Lost Messages, Cyberspace, Where Love Lives
Abbe’s Ruminations November 2025
Years ago, just when the internet and computers came into their own, I jumped reluctantly on the band wagon. The odds for success were against me, as a person living off the grid, with newly arrived electricity and water. I’d met a man in Puerto Rico, a professor of marine biology. We developed a deep friendship but now lived thousands of miles apart. We handwrote long letters to each other and sent them through the postal service.
My first e-mail letter to Laur never arrived. I hit the button send, but it disappeared into cyberspace. I eventually called Laur worried and upset. “Where did my thoughts go, my words just to you.” Laur explained the dynamics of cyberspace, how e-mails worked and that without saving or back-ups these words floated somewhere out yonder, like thoughts. The infancy of the system had not yet mastered retrieval. Laur passed away not long after our exchanges. His adult daughters knew of me through his conversations. I was his curious friend from afar.
As I age, I ponder where lost loves have gone. Those people you have cherished but never took the step to solidify a romantic relationship. How passions reworked into friendships or sibling like relationships. Using the computer, sometimes you can locate these people. But some slip through the cracks, intentionally or just because. Where does that love go to?
Are they like marks on the carpet of your heart, worn throughout your life, but gradually disappear? Who would know of these people if not declared? Words unspoken, lost inside your own brain… “no evidence of” like the cancer some say is in remission. Oh, how I wish that love and these messages spread like the cells that multiply. Ojala—that visions became real, movies we create and cherish, replay. Memories, loves, and messages, float in the space of the universe. Like faith in the unseeing, all that we have done, or not done, felt or not felt matters. Lost is just not seen. It still exists.
I’d love to hear if you wondered where your thoughts or messages went… You can find me at http://www.abberolnick.com
