Posts tagged with "friendship"

A Test Of Love

So I delet­ed your num­bers off my speed dial. I took down your pic­tures. It was an in-the-moment thing.

I’m calm now, see­ing things objec­tive­ly, yet still unde­cid­ed.

Part of me wants to believe we can still be friends. That we can still hang out with­out me depend­ing on you for any­thing. But I’m not like that, and I don’t stay friends with those on whom I can’t depend.

I put aside my issues for my friends, and I need­ed you to do the same for me.

I cried, not only because you weren’t there when I need­ed you, not only because you had a respon­si­bil­i­ty to my friends as well, but because I nev­er allow those who hurt me so much to be a part of my life. Our friend­ship may be lost, and this is what upsets me the most. Perhaps it hurts so much because you were so impor­tant to me. I don’t want to lose that, but I’ll nev­er for­get what you did and I’ll nev­er trust you again.

And if I can for­give you, you’ll know that I tru­ly love you.

Pat Doesn't Need Me

Sometimes I feel like I don’t offer any­thing to Pat. I call him for advice all the time, ask him to give me rides (gro­ceries, fur­ni­ture, large items on which he bar­gains), vent to him. He grew up rely­ing on nobody but him­self, so he nev­er asks me for any favours, and I sup­pose he has Jen with whom to express his feel­ings.

Maybe this is the root of my inse­cu­ri­ty. Pat’s friend­ship with me appears dilut­ed. We’d both take a bul­let for our friends, but mine is a far more exclu­sive club than his.

Pat does­n’t need me.

But I need him.

Letting Go of Bronwen

Bronwen start­ed dat­ing anoth­er guy.

It’s fun­ny, my first reac­tion is to think anoth­er guy, as if we’re still dat­ing our­selves. I sup­pose our rela­tion­ship has nev­er been con­ven­tion­al, but that’s what makes it so spe­cial. We still spend our week­ends togeth­er. We still talk on the phone for hours with­out actu­al­ly talk­ing. We’re close enough that I’m com­plete­ly com­fort­able around her, enough for me to let my guard to go down.

It’s made me real­ize how pro­tec­tive I still am of her, how upset I’ll be if she gets hurt. I think of all the things I could have done bet­ter, and hope this guy can treat her bet­ter than I did.

I have all these mixed feel­ings about it though. I’m wor­ried that I may lose my friend, but I’m glad there’s some­one to make her hap­py. In the end, I know I can’t be self­ish. Letting go of her the first time was hard enough.

Doing it again does­n’t make it any eas­i­er.

Multitasking Emotions

Left screen, I’m going over the bach­e­lor par­ty footage. We’re recov­er­ing from a night of drink­ing over bacon and eggs in a high-cor­ner wide-angle shot. Right screen, I’m talk­ing to Aaron on Messenger.

Aaron: bro, you know I love you
Aaron: like for real
Aaron: no shit
Jeff: thanks man, i love you too
Aaron: no ‘you’re my bro’ shit
Aaron: the real deal

“No ‘You’re my bro’ shit”, he says. Bro. The word we some­times use to remind each oth­er that we’re fam­i­ly. Nothing emas­cu­lates some like the “l” word, but we’re passed that.

“you know I love you”. He was first to say it this time, and it cat­alyzes the tears down my face.

The video’s still play­ing. In it we’re ebul­lient, frat­er­niz­ing, and I can’t help but laugh along too.

I remem­ber anoth­er time, about three years ago, when I broke down after deal­ing with my mom and her incor­ri­gi­ble ways. I rolled a joint and smoked it as soon as I got off the phone. As the weed went to my brain, my mood evened out. I was numb to the pain but the tears did­n’t stop, like a phys­i­cal reflex.

What a strange feel­ing it was to be cry­ing and laugh­ing or stoned at the same time.

Life is the same way. It’s nev­er black and white, and there’s no absolute right or wrong. There are grey areas, points of pas­sion between plea­sure and pain.

Even cry­ing from joy is an enig­mat­ic micro­cosm of such an idea. I remem­ber doing so only one oth­er time, at the end of grade 7, dur­ing the final audi­tions for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Out of 10 schools, we were com­pet­ing to spend the sum­mer singing on stage with Donny Osmond. When they announced the name of our school we jumped out of our seats in cheer, but I could feel my face gri­mace from the emo­tion, tears fill­ing up my eyes. It’s as if you’re over­tak­en by sad­ness that you’ll nev­er feel as hap­py again.

Like yin and yang, one does­n’t exist with­out the oth­er, and often they exist at once.