Missing You

I miss you.  I want to text you so bad.  I want to talk to you.  I can't tell you again how much you mean to me.  You know.  I guess that's why you pushed me way so stupidly and so brutally.  You have to know that I get it, that you did what you did because for some reason you felt you had to.   I just wish you had gone the honest route instead of the cowardly one.  I hope it didn't feel good to hurt me so badly.  If it did, don't ever tell me so because that takes it to a whole new level of pain.

People in the know are glad, glad you have taken yourself out of my life.  But I never listened to anyone before and I'm not going to start now and I'm not glad.  I don't feel relieved.  I don't feel a weight lifted because you're gone.  I just feel sad, and empty and that something is missing.  You.  You're missing.  And I hate it.

How could you turn your back on me so easily?   Friends since 1987.  That is a long time.  Was it easy?  In retrospect if all feels so forced, planned.  That night, you were looking for anything to fight about.  What you settled on and what ultimately ended our friendship and whatever else we had is not something that would end a 27 year friendship.  And when I think about it, sometimes I'm crushed, other times I'm just angry.  So so angry that you turned your back on me.

It's been a month.  It's taken me this long to put these feelings on paper.  It's taken me this long trying to make sense of a senseless situation to realize there never will be any sense to it.  It took me 2 minutes after our fight to realize it was purposeful.  At the time, I was so shocked and going on instinct to fight you back, to try and hurt you back.  And I hate that I stooped to that level.  I hate that I said some of the things I said.  I was so upset, so crushed.  So decimated by you, again.  I console myself with that old saying.... you always hurt the ones you love.

No matter how many times I tell myself that I'm better off, my heart won't listen.  My heart wants you in my life.  My heart wants your friendship back.  You weren't always a good friend but at times you were the best friend.   At times you would say something to me that was so insightful, so right into my soul, that I thought there could be no one on this earth who knows me the way you do.  How you did that always blew my mind.  And no matter how many times you told me you're a dick, I didn't fully believe it until that night.  It was like an image you tried to keep going, but it never fooled me.  I saw that side of you that you don't show too many people.  And I still believe that, but I also will know that despite that other side, you're truly a dick too.  And that's ok.  A lot of times I feel like a total asshole.  But you saw the other side.  

You brought things out of me that I didn't know were there.  You were encouraging and supportive of me when I needed it most.  You made me love you again, not that I ever stopped.  And then you tore it away, again.  I didn't think I could ever live through the pain of losing you a second time.  But I guess I have.  But it's a pain that lingers.

Life is short.... I hope it doesn't take too long for you to find your way back, again.

Ask Me If I Care

More and more I find myself thinking, "ask me if I care" about any and everything.   I suppose that's a byproduct of the unhappiness I find myself unable to break out of.  At the same time it's troubling, yet liberating.  Troubling because it makes me think I've become cold and unfeeling.  Liberating because the reality is that I have stopped giving a shit about the people who don't give a shit about me.

Example, I saw today on Facebook that the man's niece got engaged.  Ask me if I care.  I don't.  Over the years it has become more and more clear to me that these two girls (the nieces) don't give a shit about me at all.  I have been in their lives since they were 5 and 6 years old.  I gave them gifts for every birthday and Christmas for all of those years until a few years ago when they started having kids and instead bought for the kids.  I have always been kind to them.  Have always treated them well.  But over the past few years I have backed away from them (and most of the man's family) because I never felt the same kind of care/respect in return.  For my 40th birthday the two nieces and their boyfriends gave me a single $2 instant lottery ticket.  I'm not saying they should shower me with gifts.  It's an example of the lack of interest/care that I feel from the man's family.   And when my dad passed away this past January, I heard nothing from them.   Oh I take that back, one of them posted on my Facebook.  The other did not, nor did she call me, nor did she send me a card, nor did she even acknowledge the fact that I lost my dad when I saw her two weeks later.  So excuse me if I'm not jumping up and down with glee over your engagement.

 

But it's more than just that, it's a lot of things.  I just can't muster caring about much of anything.  How is that liberating?  Well, I wasted a lot of time, a lot of heartache, a lot of energy on caring about things that in the big scheme ended up not mattering at all.  Friends who turned out not to be.  Situations that I should have avoided.  Family members who are assholes.  So to get to a point where I can say, "ask me if I care"?  Yeah, it feels liberating in a way.

Don't get me wrong, I still care about the people in my life that I know care about me.  I still love.  I still will do anything for the people who matter most.  Maybe when things change, when I finally get my life moving in the direction I want it moving in I will care again.  And hopefully I've learned enough lessons to spot those insincere phony people without investing too much of my precious time and the enormous amounts of love and friendship I have to give.

