Stranger Things Have Happened: A GenX Fairytale

The final episode of Stranger Things only aired a few days ago when I am writing this. I can say I have never had a television show, and more specifically, one episode of a television show, affect me so deeply.

I have realized that, as much as it is my connection to the show, I mean, we watched most of the main cast go from children to adults, it’s also how the show put a mirror up to me and to my generation.

I am a proud GenXer. Born in 1977. Stranger Things was set in the mid-1980s. I lived it, so seeing so many products, hearing so many songs, and feeling the vibe of my childhood was comfort food for the soul I didn’t realize I needed so.

The problem with any television show is that it inevitably comes to an end. With the final episode came emotions that I don’t think I had felt in forever. I am not alone. On social media, I have come across literally hundreds of posts from people my age feeling the same way.

The youngest of GenX will be turning 45 this year. We were the last truly wild and free generation. The way the kids are portrayed on Stranger Things is reality. My friends and I would be all over the place on our bikes. We’d get into adventures and maybe a little trouble, but never anything too overly dangerous. Many younger people wonder how we dealt with the lack of convenience and technology. I feel bad for them as they will never know that type of freedom.

We were the generation that rolled with the punches. We became adults early and have felt like we’ve been so removed from our childhood innocence for so long. I began working at age 12. That means, as of writing this, I have held a job for 36 years. Still, I always had time for my friends and our growing up together.

GenX were the people who said ‘whatever.’ Like it was a badge of honor to never feel or care. Hell, they even created OK Soda in the early 1990s to try to appeal to our sense of nonconformity. There was one problem, though. We only kept our love and emotions below the surface. It feels to me like Stranger Things opened a door we had thought was long-since closed.

I will say now that I am going to share some spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the final episode, just beware.

My high school

2026 marks the 30th anniversary of my high school graduation. I think my emotions were ready to explode; they just needed something to light the fuse.

Stranger Things fittingly ends with the main cast graduating high school in 1989. The way that Mike, Lucas, Will, Dustin, and Max all act and feel as their time draws near, I felt it because I had been there.

It’s a weird mix of peaceful emptiness and quiet desperation. When the final weeks were ticking down to graduation, it didn’t feel like anything was changing. We still had class, we still had homework. The difference was that many of my peers had college acceptance letters rolling in.

The peaceful emptiness comes from the sad reality that you cannot change what was coming. I couldn’t stop us from graduating. I couldn’t stop my friends from slowly being pulled from my orbit and into a new one. It was resignation.

The quiet desperation came after graduation. We didn’t all just vanish the day after we threw our caps into the air. There was a final summer. This is where I scratched and clawed, trying to get those last memories stuck under my fingernails. I still remember the days when my two best friends left. Barry left first, John left second. I can see those final moments of that chapter of our lives. I enjoyed them, yes, but I also desperately tried to memorize the last jokes, the last places we went. I knew it would never be the same again, and it wasn’t.

When the Stranger Things kids skip a party they are invited to so they can play Dungeons & Dragons, I felt that. I didn’t want new adventures with different people. I wanted final adventures with my ride or die brothers. Those tears they shed as they returned their D&D binders to the shelf were real, as that scene was the last ever shot for the show.

It was a symbolic leaving childhood behind and entering the unknown door of adulthood.

A confession. I didn’t apply to colleges in my senior year. I planned on skipping a semester and then going to the local community college. For someone who took his SATs when he was 13, it was a major step back. Why did I do it?

First, I had been going so hard trying to be the best student I could since I could remember. School got harder in my junior and senior years as I wanted less to do with difficult subjects like trigonometry, calculus, and chemistry. I wanted to craft funny (in my opinion) videos with my camcorder and my friends. That was my ultimate dream.

Second, I had a girlfriend who was still going to be in school. In my mind, I needed to stay behind since our relationship was obviously going to last forever. It didn’t. It lasted 2 ½ years. At the time, though, as I was losing my closest friends, I still had her. I hung on in quiet desperation to what was familiar.

Nobody told me that if you’re going hard for years and you take your foot off the gas, it can be tough, damn near impossible to get that momentum back. Once I went to college in the spring of 1997, it was like pulling teeth to get a 2-year degree. I resented my choice, I missed my friends, I felt like a child still, despite being told I was entering the real world.

