unsent

an anonymous comment just now prompted me to go through this blog's archives. i wanted to go back and re-read some of the stuff i've written about dimples.

i've gotten over her before; i can get over her again.

i found this one post i had written but never published. i wrote it as a letter to be unsent, and it was written in february 2009.

reading it has -- given me more clarity.

here it is:

dear dimples --

there are times when i think this could work.

we can just be friends. we can just hang out. we can bitch to each other about our lame bosses, co-workers, and work. we can trust each other and know that we'll be there for each other.

but i have to do a lot of double-checking of myself.

i have to tell myself to just relax.

i've been letting you be the one to initiate all contact -- have you noticed? sure, every once in a while, i'll be the one initiating. but mostly, i've gotten myself into passive mode, and you have been the one to take initiative.

i've been excusing a lot of your behavior. i know you've got a lot going on -- your kid is your priority, you've got people in your life who create drama. i know that, if i call or text you out of the blue, 90 percent of the time i won't get a response.

that's just how it is.

this friendship of ours -- it works. it works because we both want it to work. we have also seen each other at both our best and our worst, in ways and depths we've shown no one else and that no one else could fathom. and we've emerged from it as tight as a pack of wolves.

i know you like the back of my hand, as you do me.

that being said, do you know that i am now afraid of you?

i'm afraid of getting too close to you -- again.

i'm afraid of catching a whiff of your scent, that elusive, wonderful, familiar scent of yours -- it sends me into a tizzy inside when i catch that scent.

i just don't want it to happen again. . . .

because of what we've been through together, you're now one of my best, most closest friend. i love you as a friend. i can't imagine not being able to continue sharing secrets with you, being around you, seeing your daughter continue to grow and get bigger and create her personality/

but at the same time, just being your friend can hurt.

as your friend, i only want what's best for you. i know you need my friendship as much as i need yours; ours is a unique friendship.

but can i keep at it like this for long? sometimes i wonder . . . .

you've made it clear that you don't want to get completely drunk around me anymore. you seem to not mind what happens when you get drunk -- but the repercussions of my emotional attachment makes you wary about ever letting yourself drink to that point again. i know you'd want to, but only if the sex was meaningless and didn't get in the way of our friendship.

i don't ever want to not be your friend. i enjoy your company and conversation way too much.

we seemed to have moved beyond the stuff we used to argue about before -- me being an elitist snob who doesn't comprehend the difficult lived realities that "real" people suffer. or me trying too much to "save" you and "help" you when you don't need saving or helping. oh, i know i still end up unthinkingly saying things that you think are elitist -- i see the shadow fall over your eyes when i do say certain things. but you bite back your response while i wince inside.

maybe we're not supposed to be friends. we're just too different. i feel myself changing and trying to conform to what i think you want me to be -- more colloquial, more "street," less wordy, less serious, less self-involved. i don't think you like me as much when you remember i've got more education than you.

maybe this isn't supposed to work. maybe we're supposed to have enough of each other by now.

maybe.

you've hurt my feelings more times than i can count. you've let me know often enough that, while on paper, i may be better than you and other people we know because of the education i was "lucky" to have, in reality, i'm worse than scum because of my "cluelessness" about how "real people" suffer. you flake out on me quite a bit when we make plans to hang out.

as a result, i'm doing what i have to do -- which is try to be your friend while also trying to keep myself detached.

make no mistake, i want to continue being your friend, dimples.

but why does it have to be so damned hard sometimes?