Heidi Goes to Europe
Heidi and I were living together in a large one bedroom apartment on 28th Avenue in San Francisco. The building bordered on Clement Street and was one block from Golden Gate Park. We weren't far from the Polo Field around which we regularly jogged. We were on the Richmond District side of the park. The other side, the south side of the park, was the Sunset District where Heidi grew up and where her mother, Jenny, still resided. The Sunset District extended out to Ocean Beach on the west side of the city but even though the sun sets in the west, there were few occasions to view sunsets there as that area was generally foggy when the sun went down. I think whoever gave that district the name of Sunset either had never been there or did so mockingly.
Heidi had been planning a long trip to Europe for a few years with her girlfriends Maureen and Sue, who were cousins,. Maureen grew up in the house next to Heidi's family in the Sunset District and Sue was Maureen's cousin who also grew up in the city. This trip was in the planning phase before I entered the picture. It was going to be a long trip, in the neighborhood of two months. The plan was to travel fairly cheaply, staying mostly at Youth Hostels. They were hoping to go in the spring of '84 and I was not included in the trip. Of course I was not around when they started planning it. It did not seem like a big deal since there was no way I would be able to take that kind of time off from my job without losing it.
Heidi told me all about the trip shortly after we got together. She talked about how she, Maureen, and Sue had been dreaming about doing this for a long time. So, I knew about it but it was always some where in the future. I've never been one too look to far into the future, next month is a long way off to me. Heidi was looking forward to the trip and now it was right around the corner. Suddenly, at the beginning of January 1984 I was laid-off and I had a bit of money in reserve, some from savings but more due to the generous payout from being let go from Zentec. I had money and time. Not only that, it was also a rare down time in the Silicon Valley IT world. Jobs were not exactly scarce but employers were not banging down my door trying to hire me as had been the case previously. For the first time since I initially moved to the Bay Area in 1978 I would actually have to pursue employment like most other people. I didn't need to find work right away and had contacts that allowed me to get short term contract work that would provided me with enough funds to live on until the trip or found a job.
A couple of months went by and boom, Heidi's trip was upon us. I still did't have a full-time job. My schedule was flexible. Now I know that I shouldn't just try to add on to their trip but I stated thinking that given that the trip was so long maybe I could meet up with Heidi for awhile, like a week or so, maybe in the middle of the trip. After all, we were living together and 2 months is a long time. I was going to miss her. My thinking was if it was me going on the long trip I would have wanted to have Heidi join me at least for part of it. It wasn't like it was going to be the 3 of them the whole time. Heidi was only going to be with Maureen for the first part of the trip with Sue joining them for the second half. Maybe I could come over with Sue and and I could join in for a week or Heidi and I could do a week ourselves since Sue would be there for Maureen. Then Heidi could meet back up with them. Given my current situation it seemed to me like a great idea.
Heidi didn't think so. Heidi felt obligated to keep the entire trip with her friends as planned. She felt my joining in, even for a short while, would change the dynamic and so it would not really work out. I said I understood, and I did but I was also disappointed as I really would have liked to have gone and met up with Heidi at some point. Oh well, Heidi was very independent. I liked that about her. I was quite independent myself, so I had no reason to complain.
The day of the trip came. Heidi packed up. I took her to the airport and she left. We told each other we would write regularly. She had no set itinerary. Their plan was to start out in Israel, then head over to Turkey, on to Portugal, possibly stopping in Spain, and then finally end up with a week in Amsterdam. Amsterdam had been Heidi's favorite place on her previous trip to Europe.
I wrote regularly and at first received regular letters from Heidi but then after a couple of weeks the letters stopped. I talked with Heidi's mom Jenny every now and then. Jenny indicated that she was still receiving some letters. I continued to write but nothing was coming back. After a couple more weeks I kind of figured that Heidi was probably rethinking our relationship, maybe thinking it was time for her to move on. I started to prepare myself for the worst thinking the best thing for me to do was maybe start to move on myself. I tried to come to terms with it all being over while waiting for Heidi's return. This reminded me of the feeling I had in Okinawa when I returned to find that Donna had left me. Nevertheless as the trip was nearing the end, I was anxiously looking forward to picking Heidi up at the airport. I didn't know what flight she was coming in on so I called Jenny. Jenny said Heidi had made plans for her to pick Heidi up. Not a good sign. That was disappointing to say the least. Now I was really afraid that our relationship was over and Heidi would probably be moving out when she returned.
Heidi's flight came in late in the evening and she spent the night at her mother's. She showed up at our apartment the next day. I was a little apprehensive but I was glad to see her. She was initially a little distant and I suppose I was too. That evening we had a long talk where she eventually told me about a series of incidents including some changes in the trip's itinerary. That resulted in her not receiving many of my letters as well as her not sending any. It was complicated but the bottom line was I had misread the situation. I felt bad that I had jumped to the conclusions I had. We talked at some length and we both agreed that we wanted to continue the relationship as it was prior to the trip. So we decided to move forward, but it was different.
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