As the years go by, you get bogged down with daily life. Job, bills, responsibilities, maybe a family, they all become your focus. As I draw closer to 50, there are days when 18 feels like yesterday. There are days when I think I turned 40 a thousand years ago. Time gets warped. I am sure that I am not the only one of my generation who feels like we packed away our childhoods like a bunch of torn garbage bags thrown into a garage. We never really went through everything to celebrate or grieve like we should have. But how could we have known that was necessary?




The finale of Stranger Things flung the garage door open and launched our bags of emotions out onto the lawn for us to go through, whether ready or not. I was definitely not.

That moment when the first chord of Prince’s legendary Purple Rain hit, as Mike and Eleven stood together, I shattered. I knew what was coming. There was no happy ending for them. Yes, I know, it’s a fictional show, but it hit me because I related to Mike the most.

In the final scene, he is regaling his friends with the stories of their futures, but in the guise of their D&D characters. Mike was the storyteller. I was the storyteller of my group of friends. I spent my savings on a camcorder so I could create stories with my friends.

As he shared their stories, I saw bits of my high school friends in them. Then it hit me, hard, I am Mike. The other characters all get happy endings. Maybe Mike does, but it’s not in the obvious way. He loses his love and falls into the hole of grief. Later, he uses that grief and the love he lost to formulate stories of his friends' adventures.

Mike is the character I related to most.

I am writing this blog as we speak because of my own lost love. Back in June 2025, I wrote a very detailed post about this lost love named Wendy. I called it peaceful emptiness, much like I described my feelings after Stranger Things ended, and after graduating high school. I’ll link to that post at the bottom, but of course will give you the Cliffs Notes.

I met a girl at my lowest. I was battling severe depression, and she dragged me out of it by being who she was. She rebuilt me and made me feel like a full human years after my graduation. Then, almost as suddenly as she arrived, she was gone. The time, and our lives, just didn’t match up. She was a supernova of love that made me feel a way nobody else has before or since. I went hard into my writing career as a way to cope with losing her. In a way, I continue on that path because it makes me feel connected to her still.

In Stranger Things, we see that very likely Eleven did survive but had to fake her death and travel far away without anybody knowing. For close to 20 years, I was where Mike ended the show. I had no idea where Wendy was. She was basically off the grid. All I had were memories. Then the timing lined up, and I found her last June.

It was that peaceful emptiness because I found her and got that closure, but in doing so, I saw that she was where she needed to be. She was living an important and fulfilling life. There was no chance of my swooping in as a white knight. There was also no point in reaching out, as there was no good that could come of it. So I got my closure and just had to be happy with that.

Wondering how high school ended 30 years ago.

Stranger Things ending held a mirror up to me, and probably to many other GenXers. It’s forced us to reconcile with the fact that our childhoods were so long ago and that maybe adulthood hasn’t been anything close to what we felt we were going to get. Ironically, the finale threw me harder into a midlife crisis than anything in my own life has.

I look in the mirror at my gray hair winning the war on my head, and I think to myself, Is it too late? I never found a love to replace Wendy. I never found a job that gave me the satisfaction that creating my skits in high school did. I see so many friends who are married, with kids, and houses, and living lives they deserve. What do I deserve?

Do I deserve to be the de facto storyteller of my friends? Do I deserve to be Mike, sitting and writing said stories and dreaming of the love he had but knowing he likely will never see her again?

Even close to 50, I feel like I’m walking the halls at Dennis-Yarmouth High School, looking at the different students and wishing I were them, or wishing I were with them. I am deep in that pit of emotion. It's both a good and a bad thing.

I wanted so badly for all of the characters on Stranger Things to get their happy endings. The fact that it was Mike, the one I connected with most, who didn’t, hit me hard. The show might be officially over, but that doesn’t mean the story is. Remember that years after Rick was presumed dead on The Walking Dead, he was reunited with Michonne, Judith, and RJ. Maybe years down the road, it happens for Mike and Eleven.

It comes back to my life. Certain chapters have ended, but books can be reopened. I firmly believe that I am where I am in my life for a reason. Unmarried, no children, the freedom that if I wanted to, I could go virtually anywhere. There has to be a reason for that, right? I go into each day thinking that it could be the day that the next amazing adventure in my life begins.



