Posts tagged with "friendship"

Jealousy As Insecurity As Love

Hey Pat,

I don’t know how seri­ous you thought I was about being the best man or MC if you ever get mar­ried. I know it may sound crazy, but you get­ting mar­ried is as impor­tant to me as it is to you. I love you, and I know I don’t tell you that enough. You are a true friend to me, and you know that I don’t have many.

I see this as a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to do some­thing for you, because you’ve already done so much for me. Let me take on the respon­si­bil­i­ty and sup­port you, to be there for you on one of the most impor­tant days of your life. I eas­i­ly put aside the dif­fer­ences I’ve had with any poten­tial peo­ple you may invite (I think that we’re smart enough to be open and dis­cuss this), because it’s about you, not me.

These things are usu­al­ly planned pret­ty well in advance though, so I won’t be sur­prised if you have some­one else in mind. I under­stand that we’re talk­ing about YOUR big day, so you should have the peo­ple YOU want involved in YOUR wed­ding. To be hon­est, I’ll be hap­py with what­ev­er deci­sion you make, because I’m hap­py if you’re hap­py. Bottom line.

In any case, let me know when you pop the ques­tion, and WE WILL FEAST.

  —Jeff

I wrote this two years ago.

Pat pro­posed to Jen a cou­ple of months lat­er. Several months after that, they bought a house, delay­ing the wed­ding until this year.

Last week, Pat asked me to be a grooms­man and co-MC.

When I found out that Jason would be best man (as well as the oth­er MC) there was a tinge of jeal­ousy in my heart, fol­lowed by an over­whelm­ing sense of guilt about this jeal­ousy.

To feel this way was a bit of a sur­prise. Jealously has nev­er been one of my promi­nent emo­tions. It made me real­ize that I’m a lit­tle inse­cure in my rela­tion­ship with Pat. There’s so much good in him, com­pared to the hatred, dark­ness, and weak­ness in me. He’s not my oppo­site, but he’s the per­son I’m con­stant­ly striv­ing to become. Just being around him makes me feel elat­ed and relaxed.

The frus­trat­ing thing is that I know it’s his wed­ding. He should be able to do what­ev­er he wants. There’s no rival­ry between Jason and me. As studi­er of peo­ple, I have every bit of faith in Pat’s deci­sion. The log­ic has final­ly kicked in, and I feel a sense of warmth and secu­ri­ty about being up there with Pat, a group exclu­sive to a hand­ful of peo­ple out of a seem­ing­ly end­less num­ber.

It’s only now that I real­ize how self­ish and inap­pro­pri­ate it was of me to ask. Running around, mak­ing sure every­one is hav­ing a good time, giv­ing toasts, host­ing games, the duty of MC isn’t even some­thing I nor­mal­ly want to do. I only asked because it was a way that I could show how much Pat has done for me, a respon­si­bil­i­ty I’d take on glad­ly.

I’m scared that I made him feel oblig­ed, and I’m ashamed of being jeal­ous for that split-sec­ond.

Maybe that’s what love is.

Unfounded inse­cu­ri­ty. Jealousy with­out rea­son.

A feel­ing that over­whelms log­ic.

Moving And Growing

Thumbnail: Aaron and Karen at their threshold
Thumbnail: Bronwen's belt design
Thumbnail: Pat's bird
Thumbnail: Bronwen smiles
Thumbnail: Lacey licks herself
Thumbnail: Glass shower stall
Thumbnail: Hot chili oil
Thumbnail: Karen's corner
Thumbnail: Chaos in the shelf
Thumbnail: Staples
Thumbnail: Toy guns

Moving is often a task I avoid at all costs. The mess of pack­ing, book­ing ele­va­tors, orga­niz­ing rides, and phys­i­cal­ly shift­ing dirty box­es around becomes a lot more com­pli­cat­ed than I care for. Being approached to help move by a close friend is a dif­fer­ent sto­ry, how­ev­er, as it becomes one of the few times that I can prove how much I’m will­ing to do for them.

It thus becomes a rather gal­va­niz­ing scene to arrive with a par­ty of friends at a doorstep, ready to help bring some­one else into anoth­er phase in their life. This week­end was no excep­tion, when help­ing Pat and Jen set­tle into their new place, a new­ly built four bed­room house out in the west end. Through most of last week, Pat and Jen had already moved the small items them­selves, so the only things that were left were the bulky fur­ni­ture. There were only eight of us, but we were fin­ished before we knew it.

Pat and Jen paid us in beer, piz­za, and wings, but giv­en the fact that they had already done most of the work, we hard­ly deserved it. The rest of the day was spent play­ing Mario Power Tennis, Donky Konga, and table ten­nis.

