Love at 60? I am living proof that it happens, it is real and every bit as strong, passionate and life-consuming as it was at a younger age.
I don’t think my story is that unique. It probably happens very often to many people, but I certainly have thought it was unique, my very own, and have not ever talked to someone that has gone through quite the same experience I’ve had.
In my late teens, 18 to be exact, I met the man that would become my life-long obsession and whom I have been calling, the “love of my life”. That’s because he has been the love of my life; the one and only man for whom I have allowed myself to feel head over heels in love, pretty obsessively, I may add. Pancho was 24 when we met at work. He was an engineer and what at the time seemed like a quiet, soft spoken and unassuming man, which over the years changed, because he turned to be nothing of the sort. His desk, in the Engineering Department, was directly across from mine and they were separated by maybe 4-5 feet of distance. Much of the time, since I started working in the department, was spent with each of us sizing each other up, looking at each other – and in fact, I remember continuously looking at each other and saying to each other many things we did not articulate with words. I was a cute, young woman, still quite young, naïve and anything but worldly. He was cute, young, kind of shy and quiet and a little afraid of talking to me. In no time at all, I was taken by this man, his way, his manner, and all of who he was. I liked his smile and his mischievous eyes, that kept looking at me and through me, but never said much. And I spent a lot of time looking at him, following his every move, looking at his eyes, his smile and his lips, which I only mention because they are one of his features that I have liked the most. Today, I look at an old photo of Pancho, from that time, in the same way that I looked at him back then, and I look at his lips and still feel a little shiver go through my spine. I have dreamt so many times of kissing those lips one more time, that the thought has become at times unbearable.
One day, I don’t know when, he asked me out and we went out on a date which was to be the first of many we had over a three-year period. I don’t remember every date we had, or all the places we visited. I know that I fell deeply in love with him and our relationship took the course of the lust that two young, hormonal people in the peak of youth can feel for each other. We made love in countless places, countless times, and before I knew it, I had this deep connection and love, which became the foundation of many years to come. The problem was, Pancho was never at all that much in love with me. He had a connection to me, he liked me, and he liked having sex with me, but his connection and commitment was never up to my expectations and I never had even an inkling of where I stood with him. I thought he loved me, because I was IN LOVE with him, for the next 42 years, to be precise, while his was a merely superficial commitment. We went out, we made love, that was it; there was no emotional commitment. My love for him did not touch him and did not reach him in quite the same manner as was mine. In fact, I often have wondered if he loved me at all, even then.
I had plans to go live in the U.S. and one day I prepared to leave and did. Pancho and I have discussed this, I don’t believe that we ever really said good-bye to each other. We had spent all this time together, in an intimate relationship – and when I left it felt as something just natural, a part of what followed the time we had spent together. I left, but my love forever remained with him. My soul, my heart, my entire life. I had never felt the love I felt for Pancho before, didn’t feel it again. And, for certain, will never, ever, feel it again for anybody else for as long as I have a breath of life; don’t care to feel it. It has been the kind of ever-consuming, all-absorbing love that hurts. It hurts because nothing is the way it should be and because there is no hope of living it or re-living it, and, yet, other times it feels just right, it feels good, it makes me happy to be alive and feel it. It takes me back to my youth, but it also takes me back to the times I have not felt that high or elated about anything or anybody.
Three years after I had left, I was living in Denver, Colorado, and I must have written and we stayed in touch somewhat. One day he decided to surprise me and came to visit me in Denver. I was so eager to see him, hold him, spend time with him that my joy knew no bounds. He finally arrived and I played the hostess for him, took him to see the sights and our lovemaking took on the old way we had known before, when we were together. I have always thought that he came because he wanted me back; wanted me to go back with him to Mexico, but that has been largely an enigma, because he never quite said. All I know is he came, for a brief short time, a few days, and then he was gone from my life. I never saw Pancho again, and, again, I don’t know if we ever said good-bye, or if he just simply slid from between my fingers and we parted with a mere “so long”, “see you some other time.”
The some other time didn’t happen for 36 years. I have not yet seen him in all this time. I have lived with his memory, which is never far away from my thoughts, a couple of photos and a brief conversation on-line. Yet, this man, became my life-obsession, my true and only love of a lifetime.
He married, I married; we both had children and lived our lives, I guess as they were meant to be, except that I have never thought that my life was meant to be with anyone else but Pancho. He divorced after 26 years of marriage and then spent a few years alone – and I never knew it. Had I known it, I would have flown to meet him up and see him again. I was married though and I remained with my husband for 36 years, until he died. I have thought about whether I would have picked up everything and left everything to be with Pancho – and the answer for me has always been, without hesitation, a resounding “Yes”. I would have left everything to be with him. However, that opportunity never happened. I didn’t even think I knew where Pancho was, in big, old Mexico City, although in reality he always was where he had always been, only I didn’t know it.
We have re-met in the autumn of our lives. I looked him up one day – and there he was! A serendipitous encounter with what destiny had in store for me. Elation does not quite describe the feeling I had when we reconnected after all these years. By now, two complete strangers; two people who had lived different lives and had very different experiences. However, and this is most odd – the minute I saw his photo and then talked to him on-line, brought back all the old memories and all the old feelings I had had for him, that never quite died, that all of those years could not kill. We decided to stay in touch and we started writing each other, with a little bit of a renewed zest. We wrote some of the most beautiful letters anyone can write to each other; but that’s another story. I was happy to feel what I felt and happy to try to re-kindle a spark from the ashes that burned, but were still smoldering for me, after all these years. There were a number of problems with all this scenario, by now Pancho had remarried and I was still married, although not for a long time. We also live 2,500 miles away from each other, which made seeing each other virtually impossible. My elation and bliss however continued with each passing day and each letter written. For me, it was as though we’d never been apart, because when I am talking or writing to Pancho, that connection is so strong and so natural, that I never saw anything as impossible. And, 42 years later I still want to be with no one else except him, but today, just like many years ago and a few years ago, that is not possible. And because of this I fall off the deep end, withdraw from everything and everybody and fall into deep despair and depression. I still don’t know how one person can make you feel all these different emotions, so intensely, so passionately, that they take over your entire life, your being, your soul, your brain, your body, and yet, this is what I still feel for this one man. I know what the future holds for all these feelings and emotions. Nothing. Absolutely nothing, yet, I cannot stop this torrential love I have for him. And, now, I have had to accept that I have to learn to unlove him. I am not even sure that there is such a word as “unlove”, but that is indeed what I am facing, unloving the very person that I have loved all my life. I am not sure either what “unloving” means. I guess it means dismantling, unraveling that great big ball of love I have been building all these years. An incredibly difficult challenge and uphill battle against myself and my very own wishes, yet, I am to believe that this is what I must do; go against the grain of my own feelings and my own consciousness; rip apart my own heart and my own soul from what they have carefully weaved, built and safeguarded all these years.
Is this the end of the story? I suppose so. I cannot see into the future, but if I am to believe it, there’s no future, or it looks dismal enough that it cannot be written here, because it is not part of the story or part of the history. Maybe, at some point in the future I can open a window and take a peek at something different – a ray of hope – I don’t know what. But, for now this is it. The end of the story. A love that never took flight and was never realized. I am hoping for the best. I am hoping for peace, happiness – and if I am to believe my therapist, I am looking to see the light at the end of the tunnel. A light that will help me see all the broken pieces that I must then pick up, one by one, and throw away. Then, keep walking.

“THIS KIND OF CERTAINTY COMES BUT ONCE IN A LIFETIME”
from: The Bridges of Madison County

(Screen) Name: Palyoos

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