An Old Friend

I'm working on a project that had me going through old boxes of pictures, negatives and letters.  It's funny how going through stuff stirs up emotions on different levels.  I see pics of the Mr and I in our early dating years and various stages thereafter and smile.  I'll see pics of us with different people and can remember what I was thinking when it was taken.  Sometimes, 'get it over with so we can drop the facade' other times feeling lucky to be with them.  I saw news clippings of my father in law when he got cleared of his first round of cancer as he was somewhat high profile in his area.  I saw an envelope from my dad in his handwriting, a rarity, and I didn't feel like reading in my current state of mind.  There were old cards mostly from the Mr but one from my former best friend and maid of honor that was really lovely and made me wish things could've been different but they can't.  I still always remember her birthday, which was Monday and it makes me a little sad I feel nothing when I remember it most years but some years it brings up all of the betrayal that went with the end of it and I wish I could push the date out of the memory bank.  I also found a thank you note from my grandma from her 25th anniversary.  I got a little misty because in a few short months, we too will be celebrating our 25th anniversary...robbed of the chance to celebrate it in any of the ways I ever thought we would, which is a blog post for another time.  While it was wonderful to see her handwriting and the beautiful sentiment behind it, the thought of knowing who she was really married to now overrides any fuzzy feelings I may have seeing her sign his name.  I can't even begin to relay the shit show that man has invited into his life and how quick he was to cut us all off.  I am beyond glad I took the things of my grandma's that I did when I had the chance though there are still a few things I would've liked and I'm 99.8% sure I'll never see again.

I also came across some pictures of a guy I thought I was madly in love with in 7th grade.  He worked at the mall and my friend and I were all too happy to stalk him and his hot co-worker when we were there every weekend with the occasional weeknight thrown in.  He was handsome and just dippy enough to be charming.  He was also manipulative, unreliable and self centered but I suppose most of us are to some degree at 17.  (Or was it 18?  19?  He lied about his age. I was 13 so who cares but then again, I don't think I told him I was 13 either.)  We became friends and the fact he had a bad home life only activated my 'stray'  magnet harder.  He was a good looking guy hoping to break into modeling.  At some point in 8th grade, he left to move a few states away.  I regret sending him with a soap opera cassette that my friend and I made to listen to on his bus ride out for entertainment because it was our best one.  He promised to send it back.  He didn't.  When I asked him about it twice, he casually said he thought he lost it.  I was so mad at myself for being so stupid to not make a copy and give him that.  A lesson you have to learn the hard way when you're blinded by infatuation.  

The postcards he sent became fewer and farther until they stopped altogether and my first piece of mail to him was returned at "not at this address."  He'd moved on and didn't want me to know where.  I suppose I always knew it was coming.  Out of the blue, I ran into him my freshman year, I don't even remember where.  I was so excited to see him more because I wondered if he was dead.  (This would actually happen with several people in my life so you can see why I have issues.)  His mouth ran before his brain as my father liked to say to me and I figured one day he'd say the wrong thing to the wrong person.  He was staying at the house of this weird chick who went to my school and had zero idea how that whole thing came to pass.  When he would ask me to stop by sometimes, I never went inside but the girl always talked about him like she owned him or knew something about him that gave her some kind of power over me.  Like 'I have something you want, kiss my ass to get it.'  Uh, no thanks.  His family wouldn't let him move back home and they were toxic too but in physically abusive ways over his mental games.  I thought maybe he was finally getting his life together and seemed like he wanted to.  He would sometimes come to school and sit with me during lunch period.  We hung out.  Sometimes held hands.  Never kissed.  Did I mention he was gay?  He would be the first of many gay men that would break my heart.  To put it politely, many gay men back in the day (late 80's) thought they had to act straight to be accepted, even some of my own family did this.  But the destruction of self esteem and self worth left to those they were using as their social shield was long lasting and hard to climb out of.   (Please, no one get their panties in a wad over all of that.  Him being gay wasn't the issue but it's essential to the whole picture.)

He caused me to act in cringeworthy ways that only a 14 year old can.  I could've easily lost myself in his ego and did to some degree but his first discarding of me made me a smarter and more leery person of him, and everyone, the second time around.  I was the girl crying over him at a dance while he danced obliviously until throwing me a bone to dance to Crazy For You by Madonna.  Ask if I can hear that song without flooding my body with trauma?  All of the crap that happened after the dance can be called nothing short of a mental breakdown on my part.  He had no problem exploiting my feelings for him to continue to get gifts from me, have a place to crash on one occasion or a sympathetic ear because everyone was so unfair to him.  He knew there was no future for us from the get go but it behooved him to drag my heart like a tin can on the back of a bumper from a 70's wedding getaway car.  I should thank him for breaking me early on because I swore I was never going to let a man treat me like that again.   I don't even remember how he left my life that time but he did but I'd already moved on to the next gay man who would gently and sweetly let me down easy unlike this spineless turd.  The next time he fluttered in, I was dating the Mr and I think he was just swinging through town but started calling like nothing had changed.  Thankfully, I had...at least where he was concerned and it was the last time I ever saw him except for finding him on social media about five years ago.  While he looked healthy on the outside, nothing much changed about his personality.  I was horrified to see an exchange where his brother berated him and basically aired all of their dirty laundry.  I had to remember what it was like to be a pawn in his games and don't know his brothers side of the story as to why he felt that should be handled in front of mutual family and friends.  Even though that display broke my heart, I had zero desire to reach out to him to say hi because he's one of those people who when given a thread will find a way to hang himself.

When I came across these modeling pictures he gave me in 7th grade, I had no emotions.  I didn't think of the manipulation, the lovesick girl who would do anything for him to notice me or the mixture of good and bad times that made up whatever it was we had between us for what was a brief time in our lives.  I just suddenly knew I didn't want them anymore.  I hopped online and I have what I hope is a current address.  I wrote a note telling him I somehow ended up with them and thought he might like to have them for nostalgia's sake.  I hope life has treated him well and signed it 'an old friend.'  Yes, I know it will probably drive him crazy.  I don't care but that's not why I did it.  I know enough to know if he has any old stuff of mine with an address, he'd be able to track me down even if I signed my first name.  I highly doubt he still does since he so casually threw out a cassette I said I wanted back but you never know what people throw in a shoebox.  I have no desire to be found by him.  I don't wish him ill will but I don't want him in my life even as an acquaintance because I don't have room in my life for potential BS.  I hope he's different and has learned from life but as of five years ago, he's still part of some serious drama and I don't even take that from my own family.  I know if someone came across pics of me and they were going to throw away, I'd love to have them over them being in a landfill.  I have no need to hang on to those pictures anymore.  I'd come across them every few years or so and it would bring up so much in me and I never knew why I kept them.  It wasn't because of him but I guess more representative of a simpler time with friends.  A time when I was a mall rat in the 80's scoping out dudes and the time I finally got the courage to talk to one.  (Lesson learned.)   I have one other picture of us together that I like somewhere in the abyss that is my closet and I'll keep it but these don't feel like mine anymore.

And I'm glad.

Have you gotten rid of something that used to stir up your emotions but you find you no longer need?

====================
Like this post? Don't miss another one...subscribe via email or RSS feed. (Or you can follow me on Facebook )  Some posts may contain affiliate links that help keep this blog running at no cost to you.  See the Disclaimer page for more info.