Helping them mov­ing was a reminder of how we’re all grow­ing up. Getting mar­ried, get­ting old.

I once asked Darren, the only oth­er male cousin with whom I share a Generation name, whether he thought we’d end up like our fathers, two broth­ers who also share their own. Our fathers who are moody, wast­ed old men who work too hard, and don’t get enough sleep. Before we real­ized it though, we had already turned into them, sur­viv­ing the days on most­ly rest­less sleep.

Look at us now. Pat and Jen are engaged, start­ing their fam­i­ly here. Aaron and Karen are one block away.

And the cou­ples take home left­overs the way the par­ents do at all the Christmas par­ties dur­ing the hol­i­days.

A Weekend With Pita

Pita was over for the week­end. He had a com­pe­ti­tion in the city, in both Standard and Latin, and need­ed a place to crash. He tells me that he’s at the point where he’s stuck between achiev­ing a high­er lev­el and pri­or­i­tiz­ing the sport as a recre­ation, espe­cial­ly after com­ing back emp­ty-hand­ed this week­end when he won two golds at the last com­pe­ti­tion. 25 is get­ting old for a com­pet­i­tive dancer, and his instruc­tor, who’s the same age as him, is already the Canadian cham­pi­on.

I have an inter­est­ing rela­tion­ship with Pita. He was the first per­son I met when I moved to this city, shar­ing a room on the 15th floor of a res­i­den­cy. Similar inter­ests and intel­lects meant that we got along much bet­ter than the oth­er pairs of frosh room­mates, most of whom got stuck with the crazy, the irra­tional, and the dis­gust­ing. We went sep­a­rate ways the next year, but moved into an apart­ment togeth­er for the fol­low­ing two years. After part­ing ways as room­mates, when he moved 12000 kilo­me­tres to the place he was born, before com­ing back to this coun­try, we did­n’t speak to each oth­er for more than eigh­teen months.

Now, when­ev­er I see him, when­ev­er he’s in town vis­it­ing old friends or par­tic­i­pat­ing in com­pe­ti­tions, we can greet each oth­er with­out for­mal­i­ties and just pick up where we left off. It’s on odd state between acquain­tance and friend­ship. We share our­selves, and what we’ve learned and how we’ve changed since last see­ing each oth­er, but nev­er keep in touch oth­er­wise. We also give each oth­er per­spec­tive. He often speaks as if he’s ask­ing for advice or guid­ance, with­out actu­al­ly ask­ing. I offer my point of view, which he always inter­prets in a dif­fer­ent way than intend­ed, and this keeps me on my toes.

A Bittersweet Life

He admit­ted to me that in his car, when he’s dri­ving alone, there’s a com­pul­sion to put togeth­er the details of his father as he writes in his mind the speech for the even­tu­al day that a eulo­gy will need to be deliv­ered. The only oth­er per­son he’s admit­ted this to is his girl­friend, who’s labeled the prac­tice as rather dis­turb­ing. Morbid, I’ll agree, as his father is far from pass­ing, but not as strange as she makes it out to be. In return, I admit to him that I do the same thing when I piece togeth­er sto­ries of his life for the speech I’ll be deliv­er­ing as best man at his wed­ding, an event just as grave, and every bit as trag­ic.

He humor­ous­ly finds relief in this.

Stepping Through The Shadow, Part 2/2: The Friend Aspect

I choose to live and to
Grow, take and give and to
Move, learn and love and to
Cry, kill and die and to
Be para­noid and to
Lie, hate and fear and to
Do what it takes to move through.

—Tool, Forty Six & 2

Unfortunately, I’m not myself when I’m around my friends.

With them, I’m hap­pi­er, more con­fi­dent, extro­vert­ed. It’s usu­al­ly only with them that I can test the bound­aries of social con­duct, because I know that they under­stand me, accept me, and are will­ing to back me all the way. Sometimes, I end up say­ing some pret­ty embar­rass­ing things off-the-cuff, things made more embar­rass­ing by the fact that even my friends aren’t laugh­ing. But to find the bound­ary, one has to cross it at some point. And it’s such a fuck­ing pow­er trip to know that I’m test­ing myself as well, test­ing how far I’m will­ing to go, some­thing that I can only do with the right peo­ple.

Without my friends, I recede into my shell. I require them at par­ties, events, social func­tions just so I can inter­act with peo­ple nor­mal­ly. When I do find myself in absence of their pres­ence, I force myself to be social. I con­sid­er how I would behave if I was with them, and pro­ceed with cau­tion. It’s slow­ly get­ting eas­i­er for me when I’m by myself. Perhaps I’m gain­ing my own self-con­fi­dence when I’m not around them.

Something I that can only gain when I’m with them.

The Stepping Through The Shadow Series