Do You Need Some Time...On Your Own?

Do you need some time...all alone? Everybody needs some time...on their own.
Don't you know you need some time...all alone?
I know its hard, to keep an open heart, when even friends seem out to harm you.
But if you could heal a broken heart, wouldn't time be out to charm you?
And when your fears subside, and shadows still remain, oh yeahhhh.
I know that you can love me, when there's no one left to blame.
So never mind the darkness, we still can find a way.
Cause nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain.

'November Rain' - Guns N' Roses

So Monday I made a decision regarding what to do next to stabilize things. I'm simply going to flip a switch and move on. Some have wondered why in the hell I'm even trying. My answer is simple. When you have seen the things that I have, you tend to put an incredibly high price on friendship. Now I'm the first to admit that if you fuck me over, then it is going to take nothing short of a miracle to get you back into my good graces, and even then, it will likely lack the trust that may have once existed. However no one tried to wrong me here. Now that's not to say that something exceedingly stupid didn't occur. I have to believe that after convincing me and nearly 40 of my closest friends, it is possible that perhaps this wasn't just an error in judgement on my part. But fuck it, none of this changes that I have been quite happy the past few months. While things may not have worked out as anticipated, should that cheapen the experience at all? I believe not. And so I made it clear as I left work, "We'll be fine, I promise." So the question is, how easy will this be? Its these moments where my memory is a curse, because there are those couple things that really stand out that are impossible to forget.

During Katelyn and my conversation on Saturday, the topic of my issues with Alex came up, specifically how was it compared to the problems this time. I couldn't really compare the two, and as such said that they were simply different. Last year's events had so many people hurting each other that it was a bit more complex. It was also somewhat easier to get over because at the end, I was simply angry. The funny part is that I wasn't angry due to anything involving my failures. At that point I could almost have said that I had totally moved on. In fact I think back to that night at Dante's when I found out that Shaun thought I hated him. I turned around, got his attention, and said that I didn't hate him, any problems I had were with Alex, and her alone. It came down to one of the topics that, if his story was accurate, even pissed Tavis off on my behalf. And that's coming from someone who on at least two seperate occasions during the whole thing, I seriously considered harming.

So back to the point, friendship. I have lost the vast majority of my close friends over the years, in quite a few cases after what would be considered unpleasant events. I have also had people who I couldn't stand turn into someone who I trust highly. The common thread is that it is the good times with the people we are close to that help define us. And sometimes no matter how big the problem, it can be overcome. I mean, my best friend in high school other than Steve, Kathy, stopped talking to me for over a year and a half, right after utterly shattering my heart. Yet a time came for reconciliation, because no matter what, we still had the good times to share, and a few more still to have. Now just because we haven't spoken in at least two or three years doesn't change that, because simply growing apart is another beast entirely. So back to this past weekend...no matter how much these mistakes may have hurt, I can't help but think of work on Sunday. I came in and found out just how little our conversation helped, as word on the street was that she still thought she'd lost me as a friend. When you look at that, or the description of me in her writings (though seriously...what was that package/openbox analogy?), you start to understand why I can live with fixing things.

So while I'm at it, I'm gonna spend some time this week with a bunch of people that I haven't recently. It'll be nice to rekindle some relationships that have perhaps fallen by the wayside. Because despite my diatribe against all those at work that pissed me off, there are still a great many there that are very important to me.

And now I leave you with three final observations. First, shouldn't these blogs have something marking as whether they are public, friend, or preferred? I recently found out that one that I was reading was preferred, and had there been any reason for me to talk about it with someone, would have had no clue that they weren't able to read it. Second, it strikes me as ironic (in a funny way) that nearly all my blogs are commented on by the two people that so many of them are written about. This is why I'm starting to change my policy of not putting names in these. May as well get to have my fun too, lol! And third...Criminal by Fionna Apple is such a good song. Yeah, I said it.