Or maybe it's my hormones.

Ode to the Former Friend

Sometimes I really miss you.  I want you to know that.  I do.  And sometimes I wonder why we are former friends and not friends.  Were the issues really that severe that you had to cut yourself off from me?  And while we're at it, what were those issues?  With some former friends, I don't have a clue why things fell apart.  When I think about that I can't help but think how stupid it all is.  How does someone who you know cares about you, who you had no argument with, who you shared so much with, suddenly become persona non grata?  And how do you not even give them the courtesy of telling them why?  That pretty much tells me the friendship didn't mean much to you at all.  That's kind of sad.  I'm not talking about a natural transition, a drifting apart.  I'm talking a sudden abrupt change with no explanation.

Is it wasted time?  Did I waste my time being your friend, calling you, talking to you, listening to you and letting you listen to me?  Was it a big mistake confiding my innermost secrets with you?  Is there something somewhere that you will hold over my head somewhere down the road?  Something I said that can be used against me?  Granted I don't have a lot of secrets and at this point, I'm not sure what you know and what you don't know.  But I felt so close to you that I may have said something, sometime that I shouldn't have.  Eh, I can't worry about it.  I will just have to assume that since you decided I suck, that you will disregard everything I ever said.

Was it a waste of time?  There is a saying that people come into our lives at certain times to fulfill a certain purpose.  I'd like to believe that but I'm having a hard time figuring out what the purpose is in these cases.  Cases, plural.  It's happened to me more than once.  Which of course, makes me think it's me.  I'm doing something to drive people away.  I curse too much.  I talk about sex too much.  Are those actual reasons to dump a friend?  Seems petty.  But I know I have never intentionally maliciously hurt someone.  Not to my knowledge anyway.  If I had, I would definitely hope that the person wronged would say something so that I could right that wrong.  Since they haven't, I again go back to assuming I just suck.  Suck as a human being.  Suck as a friend.  Suck to the highest heights of suckage.

I don't want to think of you as a waste of time but I'm grasping at straws for the lesson in the friendship.  Maybe I learned more about myself.  Yes that's probably true.  That right there makes the relationship not a waste of time.

You know what former friend?   I'm starting to wonder why I miss you.  YOU dumped me.  YOU didn't tell me why.   YOU took away your friendship and threw away mine.  And you know what, I don't suck as a friend or a human being.  It just so happens that I'm not perfect.  I make mistakes.  I say fuck and cunt when I feel like it.  I like talking about sex, reading about sex and engaging in sex. I love my tattoos.  I love dying my hair weird ass colors.  I'm 48 years old and I can do whatever the fuck I want and I should never ever be made to feel less than because of someone else.  I fucking rock!  I'm a great friend and would always be there for my friends no matter what.  I'm not afraid to express my opinion, even if it differs from yours.  A true friend respects that and doesn't stop being your friend because of it.

I guess this wasn't much of an ode to you former friend.  Sorry about that.  Well no, I'm not.  This is my exorcism.  To once and for all remove you from my thoughts, remove you from my life the way you removed me from yours.  Sorry you're going to miss out on all the fun, humor, and friendship I still have left to give.

Goodbye Dear Friend

I've written about J before, a few times.  How much she has enhanced my life and how she was a big inspiration for me in starting this blog.  I've written how she has been battling lung cancer, a non smoker, and the unfairness I have felt that she contracted the disease.  And now it is with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness that I must say she has lost the war with cancer on March 24.

She fought every battle with utmost grace and a dignity that I can only hope to aspire to.  Every setback was met with optimism.  Every victory, with joy.  In the year and nine months since her diagnosis, she looked cancer in the eye and met it head on.  It's a testament to her courageous spirit.  Sure, at the beginning she wanted to bury her head in the sand and not face it, but once that initial terror/denial ended, she was all strength.  I dont' know that I can adequately do her justice because truly she is the bravest person I ever knew.  And I will miss her every single day.  On the surface, if anyone saw us together they would wonder what these two women have in common.  But it was what we had below the surface that really mattered. She was 12 years older than me, but it never made a difference.  She had a completely different life than I do, but that didn't matter either.  She saw a lot in me that I sometimes have trouble seeing.  And I saw in her a beautiful soul with a glorious sense of humor.  We clicked immediately and have been friends since around 1996.

