Say It Like You Mean It

What do you do when your best friend turns out to be a complete fraud? When you find out that pretty much every word they ever said to you was a lie? I feel as if someone has ripped my heart out, doused it with rubbing alcohol, and handed it back. Is it wrong to feel like another girl has broken your heart? I thought she was my best friend. I thought she was too good to be true. Well, as it turns out, she was. I feel so incredibly alone.

She hates my son and thinks he is a complete mistake. She thinks I shouldn't go to school so I can work more hours to pay for the car. She hates me. How can you tell someone that you are their best friend and favorite person in the world and then turn around and tell someone else that you pretty much hate that person completely?

I'm never good enough for anyone. Am I really that terrible? I must be, because this always happens. This is why I don't make friends easily. This is why I don't trust people. Apparently, I'm not good enough for them.

Why do you say you want to help me when in reality you think I'm a fucking mooch, a user? I'm not. I hate accepting help. Every time you offer to help me, I refuse. Every time. And then you offer again and again, and I finally give in, because in reality, I really do need the help. And so I have no choice but to accept.

I'm sorry that I'm broke and that I can't afford the car. You knew that when we agreed that I would take it. Then we worked out a deal where I would clean your house in exchange. Do you know that for the work I do, it's worth about $150 every single time I clean your house? Do you know that since I do it every 2 weeks, I'm essentially paying two payments every month. That I would technically have it payed off in about 5 months as opposed to the year that I promised? Do you know that I don't even care, and I'm happy to do it. You have helped me out several times, and for that I'm forever grateful. And I will repay you as best as I can. Did you know that when I get my financial aid in a month I was going to give you about $500 towards the car, and still do the housecleaning, because I'm so grateful for the help?

I trusted you. I've never said anything bad about you to anyone, even when people have told me things about you. I never believed them. I always stood up for you and defended you. You know how many people dislike you. I always tell them that they are mistaken, or they don't know you very well, or that they are just jealous because you are smart and beautiful. And yet, you tell people all kinds of terrible things about me that aren't even true. How could you? I feel so incredibly betrayed.

If you hate me so much, take back the car. Take back my mattress. I don't care if I do sleep on the floor. So what if I lose my job because I don't have a car, which is required for my job, as long as you're happy, right? Because it's not like I never do anything for you. It's not like I'm never there for you. It's not like I'm worth anything, anyway.

I've lost 2 best friends, people who I have been friends with for nearly 10 years each, within 6 months of each other. I'm so tired of people taking advantage of me. I'm so tired of people lying to me. I just want someone to be my friend with no other expectations. I feel so alone. Read more!

Space, The Final Frontier

Mom's moving out. She and Sam are going to move back in with Russ, my stepdad. So Samantha, a friend I've had since I was 13, and Christian, her boyfriend, are going to move in with me. Do you know what that means??? I GET A ROOM ALL TO MYSELF!!!! Sweet! Chase and I will take the upstairs bedrooms and they'll take the downstairs bedroom, and so I'll finally have a room all to myself devoid of any buffin paraphernalia and all kinds of nice empty space that I won't have to clutter up! Yay!

--Dragon Read more!

Myself and Someone Like Me... Not Alone After All

This is in response to Thordora's August Pulsate Olympics. You can see the original post here.

This is the story of my first real friend.

I've moved more times in my life than some people two and three times my age. Most of the moves happened before I even turned 13. We were always on the move-- looking back, it's almost as if we were running from something. We never stayed long enough for me to make friends; when I did, we moved and I had to start all over. Eventually I just stopped trying. After my mom and dad divorced, however, the constant moving stopped. Then my mom married my stepdad, Russ, and we moved to a little town about 30 miles from Chico.

After we moved I was enrolled in the local junior high. It was all the same to me. One school was like any other-- a place filled with strangers I would never know. After a few weeks, people started to try and befriend me. I would smile and laugh with them, but I didn't bother getting too attached. One girl, Carleigh, was a lot of fun to be around, if you could get her away from her best friend, Amy, and her boyfriend. I had never met anyone more irritating in my life than this guy. His name was Matt. Anytime I would be talking to Carleigh he would appear out of thin air and interrupt the conversation. I absolutely could not stand him.

I hated riding the bus with the other kids, so I would catch a ride to school from my mom or Russ on their way to work every morning. This meant that I ended up getting to school around 6am. Most people didn't start arriving until about 7:30. That is, except one other person... Matt. We would sit on opposite sides of the cafeteria and refuse to look in the direction of the other person. It was like some sort of private feud.

The school we went to was adjacent to and shared a cafeteria with an elementary school. They had a teacher who would wait in the cafeteria for any kids who got dropped off early and provided activities to keep them busy until school started. I would talk to her sometimes about different things like books or school projects I was working on. On the day before the science fair, I brought in my science fair project. It was something involving using color and black and white film to take photographs. One was a black and white photo of my shadow on a creek.

We were talking about it and Matt came over and started commenting on my project. Wonder of wonders-- he really liked it. Eventually the teacher got busy setting up projects for the elementary school kids, and Matt and I continued talking. The conversation shifted from the science fair project to other things. We just kept talking and talking until the bell rang, and we were startled to find that we would be late to class. At some point during this conversation, we each realized that the other was not, in fact, a total nusiance. And so we became friends.

