on friendship
I don’t like the feel of typing on my phone.
I’m sitting in my car in the parking deck at work, typing on my phone, disconnected. Through the fog I can make out Atlanta’s skyline. The air conditioning blasts my shivering hands just the way I like it.
It must be quiet in the minds of those without internal monologue. What a way to escape the negative voices. The ones telling me I am obsessed, screaming at me to shut the fuck up.
I feel too much. I feel so intensely, and I hurt so viscerally. I walked with you like some shadowy Jesus with a god complex. I was there to absorb whatever pain and accept whatever light to share. I smugly thought I was such a good friend.
Lying on my floor watching my cat die, I texted not for a script but for a friend. I am the nothing you had to lose.
I find myself lost in thought, again.
I shut off the car and open the door with my backpack in hand. The humid outside air immediately fogs up my eyeglasses, and I drop my banana while getting my keys into my pocket. I fumble with my cellphone, and it opens an article that I wouldn’t have clicked on.
“Good morning, Ellen,” the security guard says the same pleasant way he has for the six years I’ve worked here. “The door’s open.”
“Thank you, Steve,” I say as I walk through the double doors and head toward the newsroom. I make a silly face and instantly worry that the security cameras caught me and now Steve will think I was making faces about him.
I’m at my desk. It’s 08:05 in Midtown and I’m having a hot flash. The June Strawberry full moon is today, and it’s my friend’s birthday. I probably have PMS.
I can continue this letter on my laptop now, pressing my thoughts into digital paper with its electronic curser pulse.
When you needed me, I offered my ears and my advice, and my best, witty one-liners for making cute folks in the checkout line smile. I wanted to concentrate my energy on your happiness, praying you would find a love like I had. If only I could have shared.
Therein lies the truth that we only have so much energy to give and take as friends, as neighbors, as coworkers, as lovers, as enemies.
When I run out of spoons, spoon me.
Now, I’m crying as my coworkers are getting organized for the day. I can’t be here when anyone arrives. I tell my boss I’m heading back to work from home.
At my home office desk at 10:03, after yelling at the kids because they hadn’t gotten up and let the dogs out.
I’m doing my best to control my emotions and my reactions.
I expected that you and I wouldn’t talk as much at some point. Friendships go in waves like that.
It was the rejection. The abandonment.
The idea that you would just walk away and never see or think or talk to me again. That’s what hurt. That you would so thoroughly abandon me despite everything.
It’s 15:49 now, and I’m over it.
I’ll be here in 100 years’ time.