Circling back to where we started. Stranger Things made me, and a lot of my generation, feel things we hadn’t in a long time. It perfectly encapsulated our 1980s childhoods so much so that when the show ended, it felt like our childhoods did again. It shows the power of a well-crafted television show. It also shows that the peaceful emptiness and quiet desperation we have felt is the telltale sign that what we had was something unique and beautiful.

To my fellow GenXers, we had a good thing. I’m glad we got to experience it. Maybe we can never go back to our childhoods, but there are always photos, videos, and, of course, a Stranger Things rewatch.

Peaceful Emptiness: Finding Closure After 20 Years

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #73: Closure, Train Dodging, Vanity Plates, etc.

1. Closure is a funny thing. You can be searching for it for almost 20 years and still not be prepared when you finally get it. I was going through a journal I had written when I was in the most important relationship of my life 20 years ago. For so long after it ended, I had been unable to find her and never was able to get closure. It was a constant loose end that needed tying up. Amazingly, I got that closure this past weekend. After years of searching, I eventually found her through a simple Google search. Not sure what changed but earlier in the same day I had put it out into the universe that I wanted to find her. Sure, that hadn’t worked before but I always try. I’ll just say that she is happy in the life she has, and that makes me happy. If you want to know the full story, I wrote about it. Here is the link: https://christophersetterlund.blogspot.com/2025/06/peaceful-emptiness-finding-closure.html


2. Any time I visit the local college library it’s like my brain goes into serious mode. I feel like I write better when I am there. I wish it were closer. Granted it’s a 15-20 minute drive, but I’d go write there more often if it were closer. It’s like I sit at a desk on one of the quiet studying floors, and my brain tries to fit in with all of the people continuing their education. I can write well at home, but I tend to get distracted by surfing the web way more. It’s like I don’t want to be seen doing that at the college.


3. There was a hilarious interaction with a chipmunk this week. I was heading out the front door and spooked a little chipmunk. Rather than running around the side of the house instead it dove into the gutter spout. I could hear it trying to climb up in the gutter but eventually slipping down. Next, I spotted its little face sticking out of the drain, hoping I would leave. I took a step toward the gutter and the chipmunk squeaked and again tried to climb up the inside of the gutter. This time I could hear it squeaking inside like it was cursing me out. Again, it poked its head out but I had my fun and left it alone.


4. I am super excited for the return of King of the Hill. I was a big fan of the show during its initial run from 1997-2009. A revival in the form of a 14th season is set to drop in the first week of August on Hulu. I have been waiting for a reason to do a free trial of Hulu, and oh boy, this will be it. If you’ve never seen King of the Hill it was created by Mike Judge who did Beavis & Butthead, and Greg Daniels who helped create the American version of The Office. It’s got bits of both shows, but a lot that is different. My hope is that the new episodes will live up to the hype, but I’ll be happy just to see everyone back and aged somewhat.

5. While out for a walk, I was in a beautiful, quiet neighborhood not far from me. I had a podcast on, so I could also hear the sounds of nature. I thought I heard muffled dog barks, so I stopped. I have had instances where a dog has suddenly shown up next to me while I’m walking. The last thing I want is to be attacked by a dog, or to step on one that I don’t see. I saw that two dogs were barking at the bay window of a house. I thought it was funny but the lady in the house didn’t. I could see her yelling at the dogs and then she even pulled the shades down. Sorry dogs.


6. One good dog story deserves another. I was at the beach walking pretty far out on the flats to get away from the crowds. It was so peaceful and nice. I soaked in the atmosphere before returning to the parking lot. As soon as I got close I heard an old man in a pickup truck telling these 2 women that dogs aren’t allowed on the beach in the summer. This is true but many dog owners are selfish and entitled so they don’t care about laws. Anyway, these 2 classy ladies with their disgusting cigarettes and the weathered faces to prove it, started yelling and swearing at the old man. He swore back and gave them the finger while driving away. Me? I just wanted to get to my car without making eye contact with those trash bags.

Not seen, the trashy 'ladies' with their dogs on the beach.

