If the love of your life broke your heart and disappeared no less, what would you do? Call your friends? Listen to angry music? Plot some sort of revenge? Or let it fester for years. I did all of these things, but no matter how much I tried to “get over him” I couldn’t.
All I was left with, besides feelings of despair and betrayal, were several notebooks detailing our intimate encounters. I resolved that I would create a cohesive story to memorialize this crazy time in my early college life. This novel would become a bestseller, some studio would make a movie about it and that’s how I would find closure and make sense of why it happened in the first place.
Over the years, I dusted off the journals, but there was one gaping hole: How do I end this story? How it ended in real life didn’t fit the Happily Ever After narrative, not even a Happy for Now. And all the scenarios I dreamed up were not compelling enough. At the 25-year mark, I was no closer to an acceptable conclusion or the closure I was seeking. I could barely remember his face and had no other tangible record of our past except a sweater he left behind on the last day I saw him. Around the same time, I joined a writer’s group and took a couple of classes hoping to find new inspiration. One instructor told me if I hadn’t put pen to paper by now, my story would live in those notebooks forever and never see the light of day. I refused to believe that.
That’s when I turned to social media, Facebook in particular. Could a community page lead me to another woman who also fell victim to him. Did he slip under someone else’s skin like he had latched on to mine? If I couldn’t track him down maybe someone was currently in contact or had a similar experience that could help me fill in the gaps. I posted my page on the world wide web, knowing it was a long shot that anyone might find it buried in search results several pages deep.
The page sat unanswered for about five years before one lovely Italian woman sent me a message detailing her brief history with this person. Her story wasn’t as tragic as mine, but like me they met on occasion over a few months and he too vanished from her life. Her detailed note personified the person I remembered and I instantly knew there was no question that what she wrote had to be true.
Over time, several other women left me messages or corresponded with me. They were from all walks of life and all over the world. Some were rude and extremely protective of him, some were still shaken, and others were overly generous in sharing their stories and keepsakes. Unprompted I received pictures of him from one, screenshots of email conversations, and photos of his letters from another.
Indeed, this person got under enough women’s skins that they too went to the internet for answers looking to fill a void. It brought me comfort to know I wasn’t the only one incessantly googling his common name trying to solve this mystery. What I realized we all had in common, besides him, was that we had something to offer that served his needs at the time, whether physically, sexually, intellectually, or monetarily.
I feel I finally achieved the closure I needed through the process of writing the novel and speaking to these women. I didn’t walk away with a book deal, a spot on the New York Times Bestseller list, or a deal with Netflix. But as I was able to craft an ending that I felt was satisfying and within my control.
As the Rolling Stones song goes: “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try some time you just might find, you get what you need.” I got so much more out of this Facebook page than what I originally hoped it would bring. I gained a priceless connection with a small circle of women, I didn’t expect and for whom I am eternally grateful.
I never took down my community page as I still enjoy rereading the conversations, and hearing from others. I welcome those who visit and hope it helps brings some sort of closure for them as well.
Photo by Nick Bolton on Unsplash
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