I haven't thought of you lately at all

...but a long time ago, we used to be friends.

I forget that sometimes, you know? One of you I haven't talked to in years, and the other I see now only occasionally, almost accidentally, if at all.

I happened to go back to an old journal this weekend, after realizing that some sentiments recently raised by another friend reminded me of things I had felt particularly strongly during this period of my life. If I think back to this time without help, I think of Antigone and A Doll House; debating and Christmas skits; e-mail and innocence that persisted, as if charmed, far longer than is normal. And I think of you two, as well; it's not that I don't. But I guess the present colours the past, and once you've drifted away from someone, your mind quietly turns your history with them into a couple of passages from a textbook, which describe unassumingly how it had its day and is now over. Something that ignores how permanent it seemed at the time.

But yes, as my journal bears out, we were friends; my journal also bears out that you two were best friends; and then you weren't, dramatically, in a falling-out that had fallout for the next several months, but you both still hung out with me, and I guess we can all connect the dots and figure out who blundered into the middle of things.

One of you became my best friend, the first true best friend I'd had in a long time, maybe the pattern for all of my best-friendships to come. We initiated each other into our favourite pursuits and followed them together. We were in constant communication, communication half in code. We spent most of our time giggling over jokes that only we got. We inherited each other's vocabularies. You taught me the basic principles that I still use for e-mail and MSN communication -- you were my online primer. We built a world for ourselves, out of words and music and fantasy places, and despite the fact that it didn't last I'll never forget how important it was.

The other of you became my nemesis -- unbeatable, adversarial, beyond frustrating. Other people play chess or fight wars; we tried to be friends. I was obsessive. You were secretive. I pursued and persisted, and you dissembled. We kept careful score. Who was going to let who in first? Who knew more about who? I had elaborate theories and you had evasive maneuvers. I acted as if you were the one who wanted to be private and unknown by others, that you were the one who was scared of being honest and being read -- I acted as if those were your issues, and that I was the long-suffering victim of them. Just trying to be your friend. I was so clear-minded at the time! If you take my word for it, I knew you -- really knew you -- saw your defences and used my perceptive x-ray vision to see past them. In my mind I was going to win. Already had won, in fact! I knew you, and no amount of evasiveness or deception could change it.

Well. Time has passed, and although I'm sure I don't seem any wiser, I am -- if being wiser means feeling dumber and older. I'm starting to realize that maybe you were mostly a blank canvas to me, and I filled that blank canvas up with a complex and intricate portrayal of my internal conflicts and deepest fears, of things I needed to get over. I thought I knew you, but now I think that mostly, you were a way in which I got to know me, learned to face things I didn't like about me instead of burying them. So I don't know if I was ever anything to you -- you proper -- that could be considered a friend. I don't know if I ever really listened to you, if I ever heard anything you said beyond what confirmed my 'theories', and for that I am sorry. You did have an objectively tough few years, and believe me, I was convinced I was helping at the time, but I don't think I had anything like the necessary emotional resources to be the kind of friend to you that I wanted to be or that you needed. I was in the process of developing them. I still am.

I use the pages that someone/something takes up in my journals as an indication of how much mental space he/she/it took up at that point in my life. And I have to say, I probably learned more from the one of you that takes up the most page space.
But you're not the one that I miss more often, or more deeply. You whose name only comes up a few times, here and there, like linchpins holding the whole sodden rant of a journal together -- you, I miss.

Funny, that.

~SQ

P.S. No past, current, or future readers of this blog were portrayed in the making of this post (although one is mentioned very briefly).

Things I Know

I should not be blogging right now. I should be sleeping. I should sleep more. I should sleep less. I should exercise more. I should eat more. I should eat less. I shouldn't watch so much crap TV. I should focus more on school. I should let it all go and know that what I focus on will make for better memories later. I should not be blogging right now. I hate school. I love school and hate everyone at it. I love everyone. I hate phoniness. I am a phony person. I want to have people who do my chores for me. I should do my laundry. I only do chores to procrastinate. Everything sneaks up on me. I like thinking that everything sneaks up on me. I need to do lunch more often. I need to go to bed. I should not be blogging right now. I should read more. Reading takes a long time. I should stop taking shortcuts to get through courses. I should go with what works for me, and taking shortcuts works for me. I should hate myself. I do hate myself. I love myself. I should not be blogging right now.

I miss people. I miss Boyfriend. I miss closeness. I miss trust. I have every right to whine. I have no right on Earth to whine. I defy the concept of needing to have a right to whine. I am compassionate. I am an asshole-bitch-tramp of the worst degree. I'm beyond everything. I'm smaller than anything.

I'm dumb beyond measure. I'm blessed with luck that defies the cosmos. I am the cosmos. I'm an idiot. I'm one with everything and a pile of useless fragments. I am larger than life. I am mired in the details. I transcend the details. I am an empty dream. I should not be blogging right now. There are other things I should be doing. I can't keep up with everything. I am managing everything singlehandedly with flair to boot. When I look back on my life I will see it all with wonder. I will see it all with horror. I will see it all as beautiful but mercifully distant, like a tiger in the zoo (copyright Douglas Coupland). I will not look back on my life. I am a waste of skin. I am the best use that skin was ever put to. I should not be blogging right now. I should be drunk. I should be learning about colorectal cancer. I love Shakespeare. I hate class. I love class. I wish I loved class. I love the weather. I love going home after a late meeting through the chilled dewed-on grass that smells like dead leaves and sodium lights. I hate it. I'm nostalgic for things that never happened. I should not be blogging right now.

I drink hot chocolate and I love it. I hate it. They're the same thing and I can't tell the difference any more. I should not be blogging right now. The medium is the message and I am the medium. I am the message. My mind is a chattering monkey (copyright Bif Naked). I am an arrogant nervous wreck. I am the smoothest person with an inferiority complex that you'd ever care to meet. I should be sleeping. I should be working. I am running backwards on a treadmill. I am crying. I am laughing. I don't know what's healthy. I should not be blogging right now.

I don't know much of anything at all. I know everything that will ever be important to me. I am a guru. I am a dunce. I am one of Shakespeare's fools. I am dancing and falling and tripping and gliding and completely beyond anyone's capacity to teach. I am a surprisingly rewarding student. I am beyond everyone. I am behind everyone. I'm not even running the race.

I should not be blogging right now.

~SQ