7. In most weeks, the return of King of the Hill would have been the biggest news for me. Then, a few days later, it is matched by the return of Spaceballs in 2027 for the 40th anniversary. As a child of the 80s, this is like a Schwartz ray right to my nuts, in a good way, if there is one. The trailer is basic so I can’t wait to see an actual preview with as many of the actors returning. Sadly, there won’t be John Candy or Joan Rivers but there will be Rick Moranis, Bill Pullman, and hopefully Mel Brooks, who is 99 years young now. May the Schwartz be with us all!


8. When I was younger, I had aspirations of getting some sort of vanity license plate. I figured something like my initials, ‘CJS.’ It never happened. That being said I do enjoy seeing what people choose to put on their vanity plates. Many are initials but then every now and then I see one that makes me audibly laugh. I saw a plate that read ‘EIEIOH.’ If you know, you know. But still, Old MacDonald? That’s what you chose for your license plate? Maybe if you were a farmer? This was just some run-of-the-mill pickup truck. Very creative and funny regardless.


9. Shenanigans seem to follow me wherever I go. I went out for an afternoon adventure after it had rained. After a lot of driving, I made my way to a place in Sandwich called Scorton Creek. It’s loaded with trails, marshes, a few abandoned shacks, and it crosses the railroad tracks. I couldn’t find an old abandoned shack I had found years ago. I made my way to the tracks to make better time back into the woods. I filmed a quick video joking that I was living the movie Stand By Me as I walked the tracks. I said if I saw a train, I’d have to dive off the tracks. 30 seconds later, the dinner train comes rolling down the tracks. I was in no man’s land. I didn’t know how fast the train was going, and I was at the creek so I was stuck. I had to scale down the embankment and watch as the train passed by, basically right overhead. I don’t think any of the people on the train saw the crazy guy at the bottom of the embankment, but you can be the judge, as I made a video about me jinxing myself. Enjoy.
https://youtube.com/shorts/yVuXXWwtlhg?si=FB2PViWGD_T8Dw20



10. Also during my visit to Scorton Creek. The ground was wet from the day of rain so my shoes quickly got soaked. While on the lookout for the abandoned building, I kept hearing a voice over a loudspeaker coming from somewhere in the distance. At first, it sounded like a graduation where the voice was announcing names alphabetically. Then I started thinking it might have been a graduation party or even a wedding as music was getting played as well. This included The Beatles ‘In My Life’ which made the walk through the woods magical. While walking back to my car, I came across a man walking with his two dogs. I asked him about the voice, and he had no clue. I mentioned my interaction with the train, and he just laughed. Only when he walked past me did it make sense. I could smell the weed he was smoking. He will likely think I was just a dream.


11. Happy Father’s Day to all of the good dads out there. Despite not having a good dad myself, I was blessed to have many great men who I consider second fathers in my life. Granted, it would have been better if the man who helped bring me into this world had given even a D- grade worth of effort to raising me. His karma is living his life now knowing that his actions led to his kids and grandkids wanting nothing to do with him. I cannot change the past but I can look back and look at present-day and feel grateful that I learned how to be a man from some truly good men throughout my life.

Peaceful Emptiness: Finding Closure After 20 Years

     Closure is a funny thing. You can be looking for it for nearly 20 years and somehow still not be ready for it when you get it. As I sit here releasing all of these thoughts, that’s what I am dealing with.
     Closure can be cathartic. It can signify the end of an important chapter in your life. It can trigger the release of strong pent-up emotions. That’s where I’m at now.
     Less than 24 hours ago from when I am writing this, I got the most important closure I had been looking for. It is not the exact picture-perfect type of closure I might have desired, but after years of nothing, it was something I needed. Bear with me as this is something I’ve wanted to write for almost 20 years.

