TW (obviously):
Tonight, my once m coworker described to me his last winter dealing with supposedly "false" sexual assault and/or sexual harassment allegations. Yeah. I know. Anyway, I pried. I'm not sure if that was ethical, given the fact there's a 50/50 shot that this dude I've been acquainted with for months might have just admitted to me that he's a sex criminal. But, unless I get corroborating stories, it's his word against nothing, so I have no way of knowing anything. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.
The story itself wasn't graphic, as you might imagine. In fact, the thing that would make it graphic wasn't even described at all. By definition, it was a McGuffin. He referred to it as the "misunderstanding," which bothered me for obvious reasons. The real story was about loneliness - Biblical, condemned-for-eternity-to-dwell-alone-in-limbo, Austrian novel-loneliness. He talked a lot about living alone by the mall and only ever leaving his apartment for work. He also made note of the fact that it was winter at the time. Canadian winter. The kind where the sun disappears for a couple of months, and the world is this overwhelmingly opaque and harsh to the touch. When everyone wearing coats makes supermarkets feel liturgical, and the land gives your thoughts nothing to distract yourself with. I genuinely cannot think of a worse climate to become an actual social outcast.
Three things stuck out to me about the details surrounding this part of my coworker's life: (1) the fact he used "sexual assault" and "sexual harassment" interchangeably, which I called him on, (2) how he referred to the subject of such allegations as the "misunderstanding," and never went on to explain a thing about it, (3) how he never expressed any animosity towards who was cast as his victim, his ex-girlfriend. He made the whole thing out to be an actual conspiracy devised by very classic small-town characters: this gossipy Mean Girl and this "fuckboy" club regular who preys on teenaged girls. All of this rings as some kind of bullshit to me, but I couldn't tell. Looking into his eyes, I couldn't tell a fucking thing. And his anger - whatever came out when he said he would "kill" the aforementioned Fuckboy Guy for apparently attempting to actually assault his ex-girlfriend - felt almost unbelievable. It didn't sound rehearsed at all. It was just oddly meek, as if he didn't really mean it, as if he didn't really mean anything. Knowing the guy well enough from wasting hours in the aisles with him, that doesn't feel like it could be true. He's an undeniably sweet guy. But you'd imagine that someone with potentially Nice Guy qualities such as him would be concealing a secret malice, not emptiness. Again, that feels inaccurate. I don't want to portray this dude as a soulless weirdo. He's a weirdo, yes, but even potential monsters deserve to be dignified in having souls. I'm trying not to forget that.
The details aren't really important to the point I'm trying to make. What's important is what stuck out to me: his loneliness. His months spent as a "hermit," working the Christmas season, the not wanting to get hurt again, the trouble opening up, the puking blood over the stress he was under, the losing everything, the still wanting to be kind, even to me, who never offered a single word of consolation to him out of fear of enabling an assaulter. As I left to walk to my car to drive home, he shouted, "You're going to be fine. You're fucking awesome, man! See you later." All I gave him back was "See ya'."
What I'm trying to say here is that listening to this dude tell me about his Dark Night of The Soul made me realize that I think life is primarily defined by it being painful.
That doesn't seem all too revelatory or interesting for me to say. But to me, it puts myself into complete perspective.
-
Also, today, Julian's ex-girlfriend and I talked about nu-metal, moving in a week, wanting to leave society and move off the grid, and the distinction between wanting vs. thinking you deserve to be alone.
-
Weird that this piece has such Christian undertones.
-
Now that that's out of the way, onto the real stuff: you.
Our Little Dark Age wrecked me a bit, honestly. Actually, it's straight up wrecked me. It's a huge part of the reason my waking hours has my stomach in knots. There was nothing about the way things were that I never thought about every day during the whole thing. There's nothing about it now that isn't burned into my brain. Us promising to never drift apart, our culture of in-jokes, all the music we showed each other, our calls in my car. The thought that I betrayed this feels like an actual death. I don't mean that conceptually. I mean that in the sense of pain. It feels like I've desecrated what was truly sacred to me, what I'm defensive about to this day - that being you. Sometimes, it feels like I'm damned to hell for it. I know, I'm being characteristically fucking dramatic. And we're better now. But it hurts that I hurt you, and the worst of it is that I don't even know how I got here. I don't know how I let myself get swept up. Perhaps I was already lost for me to have wandered so, so, so fucking far off.
It feels horrible to vent to someone I've hurt about hurting them, but I just want to be honest. I apologize in if I ever sound/sounded like a bitch about something I'm responsible for.
-
I want to go to the Northeast to see you again. Like I did when we were kids* at 17. Maybe not quite like it was back then. Nothing will ever be the same, I guess. But we'll always have each other (I hope), and we have a whole world to explore. At least the world of Delaware County.
I want to apply my reckless abandon to those streets and supermarkets, bars and clubs, skyscrapers and countrysides. I want their weirdos and stories. I want their sleepiness and thrashing, twitching, horrible screaming wakefulness. I want coffee and beer. I want a Dodge Caravan. I want whatever cigarettes smell like down there, despite the fact I fucking cannot stand it because I'm cliche and indie and what-have-you. I want you laughing with me, getting lost in weird cities, this time, for real, no bullshit.
*I say this to be tongue-and-cheek. We're barely in our twenties.
-
I love it when I see your references in other people. It's like seeing a bird fly overhead that you've known for a long time. It makes Smosh feel homely.
-
I am absolutely fucking dreading tomorrow. I know you are, too. Either everything goes to shit or I'll be fine somehow for the millionth time. Same as it ever was. Wish me luck. I'll wish you some, too: good luck, Madison.
