Drama Karma and Strange Timing

The last couple of weeks have been strange and somewhat surreal. It all started with a text message on a night when I was really feeling alone. Because of that I have found someone that makes me really happy when I’m around him but I also had to make some major decisions about other people in my life.
I’ve known my best friend since junior year of high school. She became somewhat of a mother to me… becoming my transportation and my strength in the world. Where I was shy and scared to talk to people, she was my voice and motivation to get things done.
In college people warned us that living together was the wrong thing to do. Neither of us could ponder living with anyone else. Two years in same dorm room, and two more in two different apartments. After my separation she was the one that found the apartment for us to move to and paid the bulk of the bills when I couldn’t. She bought the bed I sleep on today, and only partially paid back, because she didn’t want me sleeping on the floor for another night.
But I really feel we left our friendship in that last apartment. She became very involved in her relationship, which was the first since the hard-core break-up back in our junior year of college. I ended up living in that apartment alone for most of the time and when the lease was up, I moved out and cleaned alone as well. From there she went to California following the relationship even though it had ended and in some ways she really took a different route in life. I didn’t always pick up the phone when she called. I hardly returned those calls either. I just didn’t want to hear about her wild and crazy life in another state. I envied her for getting out our hometown, hell the state!
Then she moved back … or at least over the mountains and I see much more of her than I use to. It’s still somewhat strained, at least on my side. She treated me like I’m the same person she left in West Seattle, but I’m not that little kid who needed a mother. I think she’s always desperately wanted to mother people whether they wanted her to or not. Looking back I see how true that statement is, but then everything is always clearer in retrospect.
She took on the planning of the 10 Year High School Reunion with the words, “I plan things for a living, I can do this!” I was pleased and surprised but when the evening came I did not find the comfort in my best friend being present. She did nothing but annoy me all night with her change in personality. She had something to prove to every single person on the room and every time a man came over to chat with me, she immediately brought up my failed marriage in which I have yet to change my name back from. There’s nothing worse that having your dirty laundry aired to people who were basically strangers ten years ago, let alone presently.
When it happened again at my friend Nicole’s birthday/Halloween Costume party I just wanted to drown myself in my martini. But then I realized… it wasn’t my history that was to blame; it was my so-called “best friend” who was being completely insensitive for throwing the details of MY life into the public arena. Since then I’ve been really angry. I’ve also been really reflective and started realizing this issue wasn’t the first time she had done this to me.
Now I’m interested in being more than friends with someone that has a long history with both of us. He had once been her’s. We’d even all lived together at one point. Now eight years later I’m completely blown away with how things have sparked between us. He’s smart, funny, very good looking, and a million other things that I admired from the moment I met him freshman year of college. I never planned or plotted liking him this much. It just happened and as it happened I knew I was going to have to tell her.
He was “the ONE” for her, but the one that got away. When they broke up I was only mildly surprised because even then I knew, settling down was the last thing a 20-year-old guy wanted to do. But she was ready. She knew at that time that he was the one she wanted to marry and have children with. Their break-up wasn’t any messier or dramatic than any other break-up when you feel that other person was “the one” and they instead tell you that you’re not their “one”. I remained friends with him and tried to be supportive for her, who was having real trouble with letting go. Looking back I can now understand the pain and the craziness that happens when you’re put in this situation. At the time I really didn’t know what to do or say.
Now I found myself facing those terrible memories of the past and her pain that is associated with it. Since he and I had started spending time together, I had tried to test the waters with her. Bringing up his name only got me a jealous blast due to the fact that she and he hardly talk more than once every sixth months, if that. I was emotionally torn and wanted to be ready to handle this important conversation the right way, the first time. I would have one shot at this. That much I knew.
But it ate at me. I didn’t want to have this conversation over the phone. I wanted to talk to her in person so there would be no mistakes in meaning or emotion. Yet what was it that I wanted to say? I ended up going to a girlfriend of mine, the only one that wasn’t in some way involved in the situation, to seek advice. Through the course of that conversation I realized that it was no longer about crafting the conversation to make things okay for her. It was about firmly stating the truth of the situation and then being okay with her not being my friend afterward, if she so decided to respond that way. Truth be told, I was in honest doubt that she’d been a real friend to me for quite some time. It was the fear of loss that put a particular spin on the conversation. With that taken away, it made the path forward so much clearer. At least that’s what I though when I left my girlfriend’s house feeling so much more enlightened.
When I did talk to her, it ended up being on the phone after all because I couldn’t wait a moment longer. I wanted her to know and then move on with my life. I was tired of it hanging over my head when I was either with her or him. It simply needed happen and I needed to stop stalling. For someone who didn’t know the circumstances, I’m sure the conversation appeared to have gone well and about half way in I was even thinking so myself, but suddenly I started listening to the words she was using rather than what she was technically saying.
