cut off the instinct and desire.

So now I realize my accusing him of living in his past and really trying to heal it might in a weird way be the reality of why I find the attraction to him.

Is all that Harville Hendrik stuff coming in to play here again? We are attracted to those who carry the same wounds as only in relationship to them can they be healed?

Here is the article on Balm in Gilead. I find is so odd to have realized just yesterday that the brother of my first love was a Sicilian drug dealer, as is the brother of this man I met her. Difference being this guy worked with his older brother and they both got busted and both did time in the federal penitentiary.

I RAN AWAY From the first by moving to Buffalo so as not to be in NY when I finished college. I didn't know if I was strong enough to stay away from the man I loved.

I chose to not marry into the mob.

I recall being home in DEC (as I finished my classes early) and chose to then take my one final class, a Spanish class, out at SUNY Stonybrook.
I got a job and worked almost full time, leaving early enough twice a week to catch the train for the class. I took a job I hated as planned for a trip to Mexico over the Spring Break with my classmates from Buffalo.
God ,I recall seriously considering the work of the nuns and at that time praying alot and I suppose finding joy in that and praying over whether I had a calling. I found the love of Christ, devoting one to his work and the beauty of their life appealing. I recall one conversation over an hour with Sr. Patricia about what it is like to be a nun. A classmate of mine had left school and joined the Carmalites the year before.
So funny to think I was seriously considering entering a convent, in part whether I recognized it or not, because I was escaping having fallen in love with a man I was choosing not to have a relationship with and wished I could have that emotional feeling of joy and love with CHRIST strong enough for that to be satisfying.

I knew nothing of the carnal sharing of love as of yet! Just hints... just a small taste...

I remember breaking down my resolve and one day from the office where I worked, which was before I headed to Mexico, when I called the boy I so loved.

I head the hurt in his voice when he asked when I got back in town and he realized by my response that I had not called him to let him know. I just let him go choosing not to see him again and get entangled too deep into something that seemed so very risky.

I never let him know of the phone conversation I heard his Dad have through a wall of his closet where I was hiding once (and only now fully understand the absolute FEAR he had of his Father finding his girlfriend had been over. At the time I thought he was too old to have such fear of his father).
I didn't want to marry into a family with that kind of parenting, even though I didn't understand it at the time.
Fear as a motivator was thankfully foreign to me.

So here I am again, having let him go, and having gone out for the first time in years by myself, suddenly having that deeply buried past resurface in my psyche . I went out to hear live jazz the day after I bought my car. There was not jazz as I expected, but a sole young signer songwriter who was both wonderful, cute and awful in her Songwriting 101 sophomoric attempts which made me feel so old as she was singing of love found and the heartbreak of loss.

Its funny I was not enjoying her songs as they were so much a reflection of that early 20s psyche and did not speak to me in any way in the moment. I was finding them amusing, and getting a little bored by them when in walked the Sicilian man.

I looked at him and thought DAMN, "He reminds me of @*&$^"
(the Italian boy I loved in LI )

My defensiveness and instinct was seriously heightened and I immediately went into fight mode, which unbeknownst to me apparently can be incredibly attractive when coupled with witticism... which then followed naturally.

I thought to myself "I am in trouble, I should run now"
But then faced that fear straight on , I suppose to be honest rather consciously choosing to cut to the chase and address my own issues up front " You are an Italian New Yorker? What the heck are you doing here, scoping out the death pages to find some prospects?"

The inquisition continued, along with dialogue I wish I could recall verbatim. It was like a poem that pops into my head which later could not be remembered. Or a song I craft while driving and think "Damn, that was actually rather good" but when I get home can't recall to write down, and even if I did , I am horrible at transcription as never truly leaned notation well.

I so wish I could recall that dialogue.

He said something in response to my first question
"No, but that is a good idea" and laughed.
I liked his easy manner, his laugh and most of all noticed the laugh lines on his face as he took off his sunglasses.

I fired off a few other questions of interrogation, rapid, directed and he answered them all.

"When did you come here, you are from NY , correct?"

"Yes, Selden. I moved here when I was 15 however so its been some time."

That would be thirty years ago to be precise. (That came later)

"Why did your family move here"
"For Dad's construction business. His brother was here and doing very well. He had made millions on real estate development and convinced my Dad to come here and work with him on the books. My dad liked doing that. So he worked with him and then he started his own company. When the market burst he was stuck with five mansions build in Great Fall that he could not sell. They were costing ten thousand a month each, just sitting there being maintained and he lost it all."

My inquisition continued until I had discovered that his mother had started cleaning houses to generate her own income and help out, and when things went south over the years she was the one with the steady stable income which held the family together.

So he took over his mother's cleaning business in recent years.

Enough of the bio I got out of the man.
Enough of my self analysis. I found it fascinating when my son had to play the part of the guy facing the opportunity to be a dealer and considering whether to move forward or walk away.

When I watched this show with Soren, NONE OF THIS PAST OF MINE CAME TO MIND IRONICALLY Seriosuly.... this is my DISTANT PAST facing me.

NO, the hard part about the watching of this show was the reality of Soren's FATHER's relationship with drugs in his life. (Also distant past, the 20 years ago past of mine was more forefront in my mind than the 24 years ago past of mine!) I wondered if he discussed any of his past with our son. I wondered if this show was hard for him to watch, and I worried it would be hard for ME to watch. Funny the NY scene of the sixties seemed so removed from my experiences that I never ever thought of the Sicilian young man of my world who's brothers were the NY dealers.

Anyway, Today I read this again as I was thinking of the odd reality that people's choices in life are OFTEN Made to heal their past! EVEN SUBCONSCIOUSLY!

So I get it why this man in my life... He walked in for a reason I suppose. Perhaps the needs in me were met by him and now our paths can diverge and not cross again.

One thing is for sure, the fight and flight instincts truly do serve me at the very least very well.

http://www.chicagoontheaisle.com/2015/04/08/review-of-balm-in-gilead-by-landford-wilson-produced-by-griffin-theatre/

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