So...know how I was all, "hey invisible fake people who read my blog, I will give you a real post next week," and junk? Well, obviously I have not posted in two weeks. So maybe I will give you a real post today.
Or maybe not. Who knows. 2012 isn't looking very good. January was probably the worst month of my life. Each coming day being slightly more horrific than the last. Culminating in saying goodbye (for the last time) to my best friend, which is probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Hopefully the hardest thing I will ever have to do, because I don't know what will happen if...worse things, uh, happen. That sounded very redundant.
And if you're wondering, he didn't die or anything like that. He's still alive and kicking, probably perfectly happy. He was my best friend; I wasn't his. So he's okay. But there's a whole story about why this had to happen, and I don't really want to get into it...wait. Know what? Nobody reads this stupid thing anyway. So actually, I will get into it.
So about a year and a half ago (in the summer of '10), I was having some trouble with this guy. That's a bad way to put it. Let's just say this: that was the first guy to ever break my heart; the first guy to really, truly do emotional damage to me. It wasn't really his fault, though. I blame myself. But anyway, before I was completely destroyed, I had been talking to my friends about him, and they all knew where it was headed. I refused to believe them (they were all girls, what did they know?!), and eventually I sort of happened across Rock (named obviously changed to protect identity from non-existent strangers who might want to do him harm).
Anyway, Rock helped me through that. Eventually he sided with the rest of them; saying that Guy was no good. Which I had sort of realized by that point anyway. But Rock was my full-fledged friend (look at that alliteration!) by this point. So I talked to him about my other problems, of which there were many. He basically kept me alive through that winter. I honestly don't think I would be sitting here typing at all if it hadn't been for Rock.
He got me to the point where I was okay enough to try again at, you know, being happy/stable enough to be in a relationship. Which I was, briefly. Very briefly. I won't give GuyB the satisfaction of having broken my heart, but he messed me up again. So I was back to Rock, sort of. Just for help though. Just because I didn't really get why everything always seemed so messed up for me. Just because he was my friend, and he had always been there before...
And true to form, like a stupid knight in stupid shiny metal armor, he was there again. I got better again. He graduated. I didn't cry at his graduation. Life was good.
At one point in the summer, I acquired a long-distance boyfriend. Again, it was a very brief "relationship," if you can even call it that. But, as soon as it was "official," Rock basically went sleuthing around online and did a background check. It was a cute older-brotherly thing of him to do.
When said short-term long-distance relationship ended, he checked to make sure I was okay. I was. At that point, it was whatever to me. Just whatever. Who cares, I'm young there'll be more.
And then the summer was over, and I went back to school and he went to college (nearby). We continued on as we had before, mostly just texting and occasionally hanging out.
Then, disaster. I can't tell you exactly when it happened. I can't explain how or why the universe would do this to me when Rock was basically the only person who knew the real me anymore. I still seriously don't know why or how I let this happen; let myself do this. But at some point, between late October and early December, I finally admitted a horrible fact which had probably been true for a very long time: I was in love with him. Not a crush, not a phase, not a whatever else. I never wanted to actually date him, but that may have only been because I knew that not only would we be the world's worst couple, I also knew that he didn't and wouldn't ever feel the same.
So I did what any other reasonable human being would do. I ignored it, pretended it wasn't true, lied to myself that it had passed, and when all of these failed, simply resolved to take the secret to my grave.
But that wasn't all the universe had to throw at me. It had also decided at some previous point that I am the type of rash person who makes terrible decisions and tries to talk to people about people without them knowing you are talking about them to them, which never ever ever works by the way. So due to this deadly combination of attributes I possess, one day I decided to pose a hypothetical to Rock. It went something like this:
"Say there's a thing. And you know it, and they probably know it, but if you actually say it, it's going to hurt both you and them. A lot. What are you supposed to do?"
His response was a quote from someone he knew about how honesty would never hurt a relationship and also he added something about how keeping secrets wasn't healthy or blah blah blah. We argued about it for a while, then eventually he asked what was going on, because this was obviously not a hypothetical (they never are). I told him he was better off not knowing, which caused him to ask why.
Finally, after a little more back and forth, I was fed up. And also still rash. And also a little angry. So when he said something dumb, which is out of character, I blew up. I believe my exact words were...
"I hate you. I hate you and I blame you for where I am right now because I love you. There. Now you know. Happy?"
...which may have been a little excessive. But I was already mad, and also I use anger as a defense mechanism so I don't get hurt (it doesn't work).
He was a nice as humanly possible about it. I think. If not next, then at some point in the ensuring conversation he said...
"Would it help if I said I kinda knew already?"
NO!!! Why would that help, you stupid fool?! Have you MET me?! That just adds insult to injury! This is humiliating! This is quite possibly the most humiliating thing to EVER HAPPEN TO ME IN MY ENTIRE WRETCHED LIFE!!!
