This is a Earth Day contest story. Please vote.
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Forty years later, Anthony still remembers an Earth Day, rebound love affair he had in 1970 with an older woman.
Mary was older than Anthony by ten years. Not such a long time, especially when growing older and becoming more mature with the experiences that comes with age, but in his case and at his age, especially with his lack of emotional maturity and childlike social irresponsibility, ten years for him was a period that spanned a lifetime of emotional development. Although they had been together for three years, too wrapped up in his own good time to unravel her secrets, he didn't have a clue who she was. No doubt, as transparent as the water he surfed in, she knew, of course, what he was all about and that was okay with her. She wasn't looking for romance, just a lover for sex.
Even though Anthony was 26-years-old when he met her, compared to Mary, he was just an immature child, more interested in the surf, the sand, the sea, and the sun than in love, commitment, relationships, and marriage. Before meeting Mary, when he wasn't in the water surfing, he was having sex on the beach, getting high, and dancing to the music of the day. Back then, the only thing that could get him out of the water was sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.
Before meeting Mary, his longest love relationship lasted just a summer, when her parents packed the car to return home to Ohio or Idaho or Kansas or wherever else they came from to vacation on Cape Cod. Looking for love, while on vacation, the women he picked up settled for sex, before returning to school to finish their education, after being schooled by Anthony. Before meeting Mary, the only one he loved was himself. Yet, the aftereffects of a chance meeting that lasted his lifetime changed all of that, when he met Mary.
An idyllic lifestyle, the epitome of a carefree beach bum, he had been living his life this way, since he decided to travel rather than go to college. A draft dodger, had he stayed home, he'd be in Viet Nam right now or in a body bag being shipped home. Rather see him dead than to dishonor them and their country, proud Americans, his parents disowned him, when he ran away from his educational responsibility and his military duty to roam the country, but he didn't care. He was finally free to live his life how he wanted to live it. Wandering the coastal areas of the continental United States, his dream was to one day make a pilgrimage to Hawaii to surf that perfect wave.
"Cool, man. That was so awesome, Dude. Did you see that wave? I hung ten. Cowabunga! Woohoo!"
Able to give Mary what she temporarily needed to comfort her body and soothe her troubled mind, he was incapable of giving her the maturity she required to keep her long-term. He was happy and he thought that she was, too. Only, too wrapped up in his own good time, insensitive to her needs, selfish with his, and oblivious to her underlying grief, he didn't have the life experience enough to read her. Obviously, she didn't have the connection enough with him to share what she was feeling, whenever she was feeling it.
Other than to share in his good time, unable to share her true emotions with him, she perceived him as just a boy and, no doubt, he was just her toy. Tit for tat, what comes around goes around. She used him in the way he's used so many women for sex over the years and cast them aside for the love of riding a good wave. With her emotions deadened to save herself, she had no one helping her to analyze and explain her feelings for her to understand and to cope with what she was going through. Once he finally knew what it was she was experiencing, it was too late.
She kept too many secrets locked away to open her heart to love him. Besides, even if she could get over her emotional trauma and repair her damaged heart, when she awakened from her mental instability, Anthony wouldn't be the one she'd want. Faithful and loyal to Raymond, her dead husband, not in body but in emotion, he was the only man she ever loved.
Anthony was nothing more than a diversion to occupy her from remembering Raymond. Too late then, it wouldn't be until after her death, when reading her journal, that he found the key to unlock her mysteries and open her heart. Before he was even out of high school, she had already lived another life. Before he had matured enough to save her, she was already dead.
Whenever he thought she was happy, she'd start crying. On those days, he knew she was sad, she'd suddenly be laughing. After a while, baffled by her emotions and troubled by her mood swings, not emotionally equipped to understand them and/or to cope with them, he never knew what to expect from her. One day up with her head in the clouds and wanting to go play on the beach and swim in the ocean, the next day she was so far down with her head buried in a sand dune that she couldn't even get out of bed to get dressed.
She hated the summer and he loved the summer. Despite their seasonal differences, somehow, they collided at a time, when she needed him the most and when he was looking for something he never knew he was searching to find. She needed comfort and he sought love.
Unfortunately, a struggle to connect, unless they were naked and sweating in bed, his immaturity separated them more than their chronological age. Impossible to bridge the vast differences between them with only laughter and good times, even though his heart was wide open to accept her for who she was, she had nothing left for her to love him. Just as he was elated and happy, she was defeated and sad.