Living, Learning, Evolving

WHEN ONE LOOKS BACK on one's life, one can, if one is fortunate, see how it all worked together, how all the events and people worked together to produce a learning experience, a process of evolution, intended to result in an older, wiser version of the self, finally ready to ascend and transcend to the next level of existence, and to live the next grand adventure, as we reincarnate into one lifetime after another, attached to the great wheel of life, a wheel from which we shall eventually escape, and reach true nirvana, or heaven. we see that almighty God, or almighty fate, or almighty cosmic evolution conspired so as to mold and shape a more perfect one, you. her name was, and still is, Lori. She was twenty, and I was twenty five. That seems young now, as it inevitably does, when one lurches past the age of sixty, at long last. She was newly married, I was single, and still am. She and her husband lived in a small but nice apartment in a complex, he worked , she didn't. Se was perhaps bored, and everyday she called me, and invited me to come over. I always went. she was a long legged buxom brunette beauty. I always went over. This was in nineteen eighty. We sat for hours, snuggling on the couch, with the unwatched television turned on, to cover the noise, while her husband worked. sometimes, we went swimming in the apartment complex pool. I have always liked apartment complexes. She looked great in a swimsuit, and felt even greater. This lasted for several months, then came to an abrupt halt, when she stopped calling me. her husband and I were good friends too; I don't think that was the problem. Or, it may have been the problem. We went our separate ways, as we say, and she ended up divorcing after five years; I think she wanted a more ambitious, successful man, a man of wealth, which, after several more husbands she finally found, and retains to this day. She was a strident, inveterate racist. The very moment an African-American appeared on television, she cut loose with the hatred and insults, without using the term "African-American", which in nineteen eight y had barely been invented. I remember taking note of her virile racism, being very well aware of it, and not especially liking it, but also, not really minding it, being easily able to overlook it. A quote from Goethe comes to mind: "He does not love who does not see the faults of the beloved as virtues." Oh, how true. I didn't see her racism a virtue, but I didn't see it as a very important fault either. now, of course, in retrospect, I do. Now, she lives in a mansion in a beautiful scenic pat of the country, and has pictures of herself, her current husband, and her beautiful home, interior include, posted on Facebook. She and I were briefly Facebook friends, but, oh my, she seems to have unfriended me. My suspicion is that she saw a few too many radical left wing posts from me float across her time line feed, or whatever its called. I also somehow sense that either she truly grew p and evolved away from her youthful racism, or would today staunchly deny ever having been one. Maybe someday I will ask her. However, I'll be that she turned out to be a strong conservative, and maybe even a Trump supporter, and if she and I tried to be friends again today, it wouldn't work out. I am no longer as tolerant as I once was. I could never overlook that.