My Friend Kaye

Nearly thirty-eight years ago I veered closer and closer to an emotional breakdown. Life presented me with challenges I couldn't handle. Even after engaging in my first period of psychotherapy I still did not understand how a clever fellow could make it through three decades and be so ill prepared for such common things as a failing marriage and finding that the arc of my story did not meet expectations I held since I was a teenager.

In the froth of my crises I found myself escaping into emotional isolation punctuated by casual affairs. In neither of these escapes did I need to figure out where I was, let alone where I was going. To put it another way, even though isolation might seem opposite engaging in an affair for me they became virtually the same thing. Neither one brought me into genuine relationship with someone, when what I needed the most was to devote energy and thought to discovering what a relationship is.

That February I escaped from the Washington, D.C., area to New York City. Soon I started feeling that I needed to escape from a pseudo-relationship there. In the summer my employer opened the escape hatch for me by sending me to join coworkers from across the country to deal with a big problem in Huntsville, Alabama. Grateful for an excuse to flee I hopped on a plane from La Guardia and let out a long sigh of relief.

Arriving in Huntsville we all plunged into an intense situation with long hours and impossible demands. The company's generosity (something unknown since the turn of the twenty-first century) kept us fed and housed very comfortably. In return we worked whichever ridiculous shift needed us most in a round-the-clock rush that had us sharing desks with others we would see only as one shift gave way to another.

Let me make a leap here from those old days to today, literally. This afternoon I received a message on one of the current social medium platforms that began, "I am a terrible Messenger friend," because someone had taken an extended time to reply to my recent message. She is wrong. And now we return to Huntsville and the past.

In that pressure cooker atmosphere we were spending a lot of time with our team members. Naturally we would find ourselves at the office sandwich shop with those we became friendly with, the ones becoming our pals. I had three pals there - Craig, a younger straight-laced engineer from rural Illinois by way of St. Louis; Wayne, a closeted big-city gay man fearful of discovery in the work setting; and Kaye, a local woman forced by work to spend much more time with the crew than anywhere else.

With Craig and Wayne I developed friendships that allowed me to open up, to talk about my difficulties while listening to the struggles that each of them faced. The fact that I had problems did not make me unique in this little group. With the help of my professional therapist and these friends, unpaid and unaware of their import, I found the benefit, both relief and comfort, that comes from letting my pals know who I was. The real me.

And I met Kaye with a new desire to be known. So I let her know me as I hadn't with anyone before. She let me know her with a transparency not offered by the women of my past. Our intimacy gave me a glimpse of what might lead to a solid relationship with meaning and significance for both people.

Circumstances limited the duration of our time together. Throughout our time I remained a work in progress, so to speak. Looking back with an additional thirty-eight years of progress under my belt I can see the gap between the way I was at that time and how I wish I had been. I had far to go.

Kaye's willingness to take me as I was, for as long as she could, deserves much credit for starting me on the path that has led me to where I am today. The consistency with which I can love my wife today is the result of steps I first took with Kaye. She was a friend - exactly the friend I needed at exactly that moment. My road hasn't been easy and I have had to review lessons many times. Still, Kaye set me on my way.

Kaye, in any sense, in Messenger or any other way, you are a friend. A good one.