I thought about two ways of starting this, but none of them start from the beginning. So I will start from the beginning, and I will wedge the two other ways somewhere in the middle. The beginning is simply a simple question: how did I get here? The answer is a lot more complex than "by public transport", because first I need to understand the question. And the question is just the beginning. Bear with me, I'll explain.
Imagine one of those software gone bad situations, where everything was working fine until it stopped. It's a bit like that, but not really. Because I truly believe that this was not something sudden, something that happened in one blow. This was a downhill slope, with an downwards incline angle so discreet that I didn't really notice I was heading this way until I was here. Looking back, I can see how far down I've come. But throughout the way it didn't really feel like it.
Ultimately, the question is to try and find the point where the slope started to be continuously downwards. I mean, life is not always flat, sometimes it goes a bit up, sometimes it goes a bit down... And even though there were probably ups along this way down, the downs were longer and more significant, so I could never go back to sea level. I may never truly know the point where it started, but I have a good guess. It starts with another death. Three, to be precise. Once again, metaphorical ones.
I've never been afraid of death, or dying itself. The real death, heart stopping, lack of breaths, no more brain waves. By the way, until told otherwise, for the next lines I'll be talking about the real death, not the metaphorical one. You with me? Good, let's continue. A few very isolated times in my life I wished to die. An even fewer times, I seriously considered it. But all in all, apart from these instances, I never really wanted to die. I've never really been suicidal. On the other hand, I never feared death, and I've always lived in a way that, if and when it comes, I'll be ready for it. I feared - and still do - a long and painful death, but that is actually related to suffering, not dying. But I digress.
One thing that scares me though is getting old. I have no kids, and my partner is 8 years older than me. If everything goes according to the natural order of things, my older years will likely be more and more lonely. I have lots of good friends, but one thing my dad always talks about getting old is how he sees his friends slowly dying, until it's his time. That's scares the shit out of me. I don't want to see those who I love die. I don't want to see my partner die. And I don't want to die alone.
I never had to see a friend die - a close friend, someone I care about deeply. To be fair, I can only think of a few acquaintances that died. And I cannot even begin to imagine how painful it is to lose someone close. So I want to make it very clear that the pain I'm about to describe is probably very different than losing someone for real. I can't say for sure because I never experienced the for sure one, so I cannot compare.
Throughout my life, I did lose a few friends along the way, and now we are back to metaphorical deaths. You've now been told otherwise. These people are still alive and well, they're just not in my world anymore. I lost many friends along the way, but the three ones I mentioned earlier on really and deeply hurt me. I have discussed them in other spaces already, so there's no need to go into the nitty gritty of how and why. This is very well defined and explained inside my head. Just as it's clear to me that I don't want them in my life anymore. Nevertheless, my heart still fails to understand it fully. Their absence still hurts, despite my head telling me that it's better this way. The hole they left behind in my heart has not been filled, and I am pretty sure it will never be. I don't miss them, because I know where they are and how to find them. I miss who they were, and what they brought to my life. I miss the idea of them. The idea that is no longer with us.
For a long time I used to be friends with a certain someone, until things went wrong and we each went our separate ways. We're both strong personality people, so it was only a matter of time until one of us rubbed the other the wrong way, and the other didn't take the high road. An impasse was an accident waiting to happen. Until it happened. For a long time I accepted that this person was dead, even though they were alive and well. But I missed them. Just like I miss the other three.
I dreamed about them. In my dreams, we were having our earlier good times. Everything was great. I woke up from those dreams with the false notion that we should just sit down and talk. I would take the high road, apologise, take the blame. I was willing to pay the price to have them back. So I did, and we became friends again, and walked into the sunset into the perfect happy end. But the movie didn't end there, because reinsertion never really works. Once you're out of the matrix, you cannot just go back inside, like nothing ever happened. You changed, the others changed, and the matrix itself changed. That set of circumstances which made it work once upon a time, it doesn't exist anymore. The perfect combination was undone, it shifted to another combination. We all moved in space, but we also moved in time. Reinsertion is utopic.
Me and this person, we are still friends nowadays, but it's a lukewarm friendship. Don't get me wrong, you can find a new combination that will make it work for the two new versions of yourselves, but you need to be very evolved and open minded, practically erasing the past. But in my experience, it's more likely it won't work, especially as you two probably go into it looking to bring back the glory of the past. That person and this friendship showed me this. Now I know I missed the idea of them. Just like I miss the idea of the other three.
And that's why I don't try to rescue the 3 dead friends from my past. That's why I accept the pain that I feel every single day thinking about them. It's why I have to shut my heart down on this matter, and go with my head. Because there's truly nothing that I can do to bring them back from the dead. Time and space killed them. Forever. It sucks, but that's life.
As for how did I get here? You might have connected the dots on this one already: Their deaths marked the beginning of the end for me. Their passing was the first blow that one day led to my own death.
We Can't be Friends (Wait For Your Love) - Ariana Grande
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