2009-01-01
friendship suspended
I see you, I see you in this bed, slightly curled up, but facing me. I press my palms on the mattress, preparing to climb up and join you, and the bed silently lurches forward as I push my way up onto it.
I realize, hopping up on it with delight, that the bed is suspended by ropes hanging from the rafters. And so I lay by your side, the two of us, on this swing of a bed. The merry yelps of the old year party are below us, and up in this cozy cabin loft we are alone.
And it turns out, unbeknownst to me, that you, like the bed, are hanging in suspense. It pains me to think of the strain I've caused in you-- the stress and malcontent that, in my friendship, I've often tried to relieve you of. But now I am not the mender, but the source.
I wish I could remember your words, tangibly and exactly. But at that point, I was so dazy that I couldn't even feel my lips, and I had to intensely dedicate all my mind and will power to listen to you and retain what you had to say. And trust me, I hung on every word, although I've admittedly forgotten them all.
But I know the message, I know the point. I know it because we're close enough that I helped you create it: I am the source, the cause, the effect, the problem and the solution all at once. It's so entrenched and engrained that I know it as well as you, so the phrasing of it was irrelevant.
You spoke to me softly, gently, with hesitation and gravity in your voice. You told me, we've got to do something that defies the intimacy we've achieved. It�s too much for you. You are suffering from our intensity. I put you in a complacent stasis, providing an encapsulating illusion of a girlfriend without ever being one. I am committed, dedicated, patient, and eager for your company. I am your most steadfast and enthusiastic companion.
But I have not let you touch me, I have not allowed our relationship to come full circle, in a complete union, to form the most encompassing bond of two people. We are that close to striking all the levels of intimacy that can connect two people.
But in the way is my subconscious, implicit refusal. I won�t give you my lust, my passion. Only my kindness and deepest care, and tragically, that�s too much for a platonic friendship, and not enough from a girlfriend. And you can't get what's lacking elsewhere, not so long as we hold each other here in this static, immense bond. We've got to let up.
I know I cried a bit, because I realized what it meant. The best thing I could do for you, as your truest friend, is let you go a bit, and grant you a perhaps greater chance to find someone that can fulfill you in the ways that I can't, the ways you so deserve.
You and I, we've gotten complacent. We've come to something so vivid that other relationships pale in comparison. For me, it's other friendships that don't sparkle as bright as spending time with you. For you, it's other girls that don't seem quite worth pursuing because you can get almost (but not quite) all your needs (yet not your wants) in me.
Our grip will loosen, it has to, I saw. I don't know what that means, I don't know what will happen. I can't imagine being awkward with you, or being completely nonchalant about things. We will just have to see what happens. The distance could be good for us.
I can't say I'm not a little angry. Because for me, this is mostly your problem, not mine. I'm fine. I've never thought of you as anything more than a brother; you're a non-sexual entity to me. My supply of intimacy and emotional intensity isn't blunted by our relationship. Sure you can be a crutch for me, but it's not holding me back from love and passion and relationships with other men. But my anger is preceded and followed, more durably, by compassion. It's your problem, but it's also mine, because it involves me, and more significantly, because it's you.
We continued to lay there, and you wanted to make sure that I remembered this, you told me in a quiet voice, because it is important. And I do, and the more I think about it, the more I can trace the presence of it in our encounters. Things will have to change.
But I will never love you any less, not ever. But, the one thing I've failed to explicitly communicate: I will never love you any more. This is what you get from me, take it or leave it, but it's eternal and beyond genuine.
We stayed by each others' side, and I don't remember how we ended the talk of it, or if it was insufficient and we need to repeat or elaborate on any of it. The subject ended up changing, and we fell back into our all too familiar and effortless discourse. We ended up talking about minds, computers, and the qualities of thought. I love talking to you, how we talk about this stuff.
I romanticized it in my mind; I thought of it, drunkenly, as our last night together, the two of us talking softly in endless easy and comfy conversation through the lasting darkness, and that with these new, necessary confessions, it might never be the same again. Our friendship as in suspense as the bed itself, we let the night unfold, together, and slept in a unified peace.
We will rely on each other less in the future. We will not continue to complete each other. We will not merge our thoughts and feelings to the intensity that we have in the past. The space left behind will feel empty at first, but necessary, and I will come to fill it with my own strength and self-sufficiency, and with the friendship opportunities I have missed out on because of my unabashed devotion to you. This is okay, this will be good. It's not like we're breaking up (hateful analogy but the most accurate phrase for this situation). Just getting some space, exploring and enjoying other options as well: a committed but not exclusive relationship.
When the morning broke through the window that served as the headboard, it became time for a fresh new start. I'll miss you, but I hope you don't miss me too much. It's still so confusing and frustrating and hard, but I know it'll be okay, because it's you, because it's us and we're the best. It will all be good.
leesah-likes at 10:33 p.m.