bee-sting heart

My problem—one of my problems—is that I become close friends with people who turn inward when they are unhappy. Usually this has nothing to do with me, but I still feel abandoned when it happens.

These past few weeks, Mason has been dealing with his wife dealing with a surprise pregnancy. Probably "dealing with" is the wrong expression, since it connotes a problem to be solved and this isn't like that. But the fact is that he's been wrapped in a big chunk of melancholy every day, and it's getting to me. It makes me think of the other, older reason that my heart feels like a bee-sting.

For the past two years, Dirk has been on a very dark road, one so suffocating that I have seen him only a handful of times. I find this so painful that I try not to think about it very much.

I was listening to Siouxie & the Banshees on the ride home tonight, and I decided to call him. I further decided to leave a very straightforward message, since I was on more familiar terms with his machine than he. Hi, it's me, I planned, I was just thinking of you, and I wanted you to know that I think about you every day. I pray for you every Sunday. I wanted to leave you a message so that you would know that I still want to be your friend, and I hope that one day soon you'll feel strong enough to give me a call.

I picked up my cell phone & dialed. He answered.

Tailspin. I just couldn't switch gears fast enough, and the attempt left me mute. I was trying to reign in my emotions, drive the car, and find something light-hearted to say. As he told me that he had just come back from Convergence, I knew that I was going to crash the car if I tried to keep all of these balls in the air.

And also, I knew that I was very close to saying something like, I don't want to hear about your stupid goth convention. I just bought a house and moved out, I can't get you on the phone for months at a time; please don't tell me about the new people you met, the money you spent or the dancing you did. So I told him I would call back. I hung up and started to cry…but I didn't crash the car. Now I'm sitting in the dark office, not picking up the phone.

Advice welcome, but probably not taken. And please don't tell me that it's inappropriate for a married woman to be so affected by boys she is not married to. I tell myself that enough.

Labels: angst, friends

- 1 comments/hedgehogs -

- Rocketbride's adventure of 5/31/2007 05:05:00 p.m.