In Friendship, Truth and Lies

Over dinner Miss Audrey asked a friend how often she and I spoke. She replied, “About once a month.” We used to talk everyday, but this last year put a great deal of space between us. So much so, when she asked me before Christmas about my year and I told her I thought 2007 “was one of the most horrible on record,” she balked. She could not comprehend my truth because I spent much of the year hiding it from her. At dinner she commented, “But when I talked to you, you sounded so positive.”

I turned to her and said, “I lied.”

I keep pondering what really happened between us. Here is the email I sent her about it all:

I was talking to my God Mother today after church. I stopped by her house, and we spoke of some of my thinking about this last year. I told her about my mom’s question, and about what I said to you about feeling like I was “lying.” I guess I would take that back now and put it this way instead:

It is not that in any individual encounter with my friends I would lie, I just would avoid everyone like the plague when I did not want to have to tell the truth about how that particular day was awful. So, if you feel like we only talked once a month or so, then maybe that will give you an idea just how often I was pulled way back in my own hurting world.

I am not there now, but I am different than I used to be. I am less hopeful and optimistic. I am more guarded too. I also really value those I love and cherish the places of laughter that never went away this last awful year. I cherish too the depths my writing opened up for me, and my own tenacity to dig out of the well of grief I almost drowned in for a time. I also am proud to have done a good job with Emma, and so happy to live in my own home again. Blessings in the middle of the darkness that was 2007.

Please forgive me for pulling back, but at the time I really did not know what to do. Only a few came looking for me in that time, which I deeply cherish because it can be hard to see past the masks we all wear. I also feel I came away knowing how better to speak to Sista–especially–and God Mother, my mom, etc. when the shit hits the fan. I needed that lesson.

Sometimes you are hard to talk to–at least for me. You want me to not hurt, and I know you said that after The Bean left–to me and to Paparazzo. But life is hurtful sometimes. Sometimes it really does break your heart. I know the biggest reasons to hide my true heart from you stem from this sense of protection. I protect myself from you protecting me. I also feel like when I don’t just “push it aside with the sweep of the hand,” you are disappointed in me. I guess I just chose to show you what I thought would keep you from being worried. Unfortunately, that is no way to be genuine friends. The worst part of all is that I feel like there grew all this space between us–a space that already exists because of your relationship with your boyfriend, whom I do not know after two years even, and just how busy you are–but I do not want it to keep growing. This is why I am telling you all of this and coming clean about my part in it.

This last year even as things have been good with your boyfriend, the threat of him moving away loomed. Whenever we talked about it, you just spun the positive–”If he leaves, I will be fine–eventually.” I find that hard to believe because I think you would have been devastated if he left. And it also makes it hard to talk to you because everything is spun to not really matter–take it or leave it.

The truth is I know you. I know you have one of the most tender and gentle hearts of anyone. I know you love me deeply, which is why you want so desperately to protect me–even from myself. I, however, still would rather risk and lose than not try. I spent my twenties digging out from fear. I cannot afford to be paralyzed by it again, nor do I want to hide it from you when it is so big I feel it might overwhelm me. Maybe you do not want to be that close…you will have to let me know. I for one cherish you in my life and do not want to lose you–gradually or all at once.

And that brings me to another reason I know the “everything is good” is just bullshit. The Hurricane (our mutual friend who died very suddenly and tragically at the end of 2007). I know you miss him and are rocked to the core that he died. Life is so fragile and his death is just another reminder.

So, please forgive me and free me from needing to hide away being hurt from you to protect things. Please be close to me again. I love you.