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the person.
my fingers are cold as I type this.
"a keyboard, how quaint"...
my feelings about you are complex as yours towards me must be simple.
bad.
I went off on you like I've never gone off on anyone in my life ...
it was triggered by you telling me what to do and a feeling that it was enough - I was tired of Andy thinking that you were such a horrible friend to me - enough.
and I don't know how I survived that time. I didn't do it very well, wasted a lot of money on less than useless lawyers and made bad decisions and was at my absolute worst wreck of a person.
you have so much of my memory space in my Oakland years.
you were the little sister I never had - someone who needed me and was completely adoring of me and loved to talk talk talk and smoke pot.
yet it seemed all poison in the moment
everything with you in my life seemed poison
the cult
the edelon times
paw padz
they all seemed poison.
but you were most in my life towards the end.
the completion
we were friends although as you might imagine I always dreaded your imposed upon visits and steeled myself up for them, but I would always say "I always do this, and she is the best houseguest and one of the only ones I would allow and she respects my boundaries so well, and I can just say how I feel..."
the sun is just proper up. the frost is stiffened the grass - the outside water bowl was frozen. the orange cat sits on the felt pad I put out for him by my desk with a corner window. it's the best light in the house.
when I left Oakland - both times - I stripped down and made terrible choices. you had told me to just go with the clothes on my back - leave... but I couldn't do that. I had to dramatically display my pain and betrayal of my husband. I was sick. I was crazy. I was soooo scared. It was as if the roof and the ground had come out from under me, and I had to act right for school and for work. ... while it was all happening. I was a wreck - an absolute wreck.
I'm still a wreck. I'm a ship wreck. I'm still out starting to rot hung up on that oyster bar. soggy. torpor. "you won't but you might."
remember all the music I imposed on you. I figured always that you were imposing on me, so you were one of the few people besides lovers who I could comfortably feel bossy about without having to get liquid courage to feel.
I enjoyed that about you.
and I think I've told you before, I suspected you had a dark thing inside you. I had seen you go mad, and because I had gone mad, I could see how it was almost like a different entity in control. As we got deeper in friendship, I was able to tell you "dude, you've got that crazy look on your face - snap out of it - come back"
you knew what I meant.
and of course I'm sure you thought you were helping.
but for me, it was that you were helping Andrew
at all.
at all.
and I love that it's Sunday, and I love that I have a job for however long, and I love that I have this refugee house, and let me say it
it's hard for me to say because I'm still dealing with the fundamental seismic change for myself that it was - I did NOT expect to divorce Andrew - I thought we'd be in that bitter Cold War grapple until one of us had to care for the other in our declines - and I had hoped it would be me so I could finally see him doing some dang pulling his weight around the relationship/house.
but, I hated talking to him. I didn't really ever get him. at the end, I diagnose him with being on the spectrum of autistic and because of his parents very attuned to covert narcissism. I know it's a trend diagnosis, but 1 in 6 humans you see has a form of NPD some statistics say.
so, I'm deeply sorry our friendship ended.
let me say it though. it's good for me to definitely do so:
wow, I'm crying at thinking what to write, but I want to be able to say something like this:
it's good that Andrew and I are complete - that our relationship is done.
I have dreamt about him three nights in a row - loss and emptiness and mundane tasks dreams.
he was never anyone to talk to. I didn't like him around all the time. I was critical of so many things he did. I felt so abandoned emotionally by him.
however, I was in it for the good. I was in it for the duration.
even when I came back from jail, I thought I could deeply apologize
and rebuild our marriage/trust back.
slowly
I weep at thinking this one too....
I was horrified and shocked - but the bail bondsman that said "honey, you're husband is not interested in helping you a bit."
but I was more scared. I did bravado at him instead of vulnerability, and when he asked me to leave after the cops refused to come and remove me. I said "I just want to sleep Andrew. I just want to sleep". "if anyone's leaving, I think it's your turn to leave"...
why didn't I think of edith in jail. I didn't . I've never been more traumatized terrified in my life alone in the last holding cell.
thank god for the Russian Lyft driver and his classical music and Tesla on the way back to what was my fire-destroyed house. it was burning the whole time I was there.
I moved into some tiny hovel.
it had a great bath.
you would have made me love it all.
but it was so scary.
I'm not sure why I write you this. I guess because you weren't a throwaway in my life. you meant something to me. I'm sorry I was so fucking crazy. I hope you can forgive me some day, and I'm glad you didn't read the letter I sent - it sucked. full of how it was your meddling that got me where I was. I had to blame someone one, and why not the one closest.
I love you, and I love Andrew too.
we are complete.
the orange cat purrs.
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