My best friend was extremely hurt and was lashing out in the best way she knew how; like a mother. She poured on the disappointment, the advice, and then cited a friend of his as an expert opinion. She gave reason after reason of why he was no good, but I saw right through it all. She told me that his childhood friend had agreed that I had to be delusional to think the interest was returned on his part. I was so horrified at first that I didn’t know what to say or do. I just tried to placate her and get off the phone. When we finally hung up I stared at the phone feeling a mixture of relief and something closer to the anticipation for the “coming storm”. The more I thought about it, the more frustrated I became. Any other time I would have taken all this emotional discharge as her being a caring friend and would have felt bad about myself instead. Times have changed.
She insisted she had to talk to him and that was when I got scared. After all the bullshit she had just spewed about someone she obviously still wanted all for herself, what would she say to him about me? With that hanging in the balance I rushed out the door to a show in Fremont where my one unconnected girlfriend’s band was playing. The whole time I was murdering a piece of gum while I waited. Waited to see if whatever I might have had with the gentleman in question would go up in smoke thanks to my oh-so-caring best friend.
As if that wasn’t bad enough I had convinced my ex-boyfriend, who was hanging out with a girl on my staff that I knew he wanted to date desperately, that they should come check out the show. I was happy enough to see them, and glad they were having a good time hanging out, but I really wasn’t of the emotional capacity to deal with the situation on top of my own. My ex was the one to see immediately that things were not well with me from my violent gum chewing. He’d always claimed that my whole attitude changed when I chewed gum anyways. The two of them were completely adorable and I was happy for them, but damn if I wasn’t stressed the fuck out.
That was the longest wait ever. When my girlfriend had come off stage and was listening to my update on how I had taken her earlier advice she rallied behind the guy involved, insisting that he would never be taken in by anything my best friend might say. Just then he texted the most beautiful words I could have gotten at that moment and the world was lifted from my shoulders.
Since then things have been sort of eye opening. I was getting different stories from the people who had been dragged into the mess. These were statements that were much different than how she had originally portrayed them. Had she merely taken semi-truth and spun it a different way or was she really that upset about the whole thing? I’ve honestly pondered how she thought she could work multiple angles without me finding out. Did she really think I wouldn’t talk to these people? That they wouldn’t tell me certain details? Then again I remembered that the old me never would have asked around. She was probably still banking on the fact that I hadn’t changed or maybe she was totally clueless in her distress over the whole thing that she had no idea how her actions appeared when pieced together in retrospect. I don’t know what to think anymore.
The bottom line is that what’s done is done and I’m not abandoning my interest in this guy. In the same way, what’s done is done about my conversation with her. I said my piece and apologized only for not having told her sooner. That’s all I’m guilty of. The rest of that conversation we’d had I am disregarding and moving on with my life. As much as I had tried to prepare for every possible outcome with a person I had thought I knew so well, I sit here even now just plain surprised.
For me this wasn’t even about him. I wanted him involved as little as possible in this whole affair. He has quite enough of his own issues to deal with, the last thing I would want to do is bring more. In fact I would say I’m pretty phobic about it. It’s just that I’ve always been pretty much drama free through my life, being that shoulder to cry on for everyone else’s amazingly, world-ending drama. Not that this was amazing or by any means world ending, but maybe it was my turn or something. Yet with all that’s been said and done I can’t look back on the whole thing with a bitter eye. I’ve learned so much because of this.
I have no idea where he and I are going. It doesn’t matter. Life is too short to be angry, bitter, or over expectant. To hold a grudge or anything else is just a waste of valuable energy. I’ve also realized that there is several more people that really don’t care about me and have since let them fade out from my life. It’s really liberating to no longer waste my time worrying about people who never cared about me. On the same track I feel incredibly closer to the people who remain a part of my life. These people are responsible caring adults that can put their problems aside to help me out when I need them, just the same as I would do for them. It’s mutual and unrelated to convenience.
I have been so worried about how I would get through the holiday season alone. It has been such a long time since I’ve been single and even though my heart has turned the corner I will miss my ex. I can remember how sure I had been that he was the “one” and how crushed I was when he told me I wasn’t his. In everything that we had going for us, it’s been the things that best translate into friendship that were and remain the strongest links between us. Where I had been too young in my marriage, so to was age a factor in my last relationship. Being with someone that is just as responsible and “square” about things as I am has made me realize that there’s nothing wrong with what I believe is important. I’m not boring or uncool. At twenty-three I had been in a similar place as he was now at twenty-three. The problem is I can understand that only in hindsight. I’m about to turn twenty-nine and life is different. So completely different.
All of those realizations remain true whether I continue to be single or not in the future. It has nothing to do with anything other than how I see my world and how I intend to keep living it. My girlfriend had been reminding me that I needed to “go inside and do the work.” Without even trying, I did some major work in a short amount of time. I’ve laid things to rest, been honest with myself and others, and remained firm about what is best for me for once. No matter what the future holds I’m a better, healthier person for all of this.