I hate this time of the month.
Oct. 24th, 2008 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spookyeviloneThis very specific time of this very month, in fact. In three days, I celebrate the fact that I was born alive, naked, and screaming.
Except this year, it's not really a celebration. It never really is, because there were too many years growing up being the lone odd kid whose mother forced them to invite the whole class to their birthday party and only one or two people ever showed up. Too many years of horrible, sometimes horrific things happening right before or actually on my birthday. Like the year I was 13 and the phone rang, but instead of the usual call from my father giving some lame excuse why he couldn't be there, it was a lawyer giving me the very good excuse that he wasn't there because he'd had a massive coronary and died in a supermarket.
While I don't hate my birthday anymore, thanks mostly to friends who have made sure that my entire life is padded with emotional bubblewrap around the date and that the parties never suck, and also because That Guy knows the value of not leaving me alone - even the years I specifically say I want to be alone, this year is a whole new brand of icky.
The person I'd considered my best friend for over half my life won't be here. This isn't the new and interesting part - he hasn't actually showed up in several years, because he's either socially and emotionally devolved into an isolationist little fuck, or he stopped actually liking me and considering me a friend years ago and just never had the balls to tell me. I honestly don't know which. I just assume the answer is "Both". I cut ties after he bailed on my birthday last year, because I got very tired of wondering - and really, if I have to wonder if someone is my friend or not? Means they either aren't, or I shouldn't let them be, because it indicates a toxic emotional environment. The new and interesting part is that this year, I made no effort to invite him. I've emailed him exactly once in the last year, and it was more a civic duty thing than anything else.
You know the phrase "You're dead to me"? It's usually said with angst or hate, but fairly accurately describes how this feels, although there's no malice on my part. There's a hole in my life, where my friend used to be. I still think about him. I'll hear or see or remember something funny and reach for my phone only to stop myself and not call. Because for too many years, it would go to voicemail and he'd never listen to it or call me back. I don't email him, for the same reason. Trying to communicate with him became like screaming into a void - all one way and if I was lucky, occasionally I'd get a weak echo in response. Hell, I still wind up buying stupid small things without thinking about it and then it hits me that he's not around anymore to give them to. They wind up donated to the Crisis Nursery or to other friends who might want them.
Every time, it brings the same sort of punched-in-the-chest feeling I get when I go to call one of the Dead_Brothers and realize I can't anymore. Another tiny emotional bruise, quickly gotten over but damn painful for the brief time it exists. The acknowledgment of something that was a large chunk of my life isn't there anymore.
The worst part isn't the pain. I can deal with pain. I'm a grand mistress of granite-faced stoicism, and this is strictly penny-ante on the scale of shit I've dealt with and survived in the past. The worst part is the anger. Every time it hurts, every time I look at the void, I get angry at myself. I feel like I shouldn't still be grieving for this. It makes me feel weak and codependent and really, those are two words that are never used to describe me. I feel like an addict - "One more chance can't hurt.. maybe it'll be different this time." Except "stupid" is also not generally a word people use to describe me, and I know that one more chance will hurt, just like the dozens that went before it. Emotional apathy is a form of abuse, and it does hurt. Sometimes it hurts worse than any spiteful, horrible thing they could do or say.
Tomorrow, I will spend the day surrounded by friends, people who make all sorts of effort in big and little ways to show they care about me, whether it's a phonecall or a sudden and unplanned roadtrip to Canada, and I will be happy and grateful to have them around me, and in my life.
I absolutely despise that, surrounded by the people who care about me, part of my brain will be thinking about the one who doesn't. I talked myself out of canceling the party, earlier, because while I may feel this rogue, annoying, despised thought is unfair to my guests - canceling actually would be. I like them too much to do that, and I'm looking forward to having them here.
And this is the point where I go listen to loud, angry music and work off the blackness by obsessively cleaning the house.
