Another in a long line

She truly loved me, and, looking back, she did just about anything I asked, which, in the end, benefited neither of us.

I can’t recall when it started, but it flickered in high school. She asked me to a dance. I wore suspenders with no sport coat, was coated in hair spray, and didn’t want to be there. She looked overwhelmed, but beautiful. I met her dad, he hated me, and, as it turned out, he had good reason. It was the only dance I ever enjoyed.

Fast forward to college. I was a Sophomore and my “girlfriend” (we will call her the Devil) was studying abroad. This girl went to school hours from me, but we stayed in touch, often driving to each other on the weekends. We had something. She turned me on, drove me crazy, made me feel stupid, yet strong. She was outwardly confident, but horribly insecure, I needed to be loved. We had fun, and lots of it. It wasn’t serious, but it was exciting. The Devil was happily ignorant.

Then he died. I was in a daze, but called her from the hospital – it was 6am, I have no recollection of the conversation – but it was the beginning of the end.

She was home in hours, stayed with me, alone, in the room where he slept, and, to be honest, masterfully distracted me from myself. The next week was a blur, but I know I spent it with her. She was a rock.

What I did over the next few months was nothing short of appalling.

I needed a sense of control; I needed something to make sense, so I latched on and fed off of her. She loved me, and would have done anything; I loved nothing, but needed her being. I let it linger, sapping her energy, gulping down her kindness, without so much as a thank you in return. I gave just enough to provide hope, but not enough to relinquish control. It was a game. I couldn’t understand how she could want me -- I didn’t sleep, smoked nonstop, and stopped eating -- and made her prove it to me on an hourly basis. She smiled, threw compliments, gave me her body and listened to me cry, often cradling me, a grown man, promising her eternal presence. I didn’t let her keep that promise.

I pushed her harder than I knew I could. I loved the energy, the destructive power was my purpose -- she didn’t stand a chance.

As planned, the Devil returned, and I dropped her as if she had been a momentary fling. She threatened to tell, I cried, she disappeared.

I never told her, and never admitted it to myself, but I loved her. She was my best friend, my lover, and my support system. Yet, I trampled her. I needed to feel strong, to be in control. I succeeded.

I saw her this year, I tried to talk, she walked away. I emailed her this week, just to say I was sorry, she has yet to respond. I understand, I wouldn’t. They say we should have no regrets, I have many. But of all the cruel, sick things I have done in my short life, this was my masterpiece, and all I have to show for my greatest triumph is the emptiness caused by the loss of the first person who cared enough about me to sacrifice her own sanity and well being for my greater good. What a waste of a great personal attribute.

For what it is worth, I told the Devil, she was, not surprisingly, upset. It felt good, for it was the first “right” thing I had done in some time.

You are missed

I want to tell you that I loved you, that I wanted to be there for you, but that I was so young, so preoccupied with my own miserable existence, that I forgot to show up.

I want you to know that you were my hero, that by the age of twelve, you did more than I ever will. I never recovered. I knew I wouldn’t. The second I was told you were gone, I knew my life was going to be a shit show. I wish I could say that I am different, that I took all of the good you did in your life and turned into a positive, but it would be a lie, and you know that. I am as fucked up today as I was the day you left us. I said that I would have traded places with you. That it should have been me. But it is one of my many lies. It shouldn’t have been either of us. You should have been here for me to infect with my insidious ways, and you could have taught me to have compassion, to see love in pain, understanding in incompetence, and freedom in a cage, but you aren’t. I admired you, and wanted to emulate you. You laid the ground work -- I left it to rot. I have, once again, failed you.

I am young. You were younger. I have no excuses. I made a promise to God on the way to the hospital – if you were okay, I would change my ways. He didn’t keep his end, I didn’t keep mine. That excuse is getting stale. I have everything you didn’t. You had everything I don’t. But I am still here. . . .

Dinner and coffee

I eat alone. I use to go to resturants, but I hated confirming that I was in fact a table of one. I now eat at home. I have no tv. I have no radio. I sit on my futon. Me an my food. I finish in under ten minutes and go to a coffee shop. It isn't weird to be by yourself there. They think I am college student. They don't feel bad for me. Its better than the silence.

Where are you?

I have been thinking a lot about an old friend, we will call her LC. I didn’t spend all that much time with her, but somehow, I managed to make her hate me on at least three separate occasions.

She sat across from me in a freshman political theory seminar. I hated that class. Its only redeeming quality was this spark plug of a redhead -- shapely, great teeth, and an opinionated talker. After a particularly heated exchange (how I knew enough about political theory as a freshman to have a heated exchange I will never know), we got coffee. I knew then that she would end up hating me. She was everything I couldn’t be – sincere, funny, caring and smart. I was an ass. After months of late night conversations (and one incredible night on the beach), she grew increasingly frustrated with my antics and disappeared (to this day, I don’t remember what I did, but I do remember her leaving).

How, I don’t know, we reconnected my senior year (she had transferred). As luck would have it, she was going to be in town for my college graduation and wanted to meet up. Again, I was an ass. She spent the weekend with me, and I spent the weekend distracted by a girl who disappeared shortly thereafter.

After months of avoiding my phone calls (and listening to my absurd apologies on her voicemail), we began talking again my first year in graduate school. She had an interview. I had an apartment. She stayed two nights. I stayed one (the girl I spent the other night with was a mistake, and gone within a month). Needless to say, we did not part on good terms.

Here is the kicker -- I never slept with her. I never saw her naked. We kissed briefly a few times in college. For the first and only time in my life, not sleeping with someone was my downfall. She liked me. I thought not sleeping with her was the answer. I was wrong. She hated me for “rejecting” her.

Regardless, the point of this is that I miss her. Selfishly, I enjoyed what we had. I don’t connect well with people. I have a lot of friends, but not many that I actually talk to. I talked with her. She listened. Now, she won’t acknowledge my existence. It hurts. For what it is worth LC, I am sorry.

Monday and I am exhausted...

I see my arms wrapping around her, strangely refusing to stop. I don't love her, I know that, but I need her. Maybe not her so much, but something in her being -- strength, compassion, love, warmth -- something I lack. I know, even as I am doing it, that this will destroy her, but I don't care, I have needs, wants, desires, and she has the ability to temporarily fill the void. Does this make me a bad person -- probably. People forget that about me -- my lack of a heart. I feel deeply. I cry often. I hurt constantly. But none of those are to be confused with a heart. I have left nothing but carnage in my wake since I was a child, and have no intention of changing my ways. I am good at it. Awkwardly, I miss people. I long for the failed, the impossible, and the destructive. The chaos is my curse. I realize in my advanced age that my words are my sword, my emptiness the shield, beauty and free time my enemy. I watch those around me fall and I applaud their failure, it lowers the bar, and I can once again slide safely below the radar, left to my selfishly degenerative ways.

And so it begins

I don't have anything unique to add to the blogging world. But due to a recent change in employment (and location), I am alone (as in I don't really know anybody, don't talk much during the day, and have lost the ability to converse with strangers). So as an alternative to talking with myself (or drinking excessively), I decided to write. There is no format, no central theme, and no agenda, all I know is that I have an abundance of free time, a computer and an internet connection -- we will see where if goes from there.