Every morning after that we would meet in the morning and spend the rest of the time until school started walking around talking or playing basket ball or tag when no one was around to laugh at us for being childish. We found out how much we had in common and how isolated we always felt compared to the other kids. But not anymore. For the first time in my life I had someone to talk to. And so, it seemed, did he.

The best part of this story: we are still friends today. In fact, he still has the picture of my shadow over the creek.

This is a picture of Matt last year in Iraq:



--Dragon Read more!

The Chemicals Between Us, Ma'Lalo

This is a subject that I have avoided. It is a long and complicated topic, and one that I don't feel as if I can adequately convey in any logical sense. I believe I touched on it once, but to really talk about it is like opening Pandora's box in my mind. I've waited a few days to think about it, to form some sort of cohesive train of thought. So here goes nothing--

Matt. He has been my best friend since I was 13 years old. (I'm now 21 in case you hadn't noticed) We met in 8th grade and instantly hated each other. Then for some crazy reason, one day we started talking to each other and were immediately inseparable. In a way, we have two relationships. We've always had this crazy sort of chemistry and can never stay away from each other for long. On the other hand, we also have this incredible friendship. Each part of our relationship plays into the other, while somehow remaining distinct. He is my first love. It's funny, but no matter who I am involved with, there is always a part of me reserved for him. I try to get past it, to avoid it, but it's always there. The same thing happens with him.

I've had a lot of problems in relationships because my boyfriends would become insanely jealous of our friendship. This is probably due mainly to two things: 1) I have terrible taste. 2) I always made it clear that my friends were more important than my boyfriend. Friends were there before the guy, and would probably be there after the guy. This is probably self defeating, because I have only ever had any reason to think two of the relationships I have been in to work out. I pretty much don't believe in 'happily ever after' or the idea that relationships can last a lifetime. Well, sort of.

Matt and I are both rather bullheaded individuals, and my belief in friends before lovers clashes directly with his habit of completely giving his entire being over to a girl he thinks he is in love with. Most of the time I let him know he is making a mistake and simply wait for the inevitable failure. This is because I am conceited and have very high standards. Funny how I never stick to them. Anyway, Matt, just like me, has terrible taste. He constantly picks girls that abuse him and walk all over him. So I generally know that in the end whichever girl he is with will break his heart and he will find out what a huge mistake he's made, and of course come running back to apologize to me for not listening (not that he ever listens the next time). Of course then I have to help him put himself back together and the cycle continues. Don't take that as a bitter statement. It doesn't bother me. It never has. I'd help him put his heart back together a thousand times if I had to. It just seems the timing is always wrong for us. I pick a loser, and then shortly thereafter Matt is single. Matt gets a girl, and then I dump the loser. We always just miss each other in passing, and are both too stupid to realize that we should just stop picking losers and go for who we really want: each other.

Of course, thanks to our common stupidity and overall bullheadedness, we have disagreements from time to time, and don't speak for a few months. Sometimes, due to circumstances, we aren't able to contact each other (Matt was in the Army and spent time in a group home when he was 16). However, we always end up making up and it's as if nothing ever happened. Perhaps sometime we just need space. Recently, we had what was probably the worst falling out (there's never a fight. Simply one of us declaring we don't want to speak to the other because of some idiotic mistake on their part) that we've ever had.

The last time I spoke to him was November 14th, the day after I got my license. I've emailed him every month since then, apologizing and letting him know how my life was. I had begun to give up on ever seeing him again, when the day after I asked Erik to leave (did I tell you about that? No? Well I guess I shall have to do that soon) I recieved an email again. Interestingly, I had spoken to his mom that morning when I called to check up on him, and found out that he had been kicked out of the military and was living in a motel with his girlfriend and her 3 kids. (Yikes!)

In his email, he told me he wasn't mad and that he still was my best friend. He also mentioned that his girlfriend was verbally abusive and would barricade him in a room saying she would call the cops if he dared even touch her (he wouldn't ever even push a woman) and it was clear that he was terribly depressed. I emailed him back trying to cheer him up and let him know he could call me, and the next day got a reply saying that his girlfriend had hit him the night before and barricaded him in a room, telling him what a worthless piece of shit he was and how he should go back to Naomi (a horrid exgirlfriend who treated him like utter trash. He only just recently started getting over her). That was the most heartless thing she could have possibly said. He said he was packing up his things and leaving, and that he didn't know when he would be able to talk to me again, but he would let me know as soon as possible that he was ok. That was about 4 days ago.

I have no idea whether or not he actually left, or if he is perhaps still there, or if he is sleeping on the street somewhere. For all I know, and this is actually rather likely, he's hitching rides on the highway trying to get back home to California. I'm worried about him. I miss him. I'm overjoyed that he doesn't hate me. Mostly though, I just want to know that he is alright. I told him to come home and if I had to, I would drive out to Colorado and get him. I hope he is safe.

--dragon Read more!