In January, things were looking up.  The cancer in her lung was all but gone and nothing more than scar tissue.  Unfortunately it had spread and there was a spot on her liver.   After several different courses of chemo for the liver cancer, that cough came back.  The cough that was the beginning of everything.  And I knew this was a bad sign.  A very bad sign.  But I tried hard not to let myself think it.  I didn't want to.  I knew it was getting down to the wire and that her doctor was running out of treatment options.  That cough.  It nagged at me.

Through it all she was helping plan her son's wedding and hired me to make candy boxes for the rehearsal dinner.  Every time we needed to contact each other it had to be via text or email because once she started to talk the cough took over.  And still I tried to remain in denial.  I just didn't want to think the worst.  I wanted to be optimistic even though the last time I did speak to her, she had told me she's made peace with everything.  Strength. Grace.  Dignity.

On March 7, her husband called me to let me know that J's treatment options have been exhausted.  There was nothing more anyone could do and she was now under hospice care.  Her son's rehearsal dinner was the next day, the wedding on March 10.  Would she be able to go was my question.  Yes, she was going to the wedding come hell or high water, but had opted out of the rehearsal so she could conserve her energy.  Good plan.  And she did go to the wedding and from the pictures I saw, she looked beautiful.

On March 14, I received a letter in the mail from her.  A letter that in essence was a goodbye. Devastating and yet beautiful.  Something I will cherish.  And a part of which I will share with you....

You are and always will be someone who touched my life in so many positive ways.  A little bit of you will always be in me.  Much love forever, J

After drying my tears, I texted her to thank her for the beautiful letter and tell her again that I love her and how brave she is.  She replied:

Hold on to it and read it when you need a little J in your life.  I love you so very much!

I told her I would hold onto it forever, and I will.  How do you say goodbye to someone so dear, so special, so a part of you?  I don't know.  But I will be traveling to Cincinnati this weekend for her Memorial service so I can try to do that.  Oh how I wish I could be going there again for a visit, to hang out with her and her husband.  To meet her new daughter in law.  How I wish it were anything but the reason I am going there.  Love you forever J.  

 

How Did We Get Here?

I've come to the end of my several weeks of angst.  This particular several weeks of angst, I should clarify.  I'm sure I'll have more in the future.   But this particular dilemma, trauma, whatever you want to call it, is now over.  It's hard to look at the time I spent on someone as a waste.  I do not think of it as a waste.  I think that people come into our lives at certain times to fill a need, or you fill a need for them.  And I think we absolutely did that for each other.  I'm not sure I can say the friendship is over, because I'm not sure it ever will be completely over.  But I do see it with much more clarity now, meaning I have accepted that I'll never really know what happened and have decided to move the fuck on.

I've been reflecting on a lot of things lately, writing in my Bite Me book.  What can I say, I get introspective from time to time (to time).  What I have been thinking about is how certain people come into your life and how others come back into your life after long periods of absence.  My pain filled tirades of late have given way to something completely different and unexpected.  A few days ago, I felt the closure I needed from that situation, the most closure I'll get anyway and I am as over it as I will ever be.  And that same night the man and I went out with R, an old beau of mine, to see an old friend of ours band.  And as that night went on, I realized I was out with two guys I have known over 25 years, watching another friend I've known even longer.  And it put so much in perspective.

At one point, R said to me, "isn't it cool that all these years later we can still hang out together?"  And the answer is, it's amazing.  R and I have been in touch, here and there for about 10 years or so, but before that we hadn't been in touch for over 10 years.  And now it's quite possible that we will remain in touch again.  We had a great time and are looking forward to hanging out some more.  It was the first time we have gone out together in probably about 23 or so years.  We did run into each other about 9 months ago but it wasn't a planned get together.  This was planned and it was nice, fun, oh fuck who am I kidding... it totally fucking rocked!

I got to wondering what brings people back into your life after a long absence?  And I think the answer is that everyone is looking for something familiar.  R and I did not have a falling out at all, we just drifted.  It happens.  And so introspection begets introspection and wonder begets wonder.  When I reconnected with TM, who incidentally is the friend who's band we went to see.  TM and I talked about everything and how much we had thought about each other or told others stories about things we had done together.  So I knew that TM had been thinking about me over the years the way I had been thinking about him.  With R, who knows.  I'm not sure it matters, but I'll guess yes, he has thought of me over the years.  Fondly I might add.  If not, why even bother starting a friendship again?  I have certainly thought about him, and have written about him here several times.  He is someone I have always cared about.  Not taking away anything from the friends I have made since then, the friends you make when you are at the pinnacle of your life are always the best ones aren't they?  What I mean is, in those formative years, the people who are around you at those times are the ones you tend to gravitate back to.  Because they are familiar.  Because they were with you when.  Because they know you inside and out and they get it, they get who you are.  Because you know, without a shred of doubt they care about you and always will.  It's like what Richard Dreyfuss as adult Gordie said in the movie Stand by Me... "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?"  For me, I've never had any friends like the ones I had when I was in my early 20's.

