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Saturday, January 17, 2004
The curtains close on a kiss, God knows, we can tell the end is near...I want him to know that he still means a lot to me. That he'll always be my friend and that I probably know him better than anyone at this point. But when things aren't crystal clear to him, it gets pretty difficult to ascertain my meanings. It doesn't help that I have this ineptness toward speaking plainly.
At this stage in our relationship, I would feel most comfortable with maybe one call a week or occassional e-mails. But he still calls daily and I help him with his problems as best I can. And yes, he helps me out with my website, and he sends me gifts and tries to make me feel special. Maybe he needs this to help him keep a tangible connection to me. But the phone calls, while sometimes fun and carefree, are for the most part dark and emotional and frustrating. It's something I'm having an increasingly difficult time dealing with, especially since I can't talk from home (for various reasons) and our phone calls are done almost exclusively at work. What's more, he still wants to come back. He wants to move here and no matter how much I have tried to show him that it would be unwise, he still insists on it. He wants out of his home town. And nothing would please him more than to be close to his friend. While no one here hates him or wishes ill upon him, he doesn't have very many fans. I don't live in the most accepting regions of the country or even the state, and the last thing he needs is to be made to feel like he doesn't belong. I believe that he'll find his place one day. I don't know when or where it'll be, but he's shown initiative. We had something deeper for a while, but we're just friends now, and that's fine with me. We both need to get on with our lives and attempt to make them better. We know we have each other's support. We don't constantly have to look back to see make sure it's still there. It's time to move forward. We can't give up on our ambitions. Now we're both quite a bit wiser, and we know we won't make the same mistakes as before. Mikey was being stupid at 5:34 AM :: Friday, January 16, 2004
When does the end appear; when do the trumpets cheer?That was strike one... Back in June, when he thought I had a "new boyfriend." All because I refused to talk to him on the phone, while I was trying to talk another friend out of some dark times when he called.
Strike two was San Diego. The embarassment I felt in front of my friends and mentor. Strike three was his inability to let me speak my mind, to let me have a life of my own and threatening me when I was unwilling to devote it completely to him. But here it was, August, and maybe he forgot about all those times... or maybe he thought I forgot about all those times. Either way, he wanted to talk about our relationship. And so, I talked to him. And I told him that I never intended to lose his friendship because we've known each other so long. Because things were great when were friends. And because he was my first love. And he is just so damned special to my heart. I tried my very damnedest to make it clear that while I wanted the friendship to last, we should not continue our intimate relationship. He said he understood. I told him flat out, "You're my friend and always will be, but that aspect of our relationship is over." But when he said, "Don't count me out," and I said, "I don't count anyone out," my intentions may have been muddled. And I regret that. I told him that I don't count anyone out because I do not intend to leave anyone in the cold. I help my friends the best I can. I did not intend for him to attempt to rebuild our intimate relationship. Mikey was being stupid at 3:41 AM :: Thursday, January 15, 2004
Tell me... Where do we go from here?July rolled around and our long-planned trip to a comic convention brought anxiety to my family and to him and to me. They knew that I'd be staying four days in a hotel room with him and all kinds of illicit activities ran rampant through their imaginations.
It was his first time to this particular convention, and he wanted to meet his idol -- a man who I've already had the extreme pleasure of meeting and, to me, is the coolest guy around. I wanted nothing more than to have a good time and to spend some time with my other online friends. The ones I only get to see once a year. I didn't think he would embarass me or keep me from enjoying myself... but he did. He didn't do it intentionally. On the contrary, he tried his hardest to work it out, and I tried my hardest to help him. But we fought on more than one occasion, mostly because he wanted to spend those precious few days with me alone and I wanted to spend them with all my friends. On our last day in town, during breakfast with our shared mentor, the man I tried to please during the entire trip kept mumbling under his breath about how I didn't care about his feelings and that I was being selfish. And then he walked out. He didn't come back until after breakfast was done and our friend, the counselor, had talked to him. The whole trip back home I kept thinking about how impossible our relationship would be. During every one of our phone conversations, when he was hurting and near suicide... threatening to drink chemicals or jump from a bridge, he ensured me that if I was gone from his life, he would be dead. I thought of the deep scars and scabs from self-induced slashes that ran all over his body. I knew he would do it if I up and left. By August, however, I was through with his tirades, his calls at 4 a.m., his constant need to know what I was doing and where I was at every minute of the day. His jealousy of my other friends. His belief that I'd drop him and never look back. His belief that I couldn't take care of myself and that I needed him to take care of me. His feelings of helplessness when he couldn't be here to protect me from a hurricane that was going to hit the southern tip of Texas. He told me that I should have called during the storm to let him know I was all right. I was tired of it all. He refused to hear me out, interrupting at every breath. During what was the most important conversation of our relationship, I told him, "Listen to me." He said, "No...... No, no, no." So, I told him goodbye. The following days he insisted on talking to me. He called at home and I didn't answer. So, he called at work. And I knew he wasn't serious when he told me that the only way I could keep him from committing suicide was if I agreed to talk to him on the phone from work that night. But still, I agreed. And I talked to him, and he wanted me to give him another chance, but he had been on thin ice since June, and he knew that. Mikey was being stupid at 1:09 AM :: Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Understand we'll go hand in hand, but we'll walk alone in fear...The day after he left, I went to work with memories of our last night together. Then something you only see on tv happened... My sister and cousin were painting with watercolors at my house. When my sister took the brushes to the bathroom sink to wash them out, she dropped one in the trash can. She reached in to pull it out and found the condom wrapper from the night before.
