"We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love...."

"...it is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person."
-William Somerset Maugham

Former lover A would scoff heartily and bitterly at Maugham. His bottom-line assertion was, "People don't change." Then he'd temper it with, "Not that much." I wish he and I could speak again. I'd like to find out if, after almost 4 years, he'd now subscribe to Maugham's above-quoted belief. Of course, that would mean he'd changed...at least a little. Especially tough for a Cuban Catholic boy. I always responded to A with my own observation, that there are things about themselves people can change...and there is the essence of the person that never changes. When two people are so similar at their respective cores, when there is true empathy for the gifts and flaws, the healthy and the wounded, that, I think, is where they experience true love.

He and I had these conversations in the midst of our tumultuous 2-year relationship, during which he was angry with himself for making the wrong choice of life partner. In which he beat himself to a pulp about keeping his feelings for me from me. Love too late. Timing is every fucking thing.

I believe it is the essence of each human being we are attracted to -- or that repels us. The trappings change, by choice or by chance. From the superficial (hairstyles, face and body appearance/weight/tone, taste in fashion, choice of environment) to the psychological (particularly habits: from benign nail-biting to profound drug addiction, and assorted other obsessions and compulsions).

I have never been so protective of my heart. Boundaries are healthy; I began to understand that in sobriety, but the practice takes -- well, practice.