Yesterday Scales and I met at Starbucks after I got out of church, and then went to breakfast at a little pub in Dupont Circle, where we were planning our “tourist day.” I said in an earlier e-mail that I’d like to go anywhere, as long as we were incredibly naive about it. We were going to go to the Newseum, but we didn’t have quite enough time, so we went to see the actual Star Spangled Banner and the first lady gowns before we went back to Starbucks. I don’t normally have a two tea a day habit, but the Royal English Breakfast is everything. Everything.
We are both going through situations that are still “extremely loud and incredibly close,” and it was nice to have some pal-ing around time. I was telling her that I was caught between someday wanting to date, and my standards being so incredibly high that I thought I’d never meet anyone… I mean, why does she think I picked her, even as a friend? She’s passed five bars. FIVE. With a 170 on her LSAT, and you only need 163 to get into Mensa. I couldn’t do that at gunpoint. Thus, my belief in “kick my ass” smart is intact. Plus, she used to work in medicine/insurance, which gives us a lot to talk about as well.
I kidded her that I was just glad a blonde got through law school… and was there a lot of Wite-Out on her screen?
God, we have so much fun, because even the moments where we’re broken, at least we’re broken together. It’s great to have *that* friend. I am hoping that we are each encouraging the other to be better people, because that’s the best you can hope for in a friendship.
I certainly feel better, especially about myself now that it’s not being drilled into my head that I’m not some creepy stalker. The truth is that the things I did were to get Argo to go away, not any closer. I couldn’t bring myself to break her third grade BFF heart again, or mine, so I just acted like a jackass, taking the shortest path I knew to her thinking I wasn’t worth her time. It was my passive-aggressive way of not wanting time with her anymore, because I misguidedly thought that if I pushed her away, I could come back to Dana a few months later, Argo free and healed from the wounds I’d left. That wasn’t reality, either, because every time I had good news, she was the one I wanted to tell. Every time I had bad news, she was the one I wanted to tell. Even with a virtual friendship, every minute that we were fighting and away from each other was pure torture, mostly because I know I was the aggressor, the one that deserved punishment.
I just beat myself into a bloody pulp. When I first got here, I barely left the house, as if she would somehow know if I did. I hid from the world because that’s what I thought I deserved, self-inflicted house arrest. I went overboard, and I know it, because the more I sat there, the more I had time to ruminate and get even more situationally depressed about the situation rather than making room for other good things to enter my life. It is only now that I allow myself happiness, however fleeting, because sometimes there are days when I just cannot even… leaving Dana out of this because even though I am situationally depressed about that, too, I am more at peace with Dana than I am with Argo. Why? Because I wanted out of that relationship, and I didn’t want out of this one. As much as I may say that I don’t want her in my life, know that I am lying through my teeth and hoping one day I’ll believe it.
Because at this point, I don’t have a choice. I want to stop the fights, the tears, the dysfunctional relationship that didn’t start out that way, but devolved into it over time. She waffles between “say what you want” and “shut it down.” I am taking the “say what you want” side of her face, because without saying what I want, I don’t release the thunderstorm that leaves me walking through life wet and cold without allowing myself to change into dry clothes.
I need space to figure this shit out. What I want out of life and what I don’t. What I believe I deserve and what is reality and what’s not… when I’ve punished myself enough and it’s just time to get on with it.
It’s amazing how much of each other’s souls we saw, considering that there was never a third dimension of our relationship. I cannot speculate on what would have happened had there been, but what I do know is that there have been days where I wanted it and days where I didn’t… scared to branch out on my own regardless of what she thought about the matter. If we’d made plans to get together, it would have been a combination of OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU EVEN MORE IN PERSON and I THINK I’M GOING TO THROW UP… nervous to the point of exhaustion.
But what I do know is that there are days in which I wonder what it would have been like to be able to give her a hug, because what I do know from pictures is that her body seems warm, and her hugs would be memorable… if only for the chance to say thank you. I am grateful for this life experience, no matter how it ended. The roller coaster has come into the station, and it’s time to leave the park.
And on that note, I’m off.
Stories That Are All True 