Don’t be dismayed by good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.

Richard bach

July 2010. I was scheduled to retire in September, so I traveled to the Philippines to start processing my retirement visa and look for a place to live. I did the visa paperwork in Angeles, then came to Barretto and stayed at the Arizona Resort. I had planned to be in Manila for the final couple of days to meet a gal I’d been chatting with online named Eva. And then, in the middle of the trip, everything changed. Forever. And last night, an event occurred that has me trying to remember what happened back then and why.

So, after the Sunday feeding at Hideaway, I went to The Green Room for my nightcap. I sat down and ordered my beer, and then an unfamiliar waitress approached and showed me her phone displaying the photo posted above, “Is that you?” she asked. I responded, yes, it is. Where did you get that? The waitress told me she used to work at Arizona and asked if I remembered her. I honestly told her that I did not. She gave me a few additional details about how and where we met (that’s her in the photo with me back in July of 2010), and it all started to come back to me in bits and pieces.

Her name is Anne. I met her in the Score Bar, which was on the premises at Arizona. I still don’t recall if I had barfined her (paid to have her spend the night with me) at some point during my visit, but the afternoon those pictures were taken, I was sitting in Arizona’s outdoor restaurant near the pool. I saw Anne and a couple of the other Score girls swimming and invited her to join me for lunch. I remember being sick during the trip as well. There is still a bit of a black hole as to what caused me to cancel the remainder of my stay and fly back to Korea earlier than scheduled. I recall that when I told Eva I wasn’t going to meet her in Manila after all, she cried.

Talking with Anne again last night, nearly thirteen years later, was almost surreal. It did help bring to mind my final evening of that fateful trip. I was in Score Bar and feeling ill. Anne was with me at my table. She could tell I was sick and offered to care for me that night, and I accepted. We both knew there would be no sex involved. But what I now remember was maybe the sweetest hours I’ve ever experienced with a Filipina–lying beside her while she rubbed my head and sang to me in a hauntingly beautiful voice until I fell asleep. It was magical.

We had breakfast the next morning, and then it was time for me to depart for the airport. As I hugged her goodbye, tears were streaming down her face. I guess we both knew we would never meet again. Until we did last night.

You may have noticed Anne’s pictures from all those years ago were from a photo album. I guess our meeting was important enough to her that she wanted to preserve the memory. The implications of that are a little too scary to contemplate, but it is touching. We are now friends on Facebook, and she sent me a couple more photos to refresh my memory.

So, this morning I went on a quest for answers as to what happened and why. I figured I must have told the story here at LTG, but I was wrong about that. Back in those days, this blog wasn’t much of a diary. There is a bunch of political crap, dart league updates, and big gaps between posts. On July 21, 2010, I had this to say:

Anyway, I am a tad disconcerted right now but I’m going to see it through and wait until I get back home to decide what the hell to do.

But I’m good.

But the very next day, I posted this:

Not to worry, but I’ve got some kind of bug.  I played darts yesterday afternoon in the Subic league (went 2-2 but should have done better) then went back to the room and went to bed.  And stayed there for 14 hours (with occasional trips to the CR)

I didn’t post again until July 27, and that was about darts in Seoul, so I was home again by then. And then, on the 28th, I had this cryptic post:

Dreams die.

New dreams emerge.

It’s the freakin’ circle of life.

So, I have decided to postpone retirement until 2 January 2011. 

Time to work on Plan “B”.

What the hell was going on with me? I didn’t bother even to try and answer that question until August 20:

Fact is I do start feeling guilty when I don’t take care of business here at LTG.  I’ve just been pretty much without motivation for anything lately accept sitting on my lazy ass.   As I’ve speculated on why that might be the best I’ve come up with is that the uncertainty of my future has left me more than a little disconcerted.  And when I get to feeling this way, I tend to retreat and ignore.  Tantamount to putting my hands over my ears and screaming LA LA LA! at the top of my voice.

Anyway, I make it sound worse than it is.  It’s not like sitting on my lazy ass doing nothing is all that bad.  Still, there are things to be done and decisions to be made and at some point I need to get on with the doing and deciding.

As folks who care know, last months trip to the Philippines was not exactly a disaster, but it didn’t go as planned either.  Not only did I not find a suitable place to live, I came away questioning whether I wanted to live there period.  Which kinda sorta undermined the dream I’d been pursuing for these past several years.

Upon my return from that ill-fated trip I had to postpone my retirement date and recalibrate my future plans.  It was more than a little embarassing seeing as how my farewell luncheon had been scheduled and my replacement had been selected.

January 2, 2011 is the new big day.  And no excuses, I will no doubt about it, unquestionably, effectuate my retirement on that date.  I really mean it this time.

What I am going to do and where I will be on January 3, 2011 remains to be seen. 

Stay tuned.

Well, that certainly clears things up, doesn’t it? I couldn’t find anything else to document what occurred back then, so I’ll have to rely on my Biden-like memory. This is what I *think* happened.

I had been living with Jee Yeun since sometime in 2009. She was aware of my plans to retire and live in the Philippines. She said she wanted to stay with me until I left. I agreed. The trip I made to the PI in July 2010 was in final preparation for my move after my September retirement. Looking back now, I think Jee Yeun had somehow found out about Eva and went nuts, calling me and crying her heart out. As noted above, I had been sick and was also disappointed that I hadn’t found suitable housing. And I think maybe Jee Yeun’s pleadings made me realize that she truly loved me and caused me to reevaluate my feelings for her. Anyway, something in me snapped, and I just decided to take a step back and reconsider my options.

So, I delayed my retirement, then moved back to the USA instead of the Philippines and took Jee Yeun with me. And here I am all these years later, living in the Philippines and still trying to recover from the heartbreak that flowed from that decision.

Memory Lane is chock full of potholes, that’s for sure.