Finally I understand.

I have five ex-boyfriends:

Number One was the "tragic young love" chapter of the story of my life. He and I reconnected last summer, and occasionally email one another. It's kind of a warm mix between nostalgia and pals, and I'm glad to be talking to him again. The girl he knew is nowhere to be found, but the one who's here now still appreciates his wry sense of humour and the fact that he's just plain "good people".

Number Two and Number Three were the one-two punch of the "what the hell was I thinking?"-rebound from Number One.

Number Four was the "near-miss". We were together for three years and everyone around us was pushing us to get married. Fortunately by the time Number Four decided to go chase someone else (without bothering to liberate me first), I'd realized there was no way I was going to spend the rest of my life with this person.

Number Five graduated to Husband and next month marks our tenth wedding anniversary.

Today I was thinking. I firmly believe that every experience we have in our all-too-brief lives contains a lesson -- something for us to learn and carry with us for the rest of our lives. I used to say that Number Four's purpose in my life was to show me everything I *did not* want in a life-partner. But for years I've been thinking that there had to be more to it than that. And today, it suddenly dawned on me: Leonard Cohen.

Number Four was a bit of an "intellectual-litterati-wannabe", and, whether he knew it or not, he tended to put on airs and ideas and quotations like most people wear clothes. There was a lot of layering going on there, so that he would seem So Much More for every occasion. Now, I come to neither praise nor bury Number Four, but it is important that you understand this bit of his personality so that you can fully grasp the way in which he felt he needed to educate me (the one with three-quarters of an English degree and a couple of national fiction awards under her belt) about Leonard Cohen. After all, Number Four went to McGill too. (I'll leave out the part about for how briefly and with what limited success because I'm just not feeling that bitchy. But can you tell arrogance really pisses me off?)

Anyway, Number Four introduced me to the music of Leonard Cohen, because anyone who is smart in Canada should know Leonard Cohen, and although I was too young to get beneath anything but the thin film of the surface of any of the songs, his words became a part of me in a way I can't really explain. It was as if, even as I chuckled at the morose nature of some of the lyrics, part of me knew I'd "get it" eventually, that I just needed a little more life under my belt.

And so I began to collect the music. And the poems. And today, as I sat here listening to "Various Positions" for the first time in at least seven years, sure enough, I started picking up on subtle nuances and bits of imagery I hadn't really noticed before. And the more I learn about Leonard Cohen and the more I read his thoughts on everything from poetry to spirituality, the more I wish I could just sit down and have a chat with the man. He's fascinating. He "gets life" in a way that few people really do, and I'm certain that I'd learn a lot if I ever had to opportunity to say hello and shake his hand and share a table at Java Moose. But most of all, I think I'd just want to say "thank you".

And, Number Four, I guess I owe you some thanks, too, now that I finally know what your legacy, your footprint left on my life, is. And for all my slamming of your sense of self-importance in this post, I really have no hard feelings. I have the wrinkles and the grey hairs enough to know now why you were the way you were.