(no subject)
So I've gotten hooked on "Related"....it's one of those shows that brings in so much personal trauma and emotion that it's easy to identify with. The episodes, characters and situations are typical. They could actually happen to the average person and so, putting my knowledge of TV media aside, I feel like the women on the show could be my sisters or my friends. I know that sounds ridiculous but they're like the missing link, the people who've somehow experienced things that I have, only I'm privileged to their neverending perspectives on life....their questions, confusion, advice, methods for coping are valid...all of the things that I couldn't find the answers to, they have 'em for me every Monday night. I mean, I know these things in the back of my mind, but they're affirmed when actually spoken aloud to me. It's like I'm forced to process the concepts, to actually listen to them for once.
Last night's episode dealt with choosing between two guys. Rose is in her late teens and in college in NY. Her best friend since the beginning of college, Joel, finds the courage to admit his intense feelings for her. Unfortunately, Rose is wrapped up in a drama Fabio, Alex. Joel is sweet, caring, attentive, and used to call Rose in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep and they'd watch Bonnie & Clyde together. Alex thinks he's a stud and is basically the stereotypical college guy. So last week Rose told Joel she didn't feel the same way toward him and Joel said he didn't think they could continue to be friends. This week, Rose assumed everything would go back to normal at some point. Joel would just kind of forget about everything and they'd settle back into being friends. But what actually happens is that she runs into Joel at the coffeehouse, asks Joel if he's gonna be around for awhile, Joel says yes, Rose goes up to order coffee and Joel walks out the door. Rose brings up the subject with Alex at a dinner that was to be a precursor to their "consummating the relationship." Rose can't understand why Joel is acting so mean. You're probably asking where I'm going with this.......
Basically Alex can't see where Rose would be confused. He flat out tells her that when someone like Joel tells a good friend how he feels, there's no going back. When he is denied what he wanted so badly, something inside of him just shuts down. And that sense of loss, that gaping hole trumps the friendship. It's too hard to hang out casually but always be longing for that something more than will never be. Alex was so brutally honest at that moment, a rarity, that it triggered something inside of me that I've been suppressing.
None of you wanna hear this crap from me anymore, so you can stop reading now. But just because I finally got an answer from Keith after wondering for so long, it doesn't mean that I've stopped missing him, or at least missing who he was to me back in high school and the first part of college. And if, for some reason, Keith still reads my posts, then hi, lol. I'm a dork. I suppose I could've restricted the post to friends-only. But what the hell...this is my online saga, if you will, and I shouldn't have to edit my thoughts. I should be able to present myself, all of me, every last square inch.
Seeing the horrified look on Rose's face after Alex explained everything to her, I realized, for the first time, my defeat. I'm not saying that we stopped hanging out because he couldn't handle any lingering feelings. I'd like to give him more credit than that. But there will always be that thought in the back of my mind, that "what if that's why we aren't friends now?" And maybe that was only a trigger and our separate lives that sprouted from all of that kept widening the distance.....we went our separate ways and all that mumbo jumbo.....I guess I just realized yesterday that it's really all over in a sense. I can try all I want to get him back as a friend but the truth is that I lost him long ago and I don't know who he is now. I don't miss him, I miss what I carelessly let go four or so years ago, what he brought to my life. I've been clinging to the notion that he's still the same guy I went to prom with and road-tripped to Florida with and played stupid hot-tub contests with in the middle of winter...the guy who could make me burst out laughing just by looking at me...the guy who made fun of stupid Iowa town names with me on a road-trip to see a friend....and I kept hoping that someday he'd come back and it'd be as if he never left in the first place. But I need to let go because it's never gonna happen. Maybe someday I'll be able to...but I've never been too great at goodbyes. Sometimes a person just needs to hang onto those memories to make them feel like hope exists, no matter how small it may be. It's difficult to keep that hope alive, but if you give up, then you completely shut out all possibility. And that's no way to live.