So much for trying to search for him on facebook. There were too many results for his name and eventually I gave up on searching for him, which is out of my nature actually. I didn't even think about it. Something about dismissing it bothered me, but it was abrupt and quickly forgotten. I just found out that he died a few years ago from a rare liver or kidney cancer or disease. (God, I can't even remember the details, and I was just told). He died within two days of his diagnosis. And he died near my area. I wish I could've reconnected with him.
We both lived in San Francisco. I actually gave up my friendship with him because his girlfriend was insecure about how much time he was spending with me. I was going through a difficult time, and it was evident. He's observant and perceptive but also just aware and paying attention. Well, I guess I should be saying that he was. I can't even wrap my head around the reality that he's gone. I don't think I ever got over the fact that I withdrew from our friendship in general because he was the first person who went out of his way to make sure that I was okay, and he didn't even know me that well. He told me that even though we didn't know each other that well that I can talk to him if I need someone to talk to. My boyfriend, at the time, just broke up with me, and a breath of relief was opened sighed by the people closest to him.
There was a mixture of relief and resentment towards his decision. I was just the girl who was a part of it. I was the talk of high school. I felt out of place, lost, and upset about virtually every aspect of my life. And there he was looking out for me. In the midst of people who saw my life being torn apart as curiously fascinating, he was the only person who truly cared about me and not the drama that I carried. Sometimes it felt like my own friends weren't there for me, people who actually cared about me. They made time to make sure I was okay and checked in almost as though it were routine. He went after me and snuck away from hanging out with his friends to engage in something so clearly unpleasant, just to make sure that I was okay.
I know he could've been a friend for life. But after seeing him argue with his girlfriend, I just disappeared. Actually his girlfriend was doing the crying, and I didn't pity her for her insecurities. She was irrational, and he did a lot to comfort her, even when it wasn't necessary. But from talking to him, I knew how much he truly cared about her. It killed him to see her so upset. But so long as I was around and in pain, he would've endured the pain he felt seeing his girlfriend upset to make sure that I was okay. It's just in his nature.
I didn't put too much thought into it at the time because my life was hectic, and I didn't want to get pissed off about it. It was the first time I willingly gave up a friendship for an irrational girlfriend's insecurity. I didn't want to waste my energy resenting her at a point in my life when I was stretched out so thin hating and resenting so many other people. I didn't want to think about the reality that I gave up a friendship that could've very well lasted a lifetime if he were alive that is.
I didn't even think about how much I would miss him or miss out on until I started using facebook actively. Too many of my friends girlfriends are insecure by my presence, and it's been bugging the crap out of me. I spent most of my life feeling insecure about myself, not feeling attractive or adequate. I've finally started feeling more confident about myself, and I felt like I couldn't even enjoy it because my friend's girlfriends hated my presence.
My friend told me that they'll always react differently around me because I'm a pretty girl. For the first time when someone's told me that I believed it, and I couldn't even enjoy the compliment because of the context. I don't want to feel guilty about it. I don't want to feel guilty about being attractive. I don't want to feel guilty for the friendships that I develop. I don't want to feel guilty for who I am. These are reasons that these girls hate me - I'm pretty, and I'm close with their boyfriends because of who I am. They consider me to be one of the guys. Guess what? There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing to feel guilty about that.
Recently I've been really scarred by the reality that these girls hate me because I think I can be a fucked up person. Some people perceive my honesty and bluntness as being completely fucked up. I struggle with the reality that people don't accept me for who I am, even though they're amazing people that I would love to have in my life. I hate seeing my friends conflicted and emotionally burdened because of my presence. I hate experiencing it. I hated so much when my friend actually told me that he can't hang out with me out of respect for his girlfriend. That basically told me that his girlfriend is more important to him than me, and I'm basically discriminated out of his circle of friends because of my gender! I pretty much had to accept that he's not the friend I believed he was.
Hating him doesn't make it easier. I have other friends who have actually defended me to their girlfriends. I feel awful because I get relieved when I discover that they've ended things with their girlfriends. Their relationship issues involving me no longer weigh on me. I get to see them more and hang out with them. I can see the relief in their faces. It makes me feel bad because I know they were happy on some level, but I feel how I feel.
I don't know why, but I've been thinking a lot about my friend who's passed lately. It's probably because he was the first friend who's girlfriend hated having me around. Every time I see the strain in my friend's eyes, I see him and what he went through. Not only was that the first relationship I saw struggle because of me, but it was the first friendship that I gave up because of it. Not all friends are made equal. Some will always mean more to you than others. It's a reality, and I always knew that he was someone who could've really touched my life. Lately I've been feeling like my friend's girlfriends have been stripping away my friendships, so it's made me resent his girlfriend. Now he's not even alive. The time to develop and deepen on friendship has passed because time escaped us. And he's gone
Sunday, July 26, 2009
The Friend Who Passed
Why It's So Hard to Accept
What makes letting him go so difficult is the very true reality that if I didn't deliberately sabotage what we had, it could've worked. I mean really worked. I've never felt such fear and certainty about a single source. In the past I would require clarification because I truly didn't trust people, but this time around, I needed clarification because I wanted to make sure that the floating sense that was trust was appropriate as if it can be defined in that sort of way. I've never looked within myself before. I always sought external sources, and I was doing that again, but he was trying to teach me to trust myself. Instead of realizing that he was trying to lead me to myself, I took his obscurity as a deliberate technique to absolve any responsibility. I totally ignored the reality that as my friend, he wouldn't betray me like that.
I've never looked within myself, let alone trusted myself. When I was exposed to it (myself), I saw and felt that I do have the ability to uncover the mysteries I seek in others to provide me with. But I was afraid of the idea of being accountable for them. If others lied to me, it's their fault. If I believe the wrong thing, I would be forced to transfer the same treatment onto others on myself, basically blame myself. That logic is severely flawed and one I want to explore at a later time.
My point is that my fear to trust myself stopped me from embracing the relationship for what it was. I prepared myself as though I was wrong already but took it out on him, as though he did something wrong. He put a lot of effort into opening up to me, something he rarely does. He shared with me things that he didn't share with others and because it seemed clique, I accused him of being dishonest. It was so unfair to him; I was unfair to him. The more he tried to help me, the more I attacked him. I pushed and pushed until the thread broke.
I kept focusing on all the things that made us different, that makes couples incompatible, while failing to realize how much we had in common. Even the things that separate us made us closer. The things that usually break relationships because of their differences were factors that weren't really at play for us. They were so superficial.
For the first time, I felt what someone felt for me. It was intense and sincere in ways I could've never imagined. I can't believe I thought that I didn't matter to him considering all of that. But it makes me wonder how much I really meant to him if we can't even be friends. Then again, maybe that's why we can't be friends because the feelings are still there. If the feelings are still there, it makes me wonder how much is repairable. It's incredible how powerful my words can be. I know that I'm an influential person, but I think I fail to realize the impact I can have because I don't have the same experience. So I couldn't know. It kills me to think that I was the one who made him feel that way about me and equally lose interest in me. I keep thinking that if I had it in me to attract him, I could do it again. But that's not the point is it? And this is all assuming that it's true.
I just wanted to get it off of my chest that it's hard to accept because I know how much he felt for me. Does something like that just disappear? If it does, how significant was I to him? If it doesn't, then is there hope? The problem with this mentality is that I run in circles and never complete the thought. At the end it doesn't matter. Yes, I feel awful. But I'm doing the same thing now. I'm not actually expressing what I feel. I can change how I feel about him about as much as I can change the circumstance. It is what it is. More importantly, it is not what it is not.