Success? Dream The Girl I first Loved!
By Odell Sneeden Hathaway, III.
Success? Dream The Girl I first loved!Copywrite ©, 2008 By Odell Sneeden Hathaway, III I have taken several days (and most of my life) thinking about what to write here. This has been one of the hardest things I have ever tried to write. I think the reason for that is that this is one of the things that I am most ashamed of. If I wanted to be flip I could have finished this entire paper in less then a page. I could have said that to be successful I would like to never say NO to the will of God and left it at that. YES I am a mystic and believe in signs and Gods presents in our daily lives. I do not accept the traditional definition of Sin. To me the word Sin means to say NO to the will of God. I have done my level best never to say no to what I felt god is calling me to do. I will write more about those times later. I have even had the experience where I have felt called and started working toward something just to have God say forget that I just wanted to see if you would try. In this case I SINNED and I have regretted it to this day. It is important to remember where I was coming from. When I entered Junior high school. I was an extremely damaged person. My life in Grammar school was a living hell. Every one knew that I was mentally retarded my teachers told them so. I was the constant but of all the jokes and the only way I had found to survive was to kill my own emotions. So I was totally unprepared for entering Jr. High. I was totally unprepared to meet HER. SHE and I were involved in many of the same things, and sat next to each other often. But there was something about her that called to me in a way I had never felt before and I have never felt since. I know what your thinking here was a young teenager he’s horny but NO. It was not about sex. What I felt was so much more. I felt a kind of desire that can not be explained. The closes I ever found were the words of Gonzo the Great (the Muppet) in his song “I am going to go back there some day” This looks familiar, vaguely familiar, almost unreal, yet, it's too soon to feel yet. Close to my soul, and yet so far away. I'm going to go back there someday. Sun rises, night falls, sometimes the sky calls. Is that a song there, and do I belong there? I've never been there, but I know the way. I'm going to go back there someday. Come and go with me, it's more fun to share, we'll both be completely at home in midair. We're flyin', not walkin', on featherless wings. We can hold onto love like invisible strings. There's not a word yet for old friends who've just met. Part heaven, part space, or have I found my place? You can just visit, but I plan to stay. I'm going to go back there someday. (Note if you would like to see Gonzo singing this song it is on you tube.) I am not saying that she was not attractive, she was! Even in Jr. High and as she grew she developed in to one of the most beautiful woman I have ever seen I know speaking to my friends that many of them thought she looked HOT as well. I have tried to figure what about her was the most attractive and I would have to say it was her smile. There was something so kind, caring, happy, and loving in that smile. I have known a lot of smiles since then and some have been almost as lovely as hers but hers was something wonder filled, like a safe harbor, if only I could have trusted my eyes. If I am going to be honest there is also something of my dreams of being a Vulcan that might have played a small part here. Spock was loved by at least one woman and she and HER had the same name and caring disposition. I spent almost all of Jr. High fighting my self. I had feelings for this person. But I knew that I could not have
feelings. I was a Vulcan. I tried to ignore her and my feelings. All the way until April of 1977. That month my Uncle and Aunt had there 1st
Daughter and named her with the same name as my beloved. I do not know why but that became an
important moment in my life. Ask
people were they were when Kennedy or John Lennon was shot or what they were
doing on 911 and they will tell you. I
was driving with my father on the 134 freeway at Something change for me in an instant I was no longer able to hold back my feelings. I loved HER! But what could I do about it. Like a Quadriplegic wanting to run in an Iron man, I found that I could think about it but I could not do it. I had no Idea how to ask her out. Or worse, even though I wanted to ask her out I was completely incapable of believing that she would say yes. Why would this wonderful, beautiful, brilliant, caring, young woman want to go out with a fat, brain damaged, outcast? In fact I was afraid that she would either laugh at me or run screaming from me. I made plans to ask her out, time and time again. I remember that this was the time of Star Wars. John Williams was coming to town to perform the music from the show and I knew that SHE was a huge Star Wars fan. I wanted so to ask her to go with me. But I never found the courage and there were hundreds of other events that came and went like that. 3 years I wanted to ask her out and 3 years I could not. I could barely bring my self to speak to