But I didn't say any of that. I said something else, heaven only knows what. But we discussed it for a while, until presumably he either fell asleep or more probably just saw that there was no real point in continuing to converse with a crazy person whose entire life had just crumbled before her very eyes (or so she thought at that point. It would actually slowly crumble for a month until it finally completely collapsed.).
Oh, did you think the horror was over? No, the universe was just getting started! This was just at the point where the universe was stretching and cracking its knuckles before it really started to pound on me.
I'm going to skip a part here, because I want to and I'm writing and you're just an imaginary reader anyway. But the gist of it is, my friend Hermione (and her mother) forced me to tell my parents that I was depressed. Later I found out something that made me very angry. What was this thing? Well, I'm glad you asked. This thing was the fact that Rock told Hermione to do something about me. He told her, she told her mom, her mom talked to me, then I had to talk to my parents. This pissed me off. A lot.
Buuuut anyway. So then I was a lot mad and a lot sad and a lot of a lot. Also I had to go to therapy twice during that stupid godawful month. But after that I quit. Just didn't make another appointment. And yeah, made it through two whole weeks without saying anything to Rock! Not a peep outta me, I was so proud.
Then the universe chuckled, and threw its next punch.
I was innocently driving to my astronomy class, the one time we were meeting at the planetarium and had a big 50-point assignment to do in class. It started out simple enough. I just missed a turn because the GPS decided to wait until ten feet before said turn to tell me to turn. Okay. I can handle that. Just get to next spot and turn, right?
Wrong. I missed another half-dozen "TURN AROUND NOW!!"s. And eventually I got to a road where I was supposed to turn left. Not just any road, though. A busy one. And it was dark. There was no stoplight. There were two stoplights, each about a half mile down the road. But they never stopped in sync. There was never going to be a time when I could go and not fear being smashed to bits by a millions rampaging cars.
I lost it. Right there, at that stupid intersection. I lost everything I had pretended to have for so long. I fell apart entirely. I was crying hysterically and sobbing out words like "I'm never SOB gonna be able SOB to go SOB," "why is this SOB happening SOB to me," "I'm gonna SOB miss my SOB class SOB," and so on and so forth.
Well, eventually I did go. I was still crying. I was still terrified of being smashed to bits. But I figured at least if I was in bits I wouldn't be crying anymore. So after I made it through the terrifying intersection (I saw it later in the daylight--not scary at all), I just drove around sobbing for about ten, fifteen minutes. Then I guess I realized that I was not going to be able to stop crying. Not without help of some kind, anyway.
So I did what any reasonable idiot would do. I called my best friend. Even though we hadn't spoken in two weeks, he was still my best friend. He knew what was up and nobody else really did. He was at work. I knew he was at work. However, I didn't know what an alternative to calling him would have been, besides perhaps driving around sobbing for the rest of my life, which would be short because I would crash and be smashed to bits and then be dead probably.
He was uncharacteristically unhelpful. Probably something to do with several things: he was at work, I didn't know what was wrong with me, I couldn't speak full sentences, and also we hadn't spoken in two weeks. Eventually I made it into a nice safe parking lot of a tire place. I was lost. And scared, tired, alone, crying, and also scared. And like I said, Rock couldn't do anything for me. He told me to call someone. But, in his words, "I don't know exactly who you could call..."
Because there wasn't anyone else to call. Over the past year and a half-ish, I effectively cut out every other person from my life. Because who needs other people when there is Rock? He's obviously all anyone needs. I'm not blaming him; I was cutting people out of my life long before he came into the picture. But having him made me erroneously believe that I didn't need "people," I just needed "person."
After that episode (I did manage to stop crying long enough to make it to McDonalds for a McFlurry before I went McHome) (the flurry really did help, though), I just thought for a couple days. Literally, for two days.
I expected him to text me. Make sure I was okay. You know, it's just what I thought would happen next. But he didn't, and at some point I reached a decision.
So I broke, and texted him first. We only talked for maybe 45 minutes, an hour tops. I had to make it as painless as possible, not really for him because I've long since learned I can't hurt him, but for me it had to be quick or I wouldn't be able to do it. My second to last text read...
"Blah blah blah stuff I don't remember. Maybe in a few months, if I get better, but for now..."
"Yep yep..."
"Thank you, for everything. I'm really, really sorry about all this. Goodbye, Rock."
"Hm...you're the second person to ever say goodbye to me. It's okay. Best wishes, Razza. Don't worry about it. Goodbye."
... And that was it. My best friend was gone. Probably forever. I know I said maybe if I got better, but I know that's not going to happen. And if I did by some miracle get better, nothing would ever be the same. Everything changes, and nothing lasts forever. Nothing.
It has been six days. And I've been so busy with school, both college and high school, that I haven't had much time to stop and think about it. I haven't given myself a single moment's breath to stop and grieve. I feel like I have to grieve for this. Not because he died; obviously by this point if you've been paying any attention at all you know he didn't. But because he was my best friend, and now he's gone. He's just gone.
He's gone.
--Razza Ragazza
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