she sent me 6 questions. since i think they're really good and deserve some thought, i'm going to answer one each day over the next 6 days.
here goes:
(molly's questions appear in the trebuchet font, and my answers in good, ole tnr)
1. everyone has people that they wish were in their lives...people that they crossed and for some reason or another, never took the time to get to know. who are 3 people that you like a lot (for whatever reason) but never got to keep in your life or never took the time to know? (i.e. 3 people you know that you wish you hung around with)?
this is a really difficult question for me because i hate acknowleding that i've just let people slip away from me.
i think number 1 on the list would have to be monica. there was so much unsettled business in that relationship even though i was 8 when it ended. at 23, i realize how much i could have learned from and grown in that friendship if it had continued. this will always be one of my greater regrets.
i miss beth a lot.
we were unlikely friends, beth and i. an odd couple with entirely too much in common. we were different but the same. for the entirety of my sophomore year of college, beth and i were attached at the hip. there was very little we did apart. we'd visit her boyfriend at northern. we'd go to concerts together. we'd work my shift at the student organizations desk. we'd sleep at each other's places. we were a package deal.
unfortunately, though, beth knew me during a terribly dark part of my life. i was finally coming to grips with who i was, who i had been, and who i was going to be. and i hated it. i would say that for that year of my life, i was an alcoholic. as much as i joke about it now, how i drink a lot, how beer is my kryptonite, how a well-made cocktail will always win in a battle of wills... that year. it was bad. i drank to forget. i drank to to forget i drank. i drank to stop feeling. i drank to stop having to live. i drank to kill the part of me i hated.
and people will say that if beth was such a great friend, she should have seen this and done something about it. and to that i say, she did.
despite what a mess i was. despite all my self-loathing. despite my horrible mood swings. despite the days when i refused to get out of bed. despite the countless nights i spent puking in my bathroom. despite all my lies and secrets and deceptions. despite it all. she was my friend.
she was there. she answered her phone. she ate dinner with me. she walked with me to class. she observed the insanity that was my roommates with me. she kept me going. she got me up. she got my heart pumping. she made me live even though i hated it.
unfortunately, as much as i wanted to kill a part of me, the only casualty of all my depression and loathing was my friendship with beth. eventually my lies took their toll. eventually my secrets weighed us down. eventually my shit got in the way.
beth lives in chicago, now. i saw her once. we chatted. did the dance. it wasn't the same. i don't know that it ever will be.
i miss beth.
those are the big two. the two women i let go. one i can never get back. the other i don't think would let me or want to.
as for the third.
well, i miss having an archnemesis. in fourth grade, a new girl joined our class. her name was april hunter. she was from texas and had huge bangs. i hated her immediately. somehow she knew this and obliged by hating me back.
we were constant rivals. making everything into a competition. jumping rope. buying lunch tokens. rolling our jeans. everything.
in fifth grade, april moved again. her dad was in the military or sales or something. it was sad having no one to hate.
i wonder if she missed hating me, too.
posted by brett @ 2:02 PM
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