Boy how much I love stewing drama · 2:45am Apr 6th, 2016
It was about three weeks ago when I sent that email. Before that, it had been four weeks - the time between my deciding to do it, and my actually sending it.
This wasn't your run-of-the-mill email. It might as well be an event by standards, because it had come from a sincere point of my life, yet it was also hindered by other sincere points. Point A was the realization that I was terrible at keeping in touch with my old friends, and that this was no good. There's a deep dark hole reserved for those like me to think they don't need anybody, for those who think they don't need more than the four walls of their room and a decent Internet connection, and you probably aren't surprised to know the name of the hole is Loneliness.
Point B was the fact that she, the recipient, wasn't a normal friend. She meant a lot more to me than I did to her. She was the first one I put on a pedestal, and there she remains to this day, to the point where she defines what I consider "good" and "honest" and "true". I adore the concept of her, and I know it's merely a concept, because I haven't seen or spoken to her in easily several years, and yet there she still remains, on that pedestal.
Point B2 was that I had someone, someone else, who loved me dearly, and I loved her dearly too. I knew she wouldn't like it if she knew I sent that email. Who would, if you were in that position?
There was a good while of thinking about it and holding off. When you live in front of the computer, you tend to get into this little bout an unfortunate number of times per day. On and off and on and off. Point A was all good and well, but you didn't have to reconnect with her of all people. What about all the other guys, your oldest best friend who you promised you'd check up on (at least: I did), or that other friend who lives just a handful of minutes away? Or the guy you think of as your best friend, even though the title's more honourary at this point?
What was it you were trying to achieve? Was it cheating, emotionally? Was it okay if you didn't do it for the purpose of cheating emotionally? Was it okay if you could somehow separate the filth from the pure - and here the pure refers to nothing altruistic at all, but a whittling of the desires from an ugly stick into a poor, smooth twig - was any of this simply for the sake of evading your conscience?
The answer, apparently, was yes to the latter.
Sending the email was easy enough. Keep it casual, keep it shallow.
Of course when you poke up someone you're basically strangers with, you don't pressure them. You leave a way out for both them and yourself by saying "don't feel obliged". It's not about being insecure, it's about being polite. Even if you don't mean it as much.
In the four weeks that followed, I had pretty much accepted that it was lost. Same like the last time we talked, it was on Facebook, and the way those go is that you keep on going until someone forgets, or "forgets". Such is the nature of instant messaging that you will, if you're not good at controlling the flow, burn through your topics all too fast, leaving you to grasp at awkward straws. But you can't really just ignore them and slip in an artificial wait because of that little "Seen" tick, non?
Fast forward to that night when I had a dream. She was in it, along with her and two others. It was strange and very new, because I had dreamed of neither her nor her nor being at a group job interview - that was the frame - ever before. Yet there they were, and there I was, wearing out what little time my brain had to relax on fruitless teamwork-testing exercises.
One game was that the group had to throw balls at each other. The one with the most hits on a person at the end of the allotted time would win. The catch was that we were competing against other groups, too, so there was an individual high score and an overall high score. Of course you're taught how to find the "correct" answer. Anything where a person shows leadership and whips the group into submitting is the correct answer. In this case, it was getting in a circle and passing the balls (everyone had them) to the person next to them - you got a high number of hits because it was guaranteed, and everyone got a fair score. Yet I couldn't help but muse at the possibility that there was a better way, a faster way outside of this dull schoolchildren simulation.
When I woke up, grouchy, I checked my emails and found that there was a reply from her. So it was that the night before the unexpected reply came, I had dreamt not only about her, but also all the other things swarming in my life, as if - well - as if it were an event. Crazy conincidence, huh? I wonder what this week's Powerball numbers are...
Firstly: would you have preferred it if that were in quotes? I see a lot of story excerpts in quote boxes... and I ignore them. >_> But personal stories I will lap up like a set of thirty bridges har har it's a great pun I swear look it up and maybe it works like that for some of you. Since you're here, you might as well fill out this survey, right?
Secondly, if you liked this - the whole pained melodrama sorta-drama - you're going to love the socks out of the next arc in Sabbatical. I guess it's fine to just jump in if you're not caught up, since I'm really feeling the weight of all these STAKES in the arc and it should be enough to carry itself, but you'll enjoy it a lot more if you give the previous couple of chapters a poke. That's the magic of it; to join the train, all you have to do is pick out the shortest chapters and you're on board!