Except this year, it's not really a celebration. It never really is, because there were too many years growing up being the lone odd kid whose mother forced them to invite the whole class to their birthday party and only one or two people ever showed up. Too many years of horrible, sometimes horrific things happening right before or actually on my birthday. Like the year I was 13 and the phone rang, but instead of the usual call from my father giving some lame excuse why he couldn't be there, it was a lawyer giving me the very good excuse that he wasn't there because he'd had a massive coronary and died in a supermarket.
While I don't hate my birthday anymore, thanks mostly to friends who have made sure that my entire life is padded with emotional bubblewrap around the date and that the parties never suck, and also because That Guy knows the value of not leaving me alone - even the years I specifically say I want to be alone, this year is a whole new brand of icky.
The person I'd considered my best friend for over half my life won't be here. This isn't the new and interesting part - he hasn't actually showed up in several years, because he's either socially and emotionally devolved into an isolationist little fuck, or he stopped actually liking me and considering me a friend years ago and just never had the balls to tell me. I honestly don't know which. I just assume the answer is "Both". I cut ties after he bailed on my birthday last year, because I got very tired of wondering - and really, if I have to wonder if someone is my friend or not? Means they either aren't, or I shouldn't let them be, because it indicates a toxic emotional environment. The new and interesting part is that this year, I made no effort to invite him. I've emailed him exactly once in the last year, and it was more a civic duty thing than anything else.
You know the phrase "You're dead to me"? It's usually said with angst or hate, but fairly accurately describes how this feels, although there's no malice on my part. There's a hole in my life, where my friend used to be. I still think about him. I'll hear or see or remember something funny and reach for my phone only to stop myself and not call. Because for too many years, it would go to voicemail and he'd never listen to it or call me back. I don't email him, for the same reason. Trying to communicate with him became like screaming into a void - all one way and if I was lucky, occasionally I'd get a weak echo in response. Hell, I still wind up buying stupid small things without thinking about it and then it hits me that he's not around anymore to give them to. They wind up donated to the Crisis Nursery or to other friends who might want them.
Every time, it brings the same sort of punched-in-the-chest feeling I get when I go to call one of the Dead_Brothers and realize I can't anymore. Another tiny emotional bruise, quickly gotten over but damn painful for the brief time it exists. The acknowledgment of something that was a large chunk of my life isn't there anymore.
The worst part isn't the pain. I can deal with pain. I'm a grand mistress of granite-faced stoicism, and this is strictly penny-ante on the scale of shit I've dealt with and survived in the past. The worst part is the anger. Every time it hurts, every time I look at the void, I get angry at myself. I feel like I shouldn't still be grieving for this. It makes me feel weak and codependent and really, those are two words that are never used to describe me. I feel like an addict - "One more chance can't hurt.. maybe it'll be different this time." Except "stupid" is also not generally a word people use to describe me, and I know that one more chance will hurt, just like the dozens that went before it. Emotional apathy is a form of abuse, and it does hurt. Sometimes it hurts worse than any spiteful, horrible thing they could do or say.
Tomorrow, I will spend the day surrounded by friends, people who make all sorts of effort in big and little ways to show they care about me, whether it's a phonecall or a sudden and unplanned roadtrip to Canada, and I will be happy and grateful to have them around me, and in my life.
I absolutely despise that, surrounded by the people who care about me, part of my brain will be thinking about the one who doesn't. I talked myself out of canceling the party, earlier, because while I may feel this rogue, annoying, despised thought is unfair to my guests - canceling actually would be. I like them too much to do that, and I'm looking forward to having them here.
And this is the point where I go listen to loud, angry music and work off the blackness by obsessively cleaning the house.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-25 09:50 am (UTC)Maybe you just have too much of the flotsam of him in your life still? Sounds trite, but once I got rid of all the "stuff" that reminded me of him, the air started to clear and it got better.
In any case, I hope you have a grand birthday. Those friends who are truly friends, stay with us.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-25 05:17 pm (UTC)Keeps saying he'll come by... I'm not holding my breath anymore, sadly.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-25 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-25 05:21 pm (UTC)Happy Birthday :)
no subject
Date: 2008-10-25 06:06 pm (UTC).. and yes, same person. :)
Thanks for the birthday wishes. We're making caramel apples because that's how I roll, yo. :P