I'm not talking about random pub conversations, or those deep and meaningfuls you have with your friends at 2am over a bottle of wine, i'm talking about those imagined conversations, the ones you have in your head when your trying to go to sleep. The ones you want to have with people; the ones you know you have to have; and the ones you wish you'd had, but you never had the chance and/or intestinal fortitude. I had three of these last night, alone in my bed, crying over this empty, lonely feeling that kept me from sleep.
Conversation #1: You are selfish. Both of you. Your as bad as each other, and the truely terrible thing is that neither of you see it or, at the very least, wont acknowledge it. I know crazy people dont like to be told that they're crazy but its the truth - you have a problem, and its really starting to grate on peoples nerves. I dont think there is one complimentary thing i can say to, or about, either of you. You wonder why i dont come to visit ? Why none of us do ? Because i cant stand the self absorption, the bickering, the criticism, the thinly veiled insults that you apparently make in jest. Five minutes in your company either bores me to tears or shits me no end. I end up leaving you feeling either a sort of sympathy at how utterly sad you have become, or completely enraged at something you have said, or failed to say. And i'm not alone - its everyone. All of us. Strand by strand you are slowly unravelling what little relationship we already had. And thats the thing - its not like you, or I , am throwing away something precious. You have never fostered a deep, loving relationship, so i dont know why all of a sudden your noses are out of joint. I'm grown now - i make my own decisions and have my own opinions. I am not influenced by any one other person, however much one of you in particular wants to point the finger. Neither is anybody else. Its not us; its you. Its you.
Conversation #2 : I want to say sorry. You know why ? Because i screwed up.I made a mistake and the only thing i am grateful for is that i DID make it, and that i live and learn from it. I didnt love you - i think i was in love with the notion of being in love with you, and the idea that maybe, just maybe, someone could possibly, potentially, be in love with me. And i confused those two things. You were ( hopefully still are ) a good friend, the best person i had come across in a long, long time. Its partially because of you that i have opened up so much - my life is much different now because of your subtle influence. You encouraged me to embrace other people, jump into the random conversations, to not be so pre-occupied with what others will think of me.I felt like we were mentally on par - i never had to dumb things down for you, and i never felt bad for speaking my mind or being intelligent and forthright. On the odd occasion i did feel slightly overwhelmed by your intellect, your frankness, your passion for the things you believed in, but never intimidated. You were, and are, entirely different from any man i have ever met. And i think i was in love with all that - the idea of what you were and not necessarily WHO you were. Or who you could be. I see now what you meant when you said you werent who i thought you were, although i'm still not so sure yours was an entirely fair assessment. That, however, is another conversation in and of itself. This one is intended for one purpose only - to say sorry. My sincerest apologies. I miss you.
Conversation #3: You really, really hurt me. And i pretended like you didnt. I didnt have to pretend, but i did, because it was easier to turn my back and make like it was all in the wind. Gone and forgotten, out of sight, out of mind. But i loved you, whole-heartedly, a deep unconditional love that small children have, unquestioningly. Apparently, you forgot that, you forgot me, and suddenly I had a whole tonne of questions and very few answers. The answers i did get were unreliable and unsatisfactory at best. So i turned the other cheek and took another path, one that was missing a great big chunk, or rather small chunks in significant places, little potholes on the road of adolescence. I would have liked you there for my birthdays; my grand finals; my graduations. For Christmases and Easters and random family barbecues. But you hurt me, hurt a few of us, but me most of all, even though i wouldnt admit to it, and you were mentally uninvited to these milestones. I'm here to tell you that you missed out. I'm a good person, i developed that way, and you missed it. You might be able to see it now, now that i've opened that window of opportunity a smidge, but you missed it in the process. At one time, you were almost my whole world, and now you have so much history to learn, evolutionary steps to make. But no matter how far we've come, how far yet to go, things will never be the same.