Chapter 1: At First Sight

    In order to understand why this closure is so important, I need to take you back to the beginning. Let’s go back to the first week of June 2004. 21 years ago this past week.
    I was introduced to a girl. We’ll call her Gwen. I had no idea that she would end up being one of the most important people to ever grace my life.
    On the day I met Gwen, I remember telling a friend that I was done with love and relationships. I said that if love wanted me, it was going to have to kick down the door and whack me over the head with a club. Only a few hours after saying that, the club had crashed down on my head.
    I had been in the throes of a terrible bout of depression at the time I met Gwen. She was a gorgeous Hispanic girl with dark brown eyes and black curly hair. When she smiled, her eyes squinted in the cutest way. When she spoke in her soft, almost breathy voice, I had to grab a chair to keep my shaking legs from giving way.
    I felt inadequate and unworthy. Gwen made me feel like I was good enough. She single-handedly pulled me free of the chains of depression and squashed those feelings of inadequacy. That being said, I still kept my guard up. I typically believe that if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. After our 3rd date, I let my guard down. Then things got real.
    I let the feelings free. I was crazy for this girl, and my world suddenly seemed like it made sense. Everything I had gone through leading up to the day I met Gwen was paying the toll to cross the bridge. Then the hammer dropped.

    Gwen didn’t live where I did year-round. She worked for a family as a nanny who spent half the year on Cape Cod and the other half in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was into me, and I was into her, so we enjoyed every moment of the summer and figured we’d cross that bridge when we came to it.
    I became so attached to Gwen. I couldn’t imagine my life without her, or remember my life before her. That’s the forever type of feeling. I was 26 at the time, she was 22, but in my mind, I could see this being a long-term relationship. What about the impending return to New Orleans?
    As the days ticked down to the first week of October and her leaving Cape Cod for half a year, I started to formulate a plan for her return. I declared my intentions. I told her that someday I wanted to marry her.
    That’s a big declaration. She was a bit taken aback, but I made sure to tell her I didn’t mean today, or even next year, just someday. To prove it, I even gave her a sort of placeholder ring. Not anything expensive, but a gesture of the weight of my words. Gwen had changed my life so completely. A person like that is not someone you let get away.
    We made promises to stay connected through the winter. We knew that come April, she’d be back and we could hopefully pick up where we left off. October came, and Gwen departed Cape Cod. She would never return.

Chapter 2: The Distance

    The first few weeks went well. We stayed in touch, and at times it was like she was just away on a trip. Then the calls and texts got fewer. Gwen worked full-time as a nanny, so I understood that she didn’t always have time to answer her phone. I knew that we just had to navigate these waters and we’d come out the other side stronger than ever.
    The hammer dropped on those dreams. Gwen let me know that the husband and wife she was working for had decided to get divorced. In short, this meant that returning to Cape Cod with them in April was off the table. I was devastated and desperate. I meant all that I had said to her and now I needed to prove it.
    First, I got time off from work and set up a trip down to New Orleans in January. It would be the first time I had seen Gwen in four months. Her mother would tell me in a letter later that Gwen was overcome with emotion seeing just how far I was willing to go to see her. She knew I really loved her.
    Looking back, the trip to New Orleans was our last hurrah, but at the time, I didn’t know that. We had fun and reconnected, and I got to meet and spend time with her family. I specifically remember Gwen’s youngest sister gifting me a pair of heart-shaped Mardi Gras beads.
    I felt like they accepted me. I even started trying to learn Spanish so I could better communicate with Gwen’s parents, who spoke very little English. Gwen felt like home to me so in my mind, wherever she was, needed to be my home.
    While driving around downtown New Orleans, I told Gwen of my plan to move to New Orleans. She was shocked. I explained my reasoning, but the most I got out of her was that it was a big city and she couldn’t stop me if that was what I wanted. The distance between us for those months could not be overcome in four days. In fact, it was only on my last day in New Orleans that it felt like it had on Cape Cod.
    We parted ways at the airport. I remained steadfast in my plans to return to New Orleans. For her part, I think Gwen could have gone either way. If I never returned, she’d be okay. If I moved there, she’d plan accordingly.

