Time Heals All Wounds...?

You know, I always figured this would get easier. You've been gone for 9 years, but I still think about you on a regular basis. I guess that's to be expected, though... It would be unfair to just completely forget you. And I don't think I'd ever want that. I just want this to get easier. I'm tired of wondering about the person you would be today, or thinking back to the days when we played hide-and-go-seek tag in your yard. The days I would stay the night at your house and your mom would record Pokemon for us to watch when we woke up.

I feel so bad for your family too, but what do I say? Sure, it's been 9 years since we all lost you, but is this an approachable subject now? I just don't know who else to talk to about you. I don't have the same friends we used to. Jonny is not the person I used to know... BJ is just as scandalous and stupid as he ever was. Jacob stopped being friends with me when I came out to him... That's another thing I always wondered about. Would we still have been friends if you had been alive when I came out? I'd like to think so. Sometimes I wonder if you maybe had the same secrets I did- I always remember you telling us you had a crush on someone, but you would never tell us who it was... was it a guy?

I miss you, Pat. I wish you were still around. I miss the way you used to say my name, or the way we would fight about something really stupid and you would always apologize first because I was/am far too stubborn to do it. I miss your laugh, and your smile. I miss how you always stuck up for me, even though I was the weird kid in McGrath. How you always made sure I was included in things, even things you knew I wouldn't like but would go do anyway because it was better than being alone. I wish I didn't have to do this without you. I wish I knew what would have happened to us if you hadn't died. I wish you were still alive, and still my best friend. I wish I could hear your voice again.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

I watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother a couple weeks ago that really got me thinking. In the episode, Lily invites all of her friends to see a play she was in. They all go, of course, even if they do have to convince Barney to go. When the play was over everyone tells Lily how great it was, except Barney, who says straight-up, "That was awful!" (It was.) This sparks a debate between them on if friends should always be honest with one-another and sit through things they know they won't enjoy for their friend's sake, or if they should always support their friends endeavors, despite your own personal thoughts on the matter.

In order to prove his point, Barney writes a one-man show specifically tailored to be awful and make Lily hate it. Halfway through his show, Lily gives up and tells Barney he was right and that it was terrible. Proud of his endeavor, Barney is also a little bit disappointed that, with Lily's admission, he doesn't get to finish his show. Seeing his despondence over it, Lily tells Barney he can finish his show; she sits back down and continues to watch a show that was tailor-made for her to hate it. Simply because she knows it matters to Barney and he is her friend. This got me thinking about myself and my own friends.

There are a lot of situations in which I am the "Barney" to my friends. When Hannah was in the Vagina Monologues, a show she was really proud of, I told her I wasn't going to see it because the content didn't appeal to me. As her friend, though, wasn't it my duty to go to the show and support her anyway? Earlier in the week I received a message from my mom telling me she would be home soon. As she had been gone for months, and I am a terrible housekeeper and had been throwing parties almost every weekend, the house was a wreck. Many of my friends had expressed an interest in helping me clean, since they had been present at a lot of the parties that caused the mess. The first person to show up was Hannah, though I sent her off early because a friend of hers needed someone to talk to.

I have friends who are willing to come to my house and help me clean it, while I wasn't even willing to spend a few uncomfortable hours listening to a performance by one of my friends. This whole chain of events got me thinking about friendships in general, the concept of friends and the reason we keep the friends we keep. I examined some of my own relationships, like my relationship with Meghan. Despite the fact that I have housed her entirely rent free and that, due to her lack of job and finances, I supported the both of us with my student loan, she chose to get drunk at a party in town instead of coming to the house to clean with the rest of our friends. Still, despite the fact that I was angry at her for a couple days, I find myself enjoying her company from time-to-time.

I don't hate Meghan. I love her. I just can't depend on her, and I know she's lied and attempted to manipulate me, and so I also can't trust her. I still consider her a friend, though, and it's this idea that confounds me; if I think this way about Meghan, what must others think of me? Perhaps I'm more thoughtless than I should be. Having so many people come to my house and clean, seeing all of my friends get this house cleaner than it's been since my mom left, I realized how much I depend on my friends. It made me realize just how much the relationships I have mean to me and how much I must mean to them in order for them to go out of their way to help me.

I don't want my friends to look at me the way I now look at Meghan. I don't want to be someone they care for, yet know they can't depend on. I want to hold on to this feeling I have, this feeling of intimacy and compassion and trust and love that I have for them, and I want them to feel it, also. I want to know they feel about me the way I feel about them, even if it is selfish to want all of that.