I’ve been in a daze for the last couple of weeks.
A couple years ago I lost touch with a girl from work that was a good friend of mine. We were very much alike, and we sort of took turns with our depressions and anxieties, if that’s what they really were, and we would cheer each other up. Plus I liked her a lot because she was exceptionally smart, and she was analytical and logical like I am. That’s relatively rare in a woman, the story goes, because their brains develop with strengths in other areas. From what I’ve seen, I think that’s true, so I thought I was real lucky to be friends with her. I was lucky. And plus even further, I liked her…y’know, that way too, because she was a woman and therefore special and wonderful. Well, they are.
So when the emails and phone calls stopped without a word, first I was afraid her husband had seen an email that he shouldn’t have seen, or something like that. Because, once I’d realized that she wouldn’t ever be coming near here on vacation or anything, because her husband would never choose this area to vacation, and I knew I wasn’t going to be back there for any length of time, and never with any free time to do anything bad…I had started flirting some, in both phone calls and email, to make us both feel better. God knows we were both bored lifeless by our daily routines, and by our respective long-term relationships having faded into background noise. I was absolutely sure nothing would happen between us, and I certainly hoped not, so I went and opened that Pandora’s box.
So I thought maybe he told her to break off contact or something, and I couldn’t even come up with a better story than that because I just had no clue. And whatever was going on I knew it was none of my business, so I resolved immediately to respect her silence and wait for as long as it took until I heard from her again.
Well…that’s not going to happen. She’s dead.
So I’m left with confusion, emptiness, a dashed picture of the future, questions galore, what might have been, and one less friend. All that stuff that we all feel at times like this…you can imagine. Y’know, I can get used to the idea that this stuff happens, people will die and leave your life at some random point, that’s life, but it’s a loss that you can’t make up for, in my opinion. You invest in your friends and you expect to get something back; you’ve spent time and shared experiences and learned about each other, and you get back the comfort of knowing they’re there, that they care about you, that they will continue to share life with you. Seems like your best friends ever are the ones from high school, who shared the most meaningful times with you. As you get older it’s less possible to create as deep a bond.
And that brings me to the strange-but-true part of this that I’m still not sure about even mentioning, but I’ve lead right up to it, so: no one could say for sure what day they died, so I went back to my unanswered emails to her to see when she stopped writing, and you might guess it was maybe in the next week or so that she was gone? Well, 8 days after my last email is the day my best friend from high school ended his life. Just a coincidence? Of course it is. Does it mean something? Of course not, they aren’t connected. Do I still look for meaning in two friends dying in the same week, maybe on the same day? You bet I do. That’s something we do…look for meaning, look for answers. Because I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how to process all this. It hurts, and it just hurts. I was counting on them both being around. Between the two of them I had a soulmate, with a little left over. When I pictured my old and grey retirement years, they were both there. Maybe not right down the street, but always in touch, and always scheduled for at least an annual visit.
Ahh, well. So I’ve been in a daze; I never know what I went upstairs for, so I come down and have to go up again when I remember. My thoughts are always elsewhere. My comfortable plans for the future are gone and I’m constantly agitated and haunted by the uncertainty and the bleak picture I have instead. Too many questions.
What do I do now?