    I think deep down, I knew that was it. While driving home from Providence, the song Sunday Morning by Maroon 5 came on the radio. It was a song Gwen and I had sung together often. The lyric that broke me was “I would gladly hit the road, get up and go if I knew.
    That someday it would lead me back to you.” I cried so hard while driving on the highway that I eventually needed to pull into a rest area to collect myself.
    I figured things could go one of two ways. Either it was over, and I'd try to put my life back together without the person who had changed it more than nearly anyone. Or I followed through with my plan to move to New Orleans and let the chips fall where they may. I chose Option 2.
    I began setting up plans to move. I began scoping out apartments in and around New Orleans. I also started sending feelers out for potential jobs. The one that I was closest to accepting was working at an art gallery. I can’t remember what exactly I was going to be doing but I’d be in the art world, which was good for my hopeful photography or writing dreams.
    Although I hadn’t accepted any jobs or put any money down on any apartments, the wheels were in motion. All I had to do was tell my job on Cape Cod that I was leaving and that would be it. Then fate intervened.
    I was likely only a few weeks from making the move when Gwen ended it. She told me that things were going too fast and that she was too young and not ready for the step I was planning. She said some things that crushed me. Basically, she felt like what we had was a fun little fling, and that the time had passed. At that moment, I was hurt, confused, and angry. Looking back now, I see her side more clearly.
    I loved Gwen. She had pulled me from a deep depression just by stepping into my life. That being said, she didn’t ask to be my savior and that had to be a pressure that she wasn’t ready for. If things had gone to plan, where she returned to Cape Cod that April and we picked up where we left off, I think we would have had a good chance of making it. Life is never a single straight line though.

Chapter 3: Fading Away

    Our time as a couple was over. The calls, the texts, the poetry I wrote, it all ended. I tried, and failed, to get over Gwen. I was floating in a sea of sadness during that summer. Then life threw one of those curves.
    Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in August 2005. I saw the videos and was horrified. All I thought about was Gwen and her family and hoping that they were okay. I had to bridge the gap. I made the call to check on her.
    Her family was safe. They had relocated to Houston, Texas. Gwen and I reconnected. We didn’t talk every day like we used to, but it was at least a few times a week. Keeping the lines of communication open with her was a blessing and a curse.
    I felt that as long as we talked, there was always a chance of getting back together. After the hurricane, I wasn’t sure if Gwen’s family was to permanently stay in Houston. Maybe they’d move somewhere else? Maybe somewhere closer? Or maybe I’d plan another move and follow through?

    Within a few weeks of Hurricane Katrina, I was on the move from Cape Cod to Southern Florida. I kept Gwen in the loop with my plans to drive more than 1,500 miles from Cape Cod to Fort Lauderdale by myself in my blue Saturn Ion. At the very least, with me in Florida, she and I would be about a 17-hour drive apart. This was about 13 hours less than if I were driving to Houston from Cape Cod. I kept running on faith that we were meant to be together.
    My time in Florida was short. Hurricane Wilma thrashed the state about a month after I arrived. All of my job interviews were gone. Soon enough, my money was too. I knew I needed to punt on this journey and go back to Cape Cod to start again. It ended up being a fun story but a failure of a life change.
    As for Gwen, things kept changing. In the time since she had left Cape Cod, she had gotten very, very deep into religion. I don’t know if she was always that way and I pulled her away from it while we were together. Maybe so. All I know is that it became an insurmountable obstacle.
    I wanted Gwen to remain in my life. If I truly had meant all I said about her I’d be a hypocrite if I cut her off because we no longer were a couple. It was a double-edged sword. Every time we’d talk, I’d hear her voice, and it was like a visceral reaction. I’d remember all we said and did, and I’d want it all again. However, there was one thing I hadn’t counted on.
    She began talking about dating others. It was a gut punch. Looking back now of course Gwen would have no shortage of suitors. She was all of the things I had said and believed. Men would be falling all over themselves to be with her. I just wasn’t ready to hear that.
    I was angry, hurt, and confused again. What about me? I was good enough at one point, but now I was only good enough to be her sounding board about other men she was with. I loved her, but I couldn’t take it.
    Our calls and texts became fewer and fewer until one day they stopped, forever. I don’t remember who was last to reach out to the other. I don’t know if she called and I didn’t respond or vice versa. All I do know is that Gwen was out of my life.
    From the day we first met to the day of our last interaction, it had been two years at most. She had gone from a stranger to the most important part of my life, and back to a stranger in the blink of an eye. It was over, for now.

Chapter 4: The Search

    To cope with the end of an important relationship, I dove headlong into my writing. The first short story I wrote was actually a semi-biographical tale of my relationship with Gwen. I even called her Gwen in the story.
    Those short stories led to ebooks on Amazon. This led to my own website, a travel blog, and eventually a book deal. As much as I tried to forget Gwen, she was a huge part of my life still, as my writing career truly began as a way to deal with losing her. To this day, all of my writing and content work I do is connected to her.

