the real me

***I toss out a lot of names from my past in this entry. There’s a quickie glossary at the end. Use it if you feel left out.***

6/20/99

4 am

I have trouble letting my relationships disappear. I often feel as though there’s a connection that’s incomplete, or like there’s something left that needs to be said or understood. I long to go back, or to explain myself. Invite someone for coffee, not to “catch up,” but to finish up. To say the unsaid things or explain my thoughtless, immature actions, to make them understand and see the real me. So few people have seen the real me.

I gather in my fists a thousand threads, one for each dangling friendship. The connections still exist, the threads are strong, but I’m the one holding them. The people on the other ends are oblivious, unaware that I am grasping at the memory of a friendship or shared moment. And I feel powerless to move closer, as if movement on my part will cause the threads to slip and lose their tautness.

And they do. When I make an effort to catch up to someone, that person drifts back into my life for a short time. We meet, smile, “catch up,” reminisce, but the slack thread stretches once again and that person is as distant as before.

I don’t even know what it is I want to share with most people. Why I feel this need to be a part of their lives. Is it the past? Memories mean so much to me; I wonder sometimes if they mean the same to others. I love to share stories of the past, much to the boredom of my present companions. I need to hold on to the tiny moments. And it seems like all of my memories are tied to other people.

What would I say to Mike R. if we had a real conversation? It’s far too late to discuss our failed relationship, and I don’t give a fuck about the relationship anymore, anyhow. That was a shitty excuse for a relationship. I think I’d like him to realize what a great friendship he’s thrown away, but even that is more hostility than I truly feel toward him. I want him to know what a unique person I am,how much I could help him, how lucky he is to have known me. Sheesh, how conceited does that sound?

I want Eric S. to see me now. Again: the friendship we destroyed together. I’ve peeled away so many layers since I last had contact with Eric, I’m so much closer to the way I want to be. I’m so much stronger. I tell myself that Eric would like me more if I were still his insecure, parroting disciple..

There are concrete things I could say to Eric. I was never able to express myself coherently when all that shit was happening. I get the feeling that I left him with the wrong impression about my romantic feelings toward him. But now, if we met for coffee, we wouldn’t go there. In order to go there we’d have to re-open the friendship, and I just don’t feel like doing that. My thread to Eric seems to have weak places; I’m not sure I’d mind so much if it snapped altogether. Our friendship was based on my needing his attention—now that I don’t need it, he probably wouldn’t have much use for me.

I’d like to get back to some of the people I knew at UM, at least to let them know how much I still think about them. Brandon, Brad, Francesca, Matt, Bernard, and even the people I didn’t know as well. I was the one who left first, but I left before they scattered and I don’t even know where some of them landed.

And people from high school. The few people I’ve seen in recent years are so uncomfortable. Again, I was the first to leave. April, Ben, oh God, Bradlee. What could I say to Bradlee that would bridge the years between us? How could I make any of them see how different I am as an adult?

How can I explain to Kirk that I’ll always want to take care of him?

It all comes back to the real me. None of these people ever knew me intimately, I never let any of them deeply into my mind. I want to tell them that I know now, I realize how untrusting I was and I know how unfair it must have felt. I want to tell them that I've changed. I’ve learned to talk more, and to listen as well. I'm ready to let them understand me.

name glossary

Mike R.—the unhealthiest relationship ever, and the longest one I ever had before meeting John. He was depressive, I was in denial. We sucked.

Eric S.—my best friend at UM. I was in love with him, but when I told him, the friendship was over. The end.

Brandon, Brad, Francesca—people I just didn’t trust, until they stopped trying to be my friends.

Matt, Bernard—guys I loved, but who never saw the me that was under the fakeness.

April, Ben—friends from high school who gave up on ever getting to know me. April and I didn’t lose touch until I went to college and she had a baby, leaving us with nothing whatsoever in common.

Bradlee—my first over-four-days boyfriend. Later he admitted he was gay, and I was less hurt by that than by the fact that he immediately dumped our friendship for some guy who was still in the closet.

Kirk—ahh, Kirk. We alternately flirted and hurt each other through 5 or 6 years of school, kissed once the day after graduation, and we haven’t had a non-superficial conversation since. Wait—we ran into each other once, at a Phish concert, when we were both completely stoned. I think we had a good conversation then.