So I'm Back To This

At the bottom of my last post I hoped that I could remember how to write blog posts. Well, maybe I've remembered. Maybe I remember now because all they've ever been are emails that I don't want to bother to send to anyone. I remember at the top of an email I sent Autumn I wrote "you don't even have to read this, I'm just tired of writing to myself".

So, here I am, writing. To myself? To the blog? To the four people who I know read this?

----- says I like to think that I don't tell people anything, when actually I'm very open.

Great. That just means that it's working. Because it's not that I don't tell people anything, it's that I don't tell people anything, but I make them think that I do. I tell them the parts I think they'll want to hear so that they'll still find me interesting and want to hang out with me. If I don't tell anyone anything I won't have friends. People like to be trusted. If I tell anyone everything, well, we all know that's never turned out well, so the trick is to figure out how much people can handle, then slowly, very slowly, I tell people what I think they can handle. Until then, I give them bits and make them think it's everything. Oh therapy, I'm to the point that I realize what I do, but I haven't figured out how to fix it yet.

----- is leaving. "Ay, there's the rub." I don't hide from her. I mean, I do. Of course I do. It's what I do. I can't pretend that our friendship was some sort of perfect and unrealistic; it was us and our friendship. So it was perfect, but in that way that she would absolutely hate talking about because it'd seem too corny to her to say bs like 'perfect in it's reality and because it wasn't perfect' and other such explanations we'd be too cynical and scared to admit or say outloud.

She made me her friend and I trusted her without meaning to. I know, blahblah, we're supposed to be all lovey-dovey and friendly and only talk about the good stuff, but I didn't mean to trust her. Not so much. But I do. And I'm glad. I wouldn't be where I am today without her and our friendship and our trust.

Rub is, she's leaving. Not for good; I'm going with her; I'm visiting this winter; I'm moving too in less than a year; on and on, but it doesn't make me any happier when I turn my head to the left and see her desk--except it's not her desk anymore, is it? No. It's my desk now and that's exciting and work will be great next year and I'm excited for it even, but all of that doesn't make me feel any better when I turn my head to the left and she's not there. She's not there. She won't ever be there again, chin on her water bottle, feminist pen in her eye, rolling up post-it's, any of it. Not here. Not anymore.

This unexpected, necessary familial friendship is about to take a huge change, and take it in stride; and though the legs will keep pounding on ahead, strong and direct, my face will be streamed with tears I'm too scared to show anyone. So I'll be wearing my hat a lot, my eyes downcast and shielded. I'll pretend I'm ----- if I'm squinty and red-eyed (and probably will be anyway, it hurts less that way, doesn't it?). I'll jump up and hide behind grand stories and excited story telling because it hurts less that way too. I'll stand naked in the tub with the shower curtain already pulled back, not reaching for my towel because I can't stop crying yet, and as long as there's water dripping from my freshly shampooed head I can pretend it hurts less. I'll sit on my bed trying to continue the journal entry poem thing I started when I first wrote about her leaving, soaking the pages with my tears before my hand goes slack, pen dangling in my fingers, hunched and crying, pretending I'm strong enough to call any of the numerous friends I have who (in my brain today unemotionally) I know would be happy to help and hear me cry and tell me it's all going to be okay, but not actually doing it. I'll keep up my raining/pouring metaphor, and talk about being soaking wet in the pain of all these events around me in my story-telling voice, because I don't have another voice with which I know how to tell it, where it's impossible to respond with the care I'd refuse anyway. I'll climb back up the stairs, not crying, and knock to hug her and tell her that she makes me the kind of friend I want to be. Then I'll go home, and go to bed, somehow, eventually. I won't cry. It's closed. So I'll sleep, and I'll wake up late, and not really care, then I'll see her, and feel like shit because I haven't had coffee yet and I'm late, then she'll compliment me, and I'll remember what it feels like to be her friend, how amazing it is, how I'm better than I knew I could be because I trust her, and she tells me the truth, and the truth turns out to be alright, good even.

Then I'll sit at my desk, and not know what to say or who to say it to, because when my neck lurches left at each barely sharable thought, she won't be there, and in the slow turn back forward, I remember she won't be there ever again and it's not even her desk anymore. Then people will come by to visit, to ask about her, and ask about how I'm doing, like that can be answered, or told to anyone, and I'll have to take her key back, and find her name on the key sheet, and realize the utter ridiculousness of crossing her name off of the key list with my initials next to the returned date. How can ----- not have a key? How can I go into her/my/that desk, the key drawer, and cross off her name?

I don't know how. I just do. And now I go downstairs. To another fucking goodbye party. Maybe I'll be able to eat the free food. That's something, yeah?