    Years passed. I looked for love and failed at every turn. I was chasing the feeling that Gwen had given me. It felt like nobody measured up, or that I’d never even give them a chance to. It was sometime in early 2010 that I first tried to reconnect with her.
    I didn’t have her address. Her phone number had changed. She was nowhere to be found on social media. The only connection I had was her youngest sister, and she was not interested in helping me bridge that gap. To be fair, it wasn’t her job to reconnect her sister to an ex-boyfriend. Still, at the time, I was angry. She was my only hope, and it was dashed.
    More years passed. I met a few people. I even had a relationship that, for a time, made me forget about Gwen. However, once that one ended, I again began the search.
    By 2016, I learned that Gwen had gotten married and still lived around the Houston area. She still wasn’t on social media so all I had was the most minimal of information. I would get frustrated and then mad at myself. If I had just kept in touch even through her dating others who knows where we’d be?
    Time kept moving on. I battled alcohol issues. I dealt with the deaths of several loved ones. I kept my head down and worked on my writing, which as of today is 9 published books. I also buried myself in content creation, including a podcast. I was trying to fill every nook and cranny of my life so that I didn’t have time to think about things like relationships.
    In 2022, I tried to connect with Gwen again. I knew her 40th birthday was coming up and wanted to at least wish her a happy birthday. I mentioned to her sister about Gwen’s birthday. She never responded so I left it alone. I’d share things on social media that were vague and/or cryptic. I knew Gwen would never see it, but it soothed my heart briefly.
    This pattern continued over the next few years. Birthdays, anniversaries of our first date, I’d post something to keep that memory alive. I created a Spotify playlist with songs we used to listen to. Even if she wasn’t there, Gwen’s memory would make me smile.

    I pride myself on being great a research. I’m an excellent Internet detective, for what that’s worth. Still, despite my best efforts, I could not locate Gwen. I refused to do any people searches. I didn’t want to invade her life in such a way. I had to use my detective skills, which always led to dead ends. I had her name and roughly where she lived. I’m sure if I’d have paid, I’d have gotten what I wanted. But if I truly had loved Gwen, if I truly respected her and wanted her to be happy, I couldn’t cross that line. I’d never be able to live with myself.
    June 2024 marked 20 years since Gwen had blown up my life like the most beautiful tornado. It was another chance to reconnect. I again asked her sister to please pass along my email and phone number. I said Gwen didn’t have to use them, but if she ever wanted to reconnect, she could. Her sister said she couldn’t do it. Out of respect for Gwen’s husband, she didn’t want to give an ex-boyfriend’s contact info to her.
    I felt sad and defeated. Yet I understood. I told her sister that I would leave it alone. Out of love and respect for Gwen, I would let the past be the past. The search had to be called off.

Chapter 5: Closure

    I began to look back on things more pragmatically. I started asking bigger picture questions like ‘Why?’ Why had Gwen come into my life? What was the lesson I was supposed to have learned?
    I had loved her hard. I had loved her more intensely and deeply than anybody. I had chased those feelings and looked for them in others, only to find that it was something that couldn’t be so easily replicated.
    Gwen had become a ghost. I could never see her but I felt her in every facet of my being. She had left such a mark on me that I ended up stopping my search for a relationship with someone else because I knew they wouldn’t be Gwen. But what did I learn?

    The main thing I learned, which took me a long time to see, was that Gwen had shown me that I could be loved in a real way and do so by being a 100% authentic version of myself. I’ve felt in every other circumstance that I’ve altered something about myself to try to fit someone else’s idea of a relationship. If I could find a love like that once, then surely I could find it again, even if it took much longer than I wanted.
    The other thing that I was having trouble accepting was the fact that I was never going to get closure. My closure was not getting closure and having to deal with it. I hated that. I hated that I’d never know more about Gwen than the fact that she was married, didn’t have any kids, and lived near Houston. But it was all I was going to get, or so I thought.

