The Life of Me

Sitting Here in the Dark

Sitting There in the Dark

Sitting there in the dark, I came to an epiphany. There are lots of things I miss about being friends with Bobby (name placeholder. I’m not going to name names). I detest who he is now, but I loved who he was then. Not love in the sense that most use it. That annoys the poop out of me. But instead the way you would describe a pet you've had since you were little.

 "I'm staring at your photograph, remembering each moment you made me laugh, I never thought it would end this way, that I'd still be missing you to this very day..." –Someone, Somewhere. I miss the intelligent, deep conversations. The nerdy banter. The going over to his house after school and sitting his room talking about nothing for hours on end. How well our personalities fit together, the way we got along. The him listening to me whenever I had a breakdown, and vice-versa. The way I memorized his voice, so that even now, sometimes my thoughts speak through him. The way I memorized his awkward gait, and the way he over uses hand gestures sometimes. The way he pushes up his glasses while explaining something important to him. The way I could tell him anything and everything, whenever I needed to.

I miss the way he laughed. It was an awkward sounding laugh, but I would give almost anything (except for a limb, I need those) to hear it again. Not in the distance, but while talking to him, as I used to. I miss the way he would smile at me after I unintentionally said something clever, which was not often, because most of the time I meant to be clever, and he knew it.

Granted he’s not the most attractive person in the world, but you don’t always find the right person when you’re looking for them to be attractive. But if he’s the person that matches you in weirdness, you better take your chance while you can, I should know. I missed mine, and I may not get another one. “We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.” – Dr. Seuss

If I could have just another chance, even if it was a measly, 30 second conversation with him that doesn’t have any awkward tension, then I’ll take what I get, because now, that’s all that I want.  “The universe wants to be noticed, and it will make itself known in the worst of ways, in the worst of times.” –Me.  Right now.

The gut wrenching and abrupt end of our friendship sort of threw me off the cliff, leaving him teetering on the edge of it. Thousands of feet separated my broken and mangled body from his, standing scared out of his mind on the ledge, looking down at me. Deciding it was too much work to come help me, he left me there to die, or heal my open wounds myself. Piecing together my own body bit by tiny bit, just hoping that I turn out the same. Leaving me in the abyss of my own confusion, to figure out how I got there, and how to get out. Metaphorically, of course.

He literally changed my life. He made me believe in, and see, my own awesome. Just the way he spoke to me made me feel better. He could drone on about Dr.Who, and I would feel better. I have a high self esteem now, and I stand up for myself. I have a backbone; I'm no longer a pushover. I picked up so many of his quirks, and sometimes it gets on my nerves. I don’t want to remember him. I never used to read what I wrote, typed, or texted out loud, but now I do, and I don’t want to. I never used to actually say sadface when I was sad, but now I do, and I don’t want to. I never used to sneeze at alliterations, but now I do, and I don’t want to. I never used to talk in a British accent, not unless I wanted to or just watched a movie with British characters. Now I do, sometimes I don’t even mean to, or want to.

I hate him. Especially the way he pieced back together my broken trust, what I had left of it, and added some more of his own, only to knock it all to the ground and scatter the bits everywhere, much like a toddler playing with blocks. I actually started to trust people again, something my own parents couldn't accomplish. I believed them and by them I mean people. I had a little faith. Oh how wrong was I to do so. Like a sledgehammer to a delicate glass box, my trust was gone, practically every last piece non-existant.

I seem happy don't I? I must be a terribly good actor, because I'm not. I haven't been fully put together or happy for a while, not since he started being mean, and distant. I want him back as a friend, but I want the Bobby I knew, the Bobby who was my best friend, the one I still haven't forgotten. I don't want new Bobby as my friend. He says I changed, but he's the one that's really changed. He's the one that's different. I just want to understand. That’s all I ever wanted. To understand why. Why he started being mean, why he wouldn't talk to me. I wanted to understand how. How I changed. How the change even affected our friendship. “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter.” –Dr. Seuss

 When I can't find the pillow pet he gave me for my birthday when its time for me to sleep, its not her I really miss, its his presence, the thought of him I can't sleep without. She's just a placeholder for that thought or presence, which gives me something to hold onto.

“Isn’t it sad that when you have so much pain in your heart and you want to talk, the only person who can stop you from crying’ is exactly the same person who made you cry.” –Someone, somewhere.  Right now,I need someone that can make me feel better, and he was the only one who ever truly managed to find the root of my problems. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not” –The Lorax.  He’s the best teenaged psychologist ever, andI need him now, but I need who he was, not who he is. He thinks I never did like him. I actually did like him, I really and truly did (hence the past tense.) But I was scared. Scared of my own feelings. Scared that I would lose my bestfriend, maybe even my boyfriend (if we were to date). Scared to tell the truth. Scared of messing up. I was mostly scared of what people would think. Such a petty excuse for probably a very important thing. Losing him was inevitable, as I later learned, but I hoped I could hold it back just a little bit, just for a little while. I never though it would go by so fast. I probably should've dated him. Then maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't be hurting inside. Maybe I would've gotten some closure. But now I'll never know.

Do you get it now? Do you get why I hate him? He broke my fragile trust, trust that I had every so lightly placed in his hands... He broke my fragile heart, and I quote, "There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they have been broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman." -Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

Mine is a crooked and lopsided heart. It was broken into small, miserable pieces, which are still slowly dragging themselves into a shape that vaguely reminds one of a heart.

“And that, is all I have to say about that.” –Forrest Gump