I’ve really been kinda shallow lately, haven’t I? I’ve been avoiding thinking about what needs most to be considered, thoughtfully and carefully. The biggest pieces of my life; the looming “reality” that I must face, but am loathe to do so.

Because it hurts, dammit.

“Will I be happy on the back of the shelf?

Will you be happy when we’re sharing a cell?

Spare me the questions since you know me so well -

Someday you’ll realize that I get shy and I choke up.”

-Wind Up, Foo Fighters

So, okay, the stuff I’ve been avoiding. I was supposed to meet with Max on Saturday to discuss the “sick and twisted” status of our “friendship.” We were slotted to meet at 2pm. So, dutifully at 1:30pm, I hit the door of Borders and start reading The Healing Path, which is kind of a nightmare in itself, because it does a great job of pulling my insides out and handing them to me for examination. *sigh* So, I’m sitting there reading, and I realize it’s 2:15pm. I call Max and get his voicemail.

I get bored and decide to leave. At 4pm I get a call from Max, who was up all night recording music and is just now out of bed. Can we push it off to 7pm? Sure. That will give me another three hours to completely vacate my body, so that my soul and my heart are so tightly sealed behind huge walls that no one can penetrate. That way I might actually get through the evening without going to pieces.

At 7:10pm I’m at Tomatillos; at 7:25pm he breezes through the door, all sex and smiles. He sits down and we chat about a lot of nothing while he eats. My chest is tight and my hands are in constant motion. He asks me if everything’s alright - I answer, “I’m fine.” He gives me a look that says he knows better, but finishes his food.

At 8pm he decides he needs a cigarette and we hop into his Jeep. He plays a new song for me, without lyrics, and a remix of “70’s Pop Song.” The new song is great - at least what I hear of it through my anxiety and lack of concentration - and “70’s Pop Song” is just not my favorite, but it’s catchy. Hence the name. So, just when I think we’re ready to get down to brass tacks, he pulls out the folder of E-bay stuff I’d made for him. *sigh* So we go over that, and if I didn’t know better I’d say he was stalling. Finally, at 8:30pm he sets the folder down, and I say, “Okay, so, what?” And he looks at me with a look that says, “That was smooth.”

You would think that by this time I’d be nauseous and anxiety-ridden. But really I wasn’t. I was so calm, I felt dead. Max droned on for 45 minutes, bless his heart, talking about things I’d heard before, and things I hadn’t. How much he loves his girlfriend, and how it would be easier if he were in love with me. And the whole time he was talking, I kept thinking, “You know, if he’d just stop talking, I could get out of the Jeep and go home.” Because I was completely not there in soul or spirit. So why should I be there in body?

So he’s discussing boundaries and limits to our friendship, blah blah blah, and I sit there like the living dead. He kind of winds down, and looks at me and asks what I feel about this whole thing. Wanting to give him an honest answer, I pause a moment to think. On the inside, I’m desperately searching for where all my emotions went. And the silence stretches on. And I sit there, digging. Deeper, deeper. Nothing.

Finally, it starts. It starts slowly, stuttering, and builds momentum. I am angry, I am hurt, I am frustrated, I am tired. I am in love. I don’t want to be. He wants a friend. He tells me that he nearly walked away from it all last week. I am horrified and scared. I want to cling to him, and at the same time, I want to walk away and not look back. Ambivalence at its best. I want him to come to my house and get his things and get the hell out of my life. He admits that he breezed into my life without a clue and ended up complicating it, which was the one thing he didn’t want to do. I tell him that his motives have been fucked up from the start, and point out the signs, to which he first argues and then condescends to.

He asks what kind of boundaries I need, and I tell him. I tell him that when he’s in a good mood, he needs to stay away from me. He’s bewildered. I am frustrated. I tell him that when he is charming and sweet and funny he takes my heart out of my chest and dances on it. He asks WTF? I tell him that when he’s charming, he’s lethal. And he understands.

The end is the same as the beginning. No more late night talks driving around. No more visits to the house in the evening. We go from one extreme to the other - from intimate friends to “give me a call sometime” friends. The kind of friends where a month passes and you happen to think, “I wonder what he’s up to?” And you might call to find out, but you might not.

And my heart is in a billion little pieces, grieving over the loss of my most intimate friend. And the loss of hope in a reality that will never be.

“My only promise is that I’ll never tell -

Keep you at a distance from the things that I’ve felt -

I’ll bite the bullet take the beating until

I take it all back anyway

What was I supposed to say?”

-Wind Up, FF

In the past three days, I’ve come to realize, through the help of Max and Melissa and this wretched book, that I have a sense of hopelessness and despair regarding everything I touch. My sense of hopelessness set in sometime in June, I think, when I started craving the rock lifestyle. Yes, I know that sounds completely bizarre, but it’s true. I wanted to be rich and famous and tour and see the world and get rid of all these responsibilities. And when I saw my life as one big set of pain in the ass responsibilities, my joy for the life I’d been given was sucked away.

And then, the August-September depression crap didn’t help. When I look into the future, at this moment, what do I see? Is it the same stuff I saw in September, when I wanted my life to be over, right now? If I am to get honest with myself, I’m not sure. I don’t know. I can’t even see next week, let alone three or five years from now.

When I was talking to Max Saturday night, I asked him what I was going to do between now and when I could be friends with him without all the feelings involved. He reminded me that Jesus warns against worrying about tomorrow. I concede the point. Three sentences later I ask him what I’m supposed to do on a practical level, when I wake up, when the next day comes. He asks what day that will be. Tomorrow. He reminds me that he woke up this morning and thanked God for allowing him today. A first for Max.

What a great illustration of my adult life. I spend so much of my time in my past or in my future that I’ve missed the present altogether.

I just don’t know why I feel so compelled to write all this stuff down, without a point in mind. Maybe, over the course of several weeks or months, I’ll be able to discern some kind of change; some maturity that was lacking before. Right now, I am sorting through so many things. Guilt over avoiding his girlfriend because it’s extraordinarily painful and building a lot of resentment in me towards her; romantic feelings toward Max that have the ability to kill what could easily be a lifelong friendship (with a rock star, no less). =)  Why I hold onto the pain of the past and have very little if any hope for the future. Why I can’t be honest and open with people, anyone, including myself. Why I’m the last person to see things about myself. Why it’s important for that to change.

I guess I’ll have to spend time getting used to all the changes, and just let God do his work. Quit kicking and screaming and whining about it all and just watch as things grow and change around me, as I grow and change with it.

But I have a feeling it won’t be easy.

Wondering,

mich