Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2003
When people ask me about 2003 when I become an old man, I'll tell them I went to Italy and then unfortunately have amnesia about everything else., posted at 7:58 a.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Feeling very melancholy today. The bad news about Bill being laid off - as well as another guidance counselor, the one just voted "Most Inspirational" by our students, one of only a tiny amount of young black teachers or role models in the school for our students - has rocked the school. The students don't know yet. They will be devastated. Guidance Counselors follow their classes all through the four years, and Jen's (the other layoff-ee) is graduating this year. Jen has been their counselor for three years. She is one of the most active people in the school. Bill is also a huge blow - coach of two sports, one of the few young male role models for our male students, someone with a ton of energy. I'm devastated by this. Not only is Bill my best friend here, but he's so good with the kids. I'm still in a state of shock. It's making me physically ill. I couldn't sleep last night, not believing it could be true.I've also been thinking a lot about the last year of my life. I don't know; I guess I'm just in one of those moods. This is what I wrote last night:
She didn't want to be there another Thanksgiving. By this time, she was to be down here in Baltimore with me.
It didn't happen that way, at all.
She was my best friend for years. The type of person to laugh with for hours, who knew me better than anyone else. She was engaged for much of the time I knew her, but no matter. She was a great friend.
We saw The Good Girl together last August. I could tell at that point - when she bemoaned becoming the Jennifer Aniston character - that she wasn't happy. I was supportive but not pushy. In just a few weeks, she had ended her relationship.
Cut to the Christmas holiday. We made our feelings clear to each other. We made out on dance floors. We spent the entire holiday season together. I felt more alive that I ever had before. I felt in love for the first time in my life.
She talked about moving down to Baltimore. I was planning our wedding in my head.
Then, she was weird on New Year's Eve. Then, she was weird on the phone. She was going to therapy, and I feel like they were brainwashing her. She started sounding distant. We still talked all the time, though - at her request - we didn't talk about our relationship. Just regular friendship stuff. Things started feeling weird in February or so.
Later, another friend accidentally told me that the friend had met her boyfriend. They'd been dating a while, while we continued to talk on the phone a few times a week. I can trace her distance and weirdness to the time they started dating. By this time, she had stopped returning my phone calls.
When confronted, she admitted to it. She said she didn't think I'd care, but also that she thought I'd be angry. We e-mailed back and forth a few times. I was bitter. She blamed things on me and said there was a communication breakdown. I told her that the communication breakdown was hers and that she was the one who stopped returning phone calls.
The mixed CD I sent was marked "Return to Sender." I still listen to it when I'm feeling morose. She told me she would refuse any more mail or e-mail from me, that she'd only take phone calls. I called her last. No return call.
I was down in the dumps for a long time over it. People at school asked me what was wrong. Later, in looking at the situation with the perspective of time, I realized that I was another spoke in her pattern and that it wasn't really love, it was falling too hard and too fast.
Still, she sent me a get well card, after not hearing from her in months. I'm not sure how she found out about the surgery (she probably is still reading the journal, I guess), but I did appreciate the gesture. It was the only get well card I got from anyone other than my Grandma and my little sister, and it made me feel good.
That being said, I'm still not sure I'm interested in talking with her. The tone of the card still suggested to me that she's waiting for me to call, as if I'm the one who ended communication. That's the pissing contest, ego part of my uncertainty. But there's more. I'm also not sure if I'm interested in once again leaving myself open to her to cause me pain. I don't trust her and I'm not sure if that will ever change. I don't have her number any longer, but I'm not sure if I would call her if I did. I'm just not sure.
Maybe someday I will be. Sure, I mean. But it would really suck to call her and find out she's engaged to this guy, or to hear her speak in the theraspeak language she was using the last time we spoke.
So much changes in a year. Last Christmas, she got me Margaret Cho's DVD The Notorious C.H.O. and the book Lies My Teacher Told Me, and those two things along tell me how well she knew me. We sat back and watched Margaret Cho and laughed our asses off. I made so many versions of mixed CDs for her after I returned to Baltimore, mailing only one. I still miss her, especially when I'm driving in my car at night, or when I hear a Tori Amos song, or when I see an independent film. I'm not really sure what I want to do.