I Love You Guys

Being the one who is left, abandoned, made lone, is worse than doing the leaving. Which is a truism, yes? Which is something  we know, and with certainty. The perpetual need to re-learn basic lessons is baffling, though. One would think that one might get to the point when one says "Ah yes! I feel prematurely bereft, because I'm anticipating the absence of my friend/lover/family member/anyone else, and this is the part when I'm to begin shopping for pity party favors (pity party favors: to-go packs of extra thick tissues for crying, mixes of music that remind you of the soon-to-be-gone person's ring tone, giant box of Animal Crackers, fresh can of whipped cream to put on Animal Crackers, box of wine.) It would be more efficient, at least: one could just proceed with the Festivus of Poivre Moi and skip that startled feeling that denotes your sense of total unpreparedness. What? you think. Sure, I've felt this way before, but that was years ago, and it was when I broke up with That Fucker What Stole My Personalized Cue Stick, and it was before I knew He/She stole it! That was completely different!...and it is completely different.

This time, you just sit there and remind each other how awesome things were when you met, even though neither of you can really recall the details. Just "I remember your haircut! You wore it that way for seven years! I thought your hair only did the one style and refused to grow on principle!"... and "There was a house party. Was it at Sherla's? No, she was with Derrick at the time- that was before she flipped the coin... Yeah, she was with Suze for a while there- they almost bought the studio in ORLANDO, which I thought was just strange since she was a CPA and she was a genius with other people's money...OK, so the party was at Ki Ki's then. Ki Ki. Come on, Ki Ki! Sorry: Ferdie. Freddy. Gerdie? What was her name, and didn't she have the operation yet?...no that was Kidzie. Yeah, the nurse/"nurse", and I can't figure that out because you'd think after all day jogging after stretchers and listening to baby doctors tell you how it is, the last thing you'd want to do is slide on your five-inch heels...Good point, maybe that's exactly what you want to do... Anyway, anyway- party, party... Right, but now I'm not sure it was in someone's house. We went to that warehouse- it was a warehouse, and that was our first rave, remember? It was so small, there were twenty people there- we were so lucky, weren't we? There was only those half-tabs of X- oh, remember X?- so we didn't experience the nervous system shutdown the five others did. Maybe it was thirty people. So it must have been more like seven other people just spent fifteen minutes falling down, one limb at a time, and we had to drag them over to the pit that was in the corner of that warehouse- it was little, and we'd put our coats down and dragged them each into the pit and layed them on the coats...are you sure? That was a show we saw? Well shit!...Was your brother in that show?" and "I love you, and it might be in a gay way."

Then it's almost time. Then it's time. Then they leave.

So it's different because your anger is fruitless, whereas the anger you have toward some dumb ex is full of delicious fruit that is satisfying. You get angry with the timing and the taxi driver and the spouse they're going home to and the fulfilling job they have that requires they do this horrible thing to you. There you are, holding the Phone of Friendship which is sounding with the Busy Signal of Bereftness, which you can't just hang up because the Cradle of Resignation is under all of the laundry that you ignored while your friend was in town. You put the phone down, still beeping, on the Get On With It Table of daily tasks; the signal is like tinnitus, barely audible and constant. So you do what anyone, what everyone, does: you turn on the Telling Television to watch a Show of Cosmic Self-Anaesthetising...and your writing becomes god-awful.

The loneliness of losing a friend this way, in a way that's no really losing them, is humbling: if this were high school again, you would be the hanger-on, the apprentice pariah, the stag at the Prom, and your friend would be their splendid, magnanimous, quietly talented self with all of the friends. Among their friends are the school assholes who transmorgify into smiling, approachable humans when they're in line or at a party with them; the nerds, who together form a phalanx of the smitten; every teacher in the school, and every administrator; the Maintenance Engineers, who laugh with them about the formality of their titles ("what's wrong with being called a janitor? It's ridiculous!"); and you. They like you almost as much as you like them, which is a miracle. And, despite what many insipid movies would have you believe about your natural thirst for status and equal amounts of adoration from all and sundry, you are just fine with it. What difference does all this make, anyway? You are friends, and because of it, you are lucky.