her. Finally it was graduation day. But I still could not bring my self to ask her out. I remember so many things about the graduation I remember that her parents did not come to the graduation and that made me mad. I remember after it was done and she was gone from my life wanting to cry and not being able to. All those years of being Spock had locked my feelings up and they could not escape. That night was grad night and the seniors were going to Disney land. It had not occurred to me that SHE would be going but there she was on the same bus. All I had to do was ask her. I spent the whole night fighting with my self trying to find the courage to ask her before she was gone for ever but never found it. All the way home I sat there trying to get up and ask her but I never did then she was gone. It would be 10 years before I would see her again. The week after graduation I was at work. I worked in a dark room and I was meditating about HER when I had my 1st mystical experience. A brilliant Light appeared to me and suddenly I knew that God wanted HER and me to be together and that if I had patients he would make it happen. Note: It is interesting that this event happened in a dark room. I was processing motion picture film so I would start a roll of film running then sit for 10 minutes before I had to do anything else. I was working with extremely sensitive film, in total darkness (not even a safe light). If a light that bright had suddenly appeared all the film I was working with would have been ruined. But it was not. In fact the idea of the film being ruined did not occur to me till years later. I spent the next several years waiting for HER to come back into my life, being devoted to her. I would not even look at another woman. After about 5 years I decided to do something about it. As I say I am a Mystic and so I decided to use Mysticism to help me find her. I started meditating on the vision of a single day in my life. A day that would change everything and bring HER back to me. I worked on this for weeks. Trying to visualize every detail and will it to come true. One night while I was meditating I heard a voice saying “You can have this, but it is not what I want!” At once I stopped working on it. I did not want my will. I wanted God’s will and if this Day was not the way God wanted things to work out I would leave it up to him. I did not give up on HER just on my plans for that one day. Things went on like this for several more years and I began to have doubts. I was so alone. I wanted someone in my life and it was beginning to look like SHE was not going to be coming back. I went into therapy and we decided that SHE was a defense mechanism. That I had been so hurt that I was using her as a way to protect my self. If I was devoted to HER then I would not let some other woman hurt me. Well with time I did bring my self to reach out to a few other women. But I still had this calling for HER. By then we had been out of High school for 10 years and our 1st reunion was going to take place. I went to the reunion with a group of friends I had stayed in touch with and I had an absolutely awful time. 1st I have a problem called Auditory Ground Dysfunction. The upshot of that is I can not tune out sound, and the reunion was so noisy that I could only hear one word out of 3 that people were saying to me. The other thing that made me miserable was that SHE was there and she looked miserable. There was no sign of her smile. Once again I tried to reach out to her but I found that I could not. A few months after the reunion I got her address from the reunion people and I wrote to her. I would like to say that I wrote to her and told her how I felt. But reading the letter to day I see that it was not written with the object of getting together but rather with the object of getting over her. Well the letter worked to some degree. SHE never wrote back and I felt rejected. I moved forward with my life and 6 years later finally found love and got engaged, that did not work out. A few years after that I did get married and that has now ended with my wife’s death. Even in both of these relationships I see the hand or face of HER. Even when I did not realize it I was still looking to get back in touch with her. After I asked my Fiancé to Marry me we told her mother that we were engaged and she said “’HER name’ I am so happy for you” I had no idea that her middle name was the same. Looking at pictures of my wife (especially those of her when she was younger) I see that she looked a lot like HER. After my wife died I was on one of those sites that helps you find old friends and I found HER. On the other side of the country, very successful. One of the people that makes me think of my self as a failure. At least now I am able to cry for what might have been. Trying to encapsulate my experience with HER and find what it tells me about success. * Success to me has to be saying yes to the will of God or at least trying to. * That I have a huge need for someone to care for and be cared for by. Success? Dream Being a Photo Journalist, Being a Pilot! |
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Even on the NET I can't spell Tree, updated
06/29/08.