Immediately, she put two and two together and her world fell apart. She sent my cousin home and called my other sister on the phone. She told her what she found and they discussed how to approach me about it. But my eldest sister didn't take the advice to stay calm. Instead, she went throughout the house and pulled every one of his paintings off the wall and smashed the glass frames on the hardwood floors. That evening, I left work to find one of my car tires was flat. I called my eldest sister to pick me up. She did, but said nothing on the way home. When I saw the glass on the floor I knew something was wrong and when she dumped the contents of the trash can on the floor in the hall, I was devistated to see the Trojan wrapper and used condom lying there. She demanded the truth, which is what I told her. And at that point my fledgling devotion to him was transformed into a strong desire to prove to everyone, especially my eldest sister -- to whom I always looked up to and felt would most understand, that our relationship was based on love and not sex. I talked to him every night for hours. Calls out-of-state from Texas and to Texas from out-of-state. Every night. We talked more and more. My sister's disdain for him grew more and more and I wanted to prove to her more and more that he was my soul mate. I admit that this was the stupidest thing I could have ever done. I knew that I wouldn't be able to handle his conditions but I was being stubborn and wanted to prove that this was the best kind of love ever. It wasn't fair to him. In my heart, I knew we couldn't stay together, but I was living on false hope. Mikey was being stupid at 12:19 AM :: Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Why is the path unclear when we know home is near?Only two or three months later, he planned to come back down. It was a hasty plan that he couldn't afford. But I promised to pay his bus fare, and even though it just added to my increasing debt problem, at least we could spend more time together. And he'd be happy.
He arrived in mid-March and didn't leave until two days before Easter. He was at my house for two weeks, which didn't go over too well with my sister who was now living with me. At the time, my feelings for him were hidden from everyone, and trying to carry on a relationship with a manic depressive schizophrenic in the house I shared with my sister was no easy task. By the end of the trip, he was talking about moving down for good and "marrying" me. I smiled and agreed. We made plans for our future. He didn't want to leave and I told him I didn't want him to go, though inside I was growing weary of the trouble his mania caused. On one occasion, he ran from me in Wal-Mart parking lot. He dared me to chase him, but promised he was fast and I would never catch him. I drove back home and waited for his phone call. When he finally called, he exclaimed that he couldn't handle life anymore and he was going to jump off an overpass. Once again, I argued and talked him into revealing his location so I could pick him up. Another instance, he began having a siezure at my house, where he broke a glass bottle over his head and attempted to slit his wrist with a shard of glass. It was all I could do to pull the glass away from him. He still managed to cut himself. He didn't want to, but finally, he went back up north, promising he would do everything he could to move down and live with me... his angel. I even said that he didn't have to leave if he didn't want to. But, inside we both knew he had to go back. But it was about to get even more complicated. Mikey was being stupid at 4:32 AM :: Monday, January 12, 2004
Where do we go from here?The following passage is the first of a week-long blog about my personal life. I don't usually like to bear my soul for the world to see, but in this case it was something I needed to do. I've had this in my head for a long time and I think it's stewed long enough. I'll post a new passage each day over the course of the week. I'm not posting it for your enjoyment, but for my peace of mind.
We met several years ago online, in a tight knit group of fans online. It was a little over a year ago that he confessed to me that he was falling for me. Despite knowing all the possible repercussions, I admitted to him that I felt the same way. I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe at the time, I thought I could bring him something that he never knew... true care and nurturing. My best friends told me that it was the maternal side of me. I was subconsciously taking the place of his alcho/workaholic mother who was constantly on him about wearing strange clothes; she called him a girl frequently and beat him across the head more than once. Another close friend, who is a troubled teen/drug addict counselor, told me to be careful. She knew him as well as I did, along with his problems of manic depression and schizophrenia. She told me that it might not be a good idea to meet him in person because, even though we had deep, strong feelings for each other, things could evolve to a place that wouldn't be healthy for either of us. Not in the way of violence, but in mental breakdown for Dave... or possibly myself. But I was stubborn and I wanted to be in love and I wanted things to change for him for the better. And when he arrived in town, there was much holding and crying and making love. His four day trip extended to five then six, seven and eight. When he finally went back home, he cried the whole way. He called from Amarillo saying that he wasn't going back to the bus and that he was going to die in Amarillo. He didn't want to go back home. He wanted to die. I made sure he got back on that bus. That was only one of many calls that resulted in me steering him from suicide or running away. ...... Mikey was being stupid at 2:50 AM :: |