Free Falling

It all started when Dana wished my parents a Merry Christmas and not me. I’d known she’d flown in on Christmas Day, and she hadn’t contacted me. I was feeling like a real baby about it, and one of my friends let me vent and said all the right things as we drank beer “together.” She was at her house and I was at mine, but it was communion, nonetheless.

Eventually, I decided to “man up” and contact her, because e-mail goes both directions, and I thought it would be a dick move on my part if I didn’t contact her at all. I told her that if she wanted to see me, I wanted to see her. She never replied. She got Counselor to say that I was not to contact her under any circumstances.

I told Counselor that my first reaction was “WTF? I don’t understand her animosity if she thinks my family are her friends.” They were when we were getting along, but I sent the e-mail from me and from counselor to my family, and they agreed it was a bitch move, and the best revenge was to live well… actually, I was more kind than my friends. One said, “in a few years she’ll try to contact you, and you can ignore her then.” I told her it depended on where I am in my life then, because just because Dana was “mean to me,” that doesn’t mean I have to be mean back. I want peace, and that doesn’t mean starting shit with Dana in the future. I’ve had enough drama to last my whole life, and knowing Dana does not want contact is extraordinarily freeing to me.

I celebrated my freedom, but not too hard. When I drink, I don’t wake up with hangovers. I wake up with heartburn. I drank enough for a Pepcid, but not enough for a Tylenol. 😛

I am moving on with my life. I actually told Dana that it was no thing if she didn’t want to see me, because I have my own stuff to work out and have been doing it for months. My healing was not dependent on her. It is happening despite her. My life is complete the way it is, with church and friends and the determination never to leave DC, not ever. I want to set down roots, real ones, the way I did in Portland.

I will see Pri Diddy in the next couple of weeks, and that means more to me than crying it out with Dana. However, I am sure that she has a lot to be angry about, a lot to process. But she clearly felt, and I picked up on it a lot, that she had it wired that she was the victim in all of this. But that was months ago, and perhaps she doesn’t feel that way anymore. I’ll never know, and I’m good with it.

One of my friends told me that having Counselor do her dirty work for her was weak, and I’m hanging on to that phrase because it’s true. If Dana wanted no contact, she should have said it. I could have taken it, no problem. It’s not my job to control Dana’s reaction. I was just trying to reach out. What she does with it is up to her, and I have my answer.

Of course it’s sad, but it’s also happy. The blessing of not having to worry about her anymore is the best Christmas gift ever. I am free to put down that burden, because it weighed on me greatly. I’d stopped feeling like we should get back together long ago, but I *was* interested in creating some sort of working relationship, kind of a throwback to our early years of just palling around Portland together. But if that is not possible, I have plenty of other friends to lean on in pain and in joy, which comes in the same breath. Several people got me to laugh with their responses, which was the best medicine.

Being funny is something I’m good at, and my friends aren’t bad, either. 😛 I look forward to laughing with them more as time goes by, and I am looking forward to the future I want to create rather than being stuck in the past. I am bigger than this. Dana wants to be a footnote in my history, so be it.

I have plenty of people to look forward to in my future.

Amen.