I give to you, first off, lyrics of a song that I can't stop listening to, and haunts me even when I do.
Body - by The Servant
You've got to take your mind off him
But not with aspirins
You won't
You won't let your family in
Like smoke your body come
Through the gaps in the urban slums
You try
You try to speak American
When you don't know what you want
You end up finding that you haunt your own
Your own life
You're the daylight ghost that creeps
You're the empty city streets and I
And I see you
And those talkshows fill your days
Something is slipping away
Sometimes it feels like you don't have a body
Your skin is cellophane
You know I feel the same
Sometimes it feels like you don't have a body
When you make a cup of tea
You act like it's alchemy
But it's not
It's not what you think it to be
Seeing everything as signs
Seeing everything as lines, always
Always lying, saying you're fine
When you don't know what you want
You end up finding that you haunt you own,
Your own life
You're the daylight ghost that creeps
You're the empty city streets
But I can see you
Those talkshows fill your days
Something is slipping away
Sometimes it feels like you don't have a body
Your skin is cellophane
You know I feel the same
Sometimes it feels like, you don't have a body.
I don't know if those lyrics give you any great insight into my mind, but it is what it is.
So, in direct response to "A Friend"
I tried to talk to the guy. The guy wouldn't talk to me. The guy acted as if I was a complete stranger. The guy's cousin pushed for small talk to fill the awkward silence. His cousin, who barely knows me, introduced me to the girl he's been seeing. Because he didn't. I guess because I just wasn't good enough to admit that he had an association with me.
I don't know something else wasn't going on because he's completely ceased speaking to me. I have had no opportunity to question him. When I was told, in a very short, tight voice that he was simply too busy to answer my e-mails or phone calls, I got the hint. Okay, so after I requested that he answer my e-mail, he still didn't. So, he chose to cut off communications with me.
Only, let's flip the coin and address the other paragraph. He's a jerk and he's out of my life. And things are great without him around. Well, if you were truly my friend, you'd really know how absolutely astoundingly great things are in my life. Not.
On the second last day of the Fringe, our mutual friend told me that I was the one that had to call him first. That I was the one that stopped talking to him? Oh, really? That's why he never answered my e-mail about plans we tentatively had? I assumed that meant that I shouldn't bother ever making plans with him again. That they would all go unanswered. That, when he was desperate for company, with friends out of town and no new liaisons on the horizons, I was the perfect person to confide in, to tell his secrets to before a majority of other people, to be a shoulder to lean on. But the second something better comes along, and lets face it, anything's better than me, that I'm out of there. I become not even relevant enough to talk to in a situation where you would be polite to someone you intensely disliked from your office, never mind someone you proported to be a shoulder to lean on.
And on top of it, he doesn't answer the e-mail I specifically asked him to respond to. How else am I supposed to take it?
This is how wonderful my life is without this amazing person as my friend, without my shoulder to lean on, and without my back watcher.
The last weekend of the Fringe started out horribly enough. I went with one of my trio of best friends to see a play that she was ushering. It was about a girl, who had a devastating break up with her boyfriend. In January. His name was Steve.
When relating this to best friend number two, he responded with his always comforting "Just forget about it. It doesn't matter."
Things didn't improve the following day. When this mutual friend informed me that I was the one who had to reestablish contact. How was I to do this?
Now, don't get me wrong. I've been on this side of rejection often enough in my life to have it feel as familiar as the childhood home that I grew up in. But even the amount I saw it through adolescence did nothing to prepare me for the blow I suffered right after New Year's. And then, just as I was almost healed, and the tiny particles of my shattered heart were tentatively glued back together, I faced rejection again that day in the bookshop.
It wasn't rejection of a romantic kind, but to face the rejection of not even being good enough to be considered a friend, well, that was a whole different kind of hurt.
I want this person back in my life so much. I think about him every day, and how great an addition he was to my life. But I find myself mired in a suffocating fear and inability to pick up the phone to try to mend the fence. He's not talking to me, I'm not talking to him. It's semantics at this point, and I don't care. The idea of the right or wrong of the situation is beyond me. I don't care. I just want my friend back.
Yet, I can't force that phone call, under the stifling terror that I'll get through just to be rejected, because he just doesn't want me in his life. That the bookstore incident and the subsequent unanswered e-mail was my answer. He won't talk to me, or pick up, or return my message. And I'm terrified.
I find myself impotent to make that call. Because, until I do, I can always imagine that it will go well. If I do, and, as I suspect, I am summarily rejected one more time, I don't think I'll have the strength to forbear it. After all, I don't think there's anyone left with enough of a concern for me to help me through the devastation that would bring.
When Corey told me that, I fought against my sadness all day. But, after getting a couple drinks in me, I sat at our table and could not shore up the tears that poured down my face. Corey was the only one at the table that showed more then the superficial concern that would simply be expected for people in a pub to show to their tablemate as liquid streamed from their eyes. And that thought hurt so much that I had to excuse myself to break down completely in the ladies room.
I was in there for quite awhile. Finally someone heard me, and insisted that I come out of the locked stall, so that she could give me a hug. Who was it? A complete stranger named Alex.
And that's how great things are without him around.
But things have become so bad without him around, when one month ago I had been so happy. Finally over Steve and starting to be happy with every day. Then, to find out not only am I not a suitable romantic partner, but that I'm not even up to par enough to be a friend, well, it kind of was like someone tapping on a vase, one that was so carefully put together again, but where the glue hadn't dried.....And I just shattered.
My life is so good right now. Sure. (Laced with sarcasm that was) You know, other then a five second phone call, I haven't spoke with anyone that wasn't a workmate or family member since the last night of the Fringe. No contact whatsoever. (Leah, you're my sister, you still count as family.)
Yeah, my life's pretty terrific all right.
Posted by Arieanna at 4:26 PM