    Here we go back to the beginning. Less than 24 hours from when I’m writing this, I got what I didn’t expect. I got closure. How?
    This week is the anniversary of when Gwen and I first met. I am always deep in my feels, remembering what she meant to me. It is easier to go back to that place because I was smart enough to keep a journal of our relationship. I can flip through the pages and it’s like she’s here with me again.
    I took the journal and parked in a secluded area of a beach parking lot. My windows were down, it was a perfect afternoon. I started from the beginning, making sure to soak in every word I’d written. It was different reading the words I’d written at 26-27 now in my late 40s. I had a different view of life and could see the issues I brought to the relationship.
    Don’t get me wrong, I was still looking for things I could have done to save the relationship, but when the last journal entry was finished with a period, all I could do was smile.
    I closed the notebook and stared out toward the beach. I said out loud in my car, “I want to find her. Or I want her to find me.”
    Many times I have stated this. I had put it into the universe that I wanted Gwen and I to somehow reconnect. It never happened and this time I figured it would be more of the same. Things changed a few hours later.
    I sat in my chair, looking at the laptop I’m writing this on. For kicks, I typed in Gwen’s name and town, like I had done many times before without success. I found something. There was someone with the same first name, same middle initial, same age, same town, but with a different last name. Could this be her?
    My heart began fluttering as I clicked the link to a Facebook page. What I saw knocked me for a loop. There was Gwen and her husband, they shared a page. I clicked their profile picture and saw her face for the first time in 20 years. I smiled and said, “I found you.”

    Gwen and her husband run a church in the Houston area. Their shared account is all about their religious teachings. It turns out her deep dive into religion at the end of our relationship was her true calling.
    I scrolled through the posts and photos. Over and over, I saw comments from the parishioners thanking Gwen and her husband for all of the positive impact they have made in so many people’s lives. I watched videos of Gwen giving sermons, all in Spanish, but still. It was what she was meant to do and meant to be.
    I saw the photos of Gwen with her husband. They looked happy. She looked happy. She looked as beautiful as the first day I laid eyes on her. Just as I am a far different person than when I first met her, I could tell Gwen was far different as well. In the end, I was happy for her.
    

    So what of my closure? I now have ways to contact Gwen, yet I feel no desire to. Is that strange? I searched for her for so many years and now that I’ve found her, I feel more compelled to stay in the background as only an observer.
    What good could come from my reaching out? The Facebook page is for both Gwen and her husband. Am I going to send a message spilling my guts? They also give the address of their church. Again, am I really going to write a letter condensing everything I’ve written here into a page or two?
    I don’t want to tarnish what we had. I don’t want to cause damage to Gwen’s life by revealing my truth. What would it matter? I got what I needed. I needed to see her with my own eyes. I needed to know how she was, what she was doing, and most of all know that she was happy and fulfilled.
    Gwen and I are two different people living two different lives. In the best-case scenario, one of us would have to totally alter ourselves to fit in the other’s world. I am not willing to do that, and I wouldn’t want her to do that for me. My writing career and her religious teachings are what we were meant to do. I don’t think I had a hand in helping her get to where she is, but I do know she had a major hand in getting me here.

    In the end, where does this all leave me? Once I closed the Facebook page, I felt a mix of peace and emptiness. I had been chasing Gwen for so long, and having finally found her I feel like there is a big space I need to fill with something else. I’ve been filled with content and writing work so I don’t think more of that is the answer. Maybe I’ll give a relationship a more serious try.
    As time passes, I will likely check in on Gwen. I will look at her Facebook page, and her church website, and maybe see if she’s on other social media platforms. Contacting her? Right now, that’s a ‘no.’ Out of respect for Gwen and respect for her sister, whom I had told I wouldn’t pursue her, I need to keep my word. However, if someday I open her page and it’s no longer both Gwen and her husband, then all bets are off.
    I feel strange not having that monkey on my back of needing to find Gwen. It was there so long that it’s hard to imagine life without it. After so, so long, I got the closure that seemed like I’d never get. I see how happy Gwen is, how fulfilled she is, and that’s all I want for her. Sure, I’d love to tell her all about where my road has taken me, and maybe someday that will happen. For right now, though, I’ll end this by saying thank you, Gwen, for coming into my life, for changing me more than you’ll ever know, and I kept the promise you made me make, I never forgot you.