Olivia

Today is Lisa's birthday.  But she's better known to me as Olivia.

In my lifetime, I seem to make the worst choices in girlfriends.   The worst ones were born under the Gemini sign, they're supposed to be the best for my birth sign.   But then again, I must have picked the wrong birth sign, in the middle of January and dead of winter.   And when I turned 55 on the 24th of January I was sick with the flu.  I'm still pissed about that.

40 years ago I gave my heart to a Gemini girl up in Michigan.  We made the usual promises to keep faithful and in touch, after 1976 I never saw her again and she ended up getting knocked up before she turned 16.  In 1991 I started dating a woman named Christine, she too was a Gemini.  While I thought things were going well, she ended up finding another guy.  When I ran into them at the local bar, she ran into the women's bathroom and wouldn't come out.   Which lead me to write her a note and basically said grow up.  And of course, Isabella, the snake lady from Spokane.  That was a waste of time.  My last GF, might have been the most faithful but we could never live together for more than a couple days.   But I think she's found herself a decent guy, at least I hope she did.

I met Lisa through a dating singles site around 1999.  My best friend actually set us up and we managed to have a good time chatting over the computer and late night phone calls.  But she was a West Coast girl through and through.  And while we talked about having her move out here, I suggested that the winters here are not for everybody, and if you haven't been through a below zero and snowstorm barrage, you're not gonna enjoy it.  Two months after chatting, I managed to scrape some money up to fly out to Portland to see if there was any connection.  And the first meeting there was but I went out there during their rainy season, which was every day.  The only day it didn't rain was when I flew out there the first day.   But we had fun, we saw the sights, she took me to a couple record stores and we spent nights together.  Lisa had a nice sense of humor, she could be witty, she can sarcastic and she did have a temper, she was a redhead.  To my eyes she was the one that could probably help me make it through this life.

She promised to come out during Christmas of 1999 and she did.  The weather was actually above normal, with the exception of the last couple days to which temps did go back to 10 above and a wind chill of 29 below.   But me and my brother managed to get the house all nice and clean.  We spent time going to the pawnshops around town and she managed to pick up a few odds and ends and for New Year's we rang in the new year in Dubuque.  It was the best of times, at least I thought it was. Alas, Lisa got a very bad cold when she arrived back home but I knew from her reaction to the cold and snow that she wasn't coming out here to live.  In fact, she still had bronchitis when I saw her last in March of 2000.  By then things were beginning to fall apart.  We were drifting apart. But then again I wasn't helping things, I was wanting to hit the record stores again.  I don't think she liked that, but she was a good sport and in our time together, we didn't fight at all.   A couple weeks later after I got back home,  we called it a day.  She found somebody closer and eventually did get married to him.

We kept in touch off and on till November of 2013, when even being pen pals wasn't helping the cause and the lines of communication was finally cut once and for all.  Even though Lisa was the inspiration for me of writing songs and I wanted so much to impress her as a musician, the problem is I was a musician.   And I don't think she wanted to date a bedroom recording musician.  When I wanted to play her a song that was written for her on tape, she wasn't interested.   I suppose seeing a drumset with all them cymbals didn't help either.  Or those three guitars staring back at her.  It's not easy dating a musician, we tend to follow a dream that will never be realized outside of the local bar stage.

At times, when I see pictures of her daughter and thinking that could have been mine, I wonder what would have been if we would have been together.  I'm thinking good thoughts rather than the reality.  And the reality was that the odds were against us from day one. But in 2008, she wrote me a note which became the spark that started the album Pawnshops For Olivia, an album of such emotional feelings that some of the songs are hard for me to listen to.  The last song Behind The Sun, was about our last time together, of going to the airport and knowing that she would never return again. A wishful chorus that whatever happens that she'll still be in my heart once and for all. 

Still you'll always will  be in my heart
For the love we share will never part
And maybe some day when everything  said and done
We'll be together, beyond the sun.

Love and loss.  The thrill of infatuation and happiness of being together, full of life eventually is replaced by feeling that one day it will be over and the loss of love becomes tears and sadness. We fall in love, we fall out of love, it happens every day. The ones that want remain together will find ways to overcome the shortcomings of life (Money, kids, paying bills on time, overlooking faults and trying to learn to live together).  While most will give up and move on the next love interest.   As for myself, I gave up on love, for me the only thing remains is music.   I'll post a Happy Birthday message on her social media site page and hope she's doing well or least coping.  She has a beautiful daughter to be proud of, I'm sure her daughter is her life.  The next time I might see her will be in the great beyond beyond the sun.   Hopefully it's a much happier place than here.

Happy birthday Olivia.