I have some amazing friends in my life now.  Of course I do, L, and L, and R, and A, and my PBAU peeps and the gardeners and my SLUTS (don't ask).  And I love them, they've been there for me when I needed them and I hope I have done the same in return.   And now, even if another 20 years goes by and I never speak to R, TM, or M I know without any uncertainty that I matter to them.  I know it about others too. And knowing that means everything.  And now I have it, for all eternity in print.  And when I feel like I am unworthy of someone, or have a situation like what happened recently happen again (which I hope it never does!), I can come here and see how much I really do have and how blessed I am.

You Rool

It takes a long time to be the person you want to be.  At least I found that to be true in my case.  At 45, on the fast track to 46 and thus, closer to 50 than to 40 (OMG), I have gotten to a point in my life where I very much like me.  When that question comes up "would you want to be friends with you?" my answer is fuck yes!  I would definitely want to be friends with me, if I weren't me.

I'm not perfect, nor is my life.  I get cranky and irritable.  I have a quick temper.  I have very little patience for stupidity.  I could stand to lose some weight (ok, more than some).  I'm almost always close to broke.  I cry a lot and very easily (Italian trait, my mom's the same way and so was my Grandma).  I curse like a sailor.  But on the other hand, I would never turn my back on a friend.  I will always take your call or text, or answer your email.  I will be the most supportive person for you in any of your endeavors.  While I may not always agree with you, I will never judge you for what you believe or feel.  I will listen when you need it, help or give advice when wanted.  I will always give of myself.  It's the best I can do and hopefully it's enough.  Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.  I will always be honest with you.  Besides those things, you'll always hear great music when you're with me.  You'll never be bored when eating with me.  I love to laugh.  I'm bawdy, in the best possible way.  And loyal to the core.

"The most I can do for my friend is simply 

to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow 

on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving 

him, he will want no other reward. Is not 

friendship divine in this?"

Henry David Thoreau

And still, given all that, sometimes it does end up not being enough.  It's a hard realization to come to when it isn't.  I think I've changed a lot over the past four years.  Hell I've changed a lot over the past two years.  For the better, maybe for the worse in some eyes.  I think I'm a lot more open now, about a lot of things, but especially sexuality.  I suspect some find that off putting.  But the way I see it, when you discover something great, you just want to shout it from the rooftops.  Well, wait... that didn't come out quite right.  I'm not saying I never knew great sex before.  I'm saying by letting go of hang ups that are driven into your brain when you grow up Catholic or repressed or whatever it is, a new world opens up.  It took me until about the age of 41 or 42 to really appreciate myself as a sexual being and let go of those hang ups.  And another two years to articulate them.  And I have no intentions of going backwards.  Maybe that is too open for some in "some things are better left unsaid" kind of way.  But to that I say, respect my differences from you as I respect your differences from me.  After all isn't that what makes the world go round.

But it's not just that.  Some bad experiences have taught me a lot.  Sometimes no matter how much you give of yourself, it will never be enough for some people or they just want more.  And they want more on their terms.  How can that be?  Perhaps there are just some people who believe you should react or act how they would in any given situation.  And that is a pretty unrealistic expectation.  But I've learned I can't be anyone else but me in any given situation.  When a dilemma comes up I react how I'm going to react, I don't think "how would XX react to this" and then act accordingly.  That's just stupid.  I am, if nothing else, always true to me, lumps and all.

Where on the pile of good discoveries or bad discoveries does this one go?  I wear my heart on my sleeve.  When I care about you, you know it.  When I love you, you know it.  Is that good or bad?  Maybe it's both.  On the one hand, people need to know they are loved and cared about.  On the other, the people who don't have the best of intentions can take advantage of that love.  And that's when it becomes a bad thing that causes a deep hurt.  I've been hurt because of it.  In the past and recently.  And yet, I wouldn't change it.  It's part of what makes me, me.  You have to love yourself, no matter what, or how do you expect anyone else to love you.

I've run the gamut of emotions over the past two weeks and my conclusion to it all is, I have no regrets.  I gave my heart to someone I thought gave me theirs back.  I opened myself up and in return, I mostly got a lot back.  I was going to say I wouldn't change a thing but I would change the pain it caused me.  I don't know where we go from here.  Maybe nowhere, maybe somewhere.  I do know that I will never regret loving someone. Ever.  No matter how much it ends up hurting in the end.