This is a shoutout to my mindsay friend datataqueen .  Read her blog!!!

...and speaking of her blog, one of her most recent blogs is an homage to lost love.  I do not really have the pain associated with lost love, except that of my mother ( we were seperated when I was small and I did not see her again until I was 25).

Though I technically "lost" my mother/her love, now that I talk regularly with her and at times see her, I do not feel the same way I did when I had no communication with her.  It's similar to finally getting to meet your childhood hero or movie star and then understanding that they really aren't all that you thought they were.  What's even worse is finding out that they are something not good at all, like a drunk or drug user or worse.  That can be quite depressing.

I also had a girlfriend at one time in my life before my lovely wife twentypearls94.  I thought that I had "lost" her at one time as well but years later, I learned that this was not the case.  I'll revisit this later but first:

My grandmother (she was my stepmother's mother but my grandmother nonetheless and the only one that I have really known for an extended period of time) told me a story about her "lost love" shortly before she died.  She said that she had a high-school sweetheart who she was in love with desperately but then things changed.  She married and moved away, had children and lived an otherwise full life.  She never spoke of whether she thought of this "lost love" otherwise but one day, she had an opportunity to meet him while visiting  an area with a friend that he now resided in.  What she told me next was interesting because at the time I went to see her, I was contemplating starting up a relationship with my "lost love".  In truth, I was more than contemplating it, I had already done that.  I just wanted to tell her about it and get her perspective on the situation.

My grandmother said to me the following (paraphrasing):

"So my friend and I went to see [Charles] and it was a revelation.  He looked the same except that he had aged of course, like me, but when I saw him, I was immediately glad that I did not stay with him or get married to him.  He had not fared well and he looked beat down.  We talked but in the end, I was glad to leave."

My grandmother died one month later but I never really forgot that conversation.

What's curious about this story is that I received another story about "lost love" from Joe, the barbershop owner that I mentioned in my latest  "Good Things" blog.  He told me of a similar incident where he wanted to marry his highschool sweetheart but as things would have it, he moved away and found and fell in love with his present wife of 40 years.  Again, he had an opportunity through travel to see his old love many years later and he also kept in touch over the years and his story was much more shocking than my grandmother's.  He said that his old love had connected with another fellow whom she married and had several children with him.  Her husband was hooked on drugs - first marijuana, then cocaine, then crack and she followed.  Needless to say, he felt very fortunate that he did not make the decision to stay with her.

My last annecdote about "lost love" is my own.   As I mentioned up above, I had a girlfriend before my lovely wife  twentypearls94 (today, we are one month married -  June 3, 2007!).  I mentioned her to my grandmother and my grandmother told me her story I relayed above.  I guess this was her way of saying, be careful what you wish for.  As it turned out, I learned that it wasn't her lost love I was after.  In my opinion, she was an excuse I was using to build up the courage to leave a relationship I knew I needed to leave and maybe should have left years earlier. 

So what do all of my stories have to do with datataqueen 's blog?  It's this:   Feeling hurt about a lost love is human but it can also be a blessing.  Of course, people who are going through the heartache at the time, do not think about 10 years down the line but as sure as the sun comes up, the sun will and it is virtually guaranteed that you will meet someone else who surpasses what you thought you had.

I know I have!!!