Sometimes I think of how many strange episodes I live through, before realising there is nothing strange about any of it. It appears strange because you do not know the rhyme or reason of it, do not know where it leads or what it means or what will happen next. Man, that's my life sometimes I think, and that's the point: what appears strange has really become quite normal. It may make no more sense to me now than it ever did, but that is no excuse for thinking it out of the ordinary.
So when I am tempted to say I am living through strange times what I really mean is that once more, again, I am confused by what I am faced with.
A week or so ago I watched a film late at night. It was an old classic, A Town Like Alice, starring Peter Finch and Virginia McKenna. I enjoyed it for all the usual reasons, but was struck in viewing it how much Virginia McKenna reminded me of Jen. There was rough physical resemblance - tall, attractive, blonde-haired Englishwomen of a particular type, independent and good and feminine. It was this - aura - which most resonated with me, this Englishness. There is a type, of which Jen is one, that are graceful and loyal and intelligent and true. Above all else you know you can rely upon them, that they will not let you down in a pinch. It was there in spades in Virginia McKenna, and it is in there in Jen.
In recent days I have been reminded that it was about 12 months ago when we really began to blossom together as friends, and when I really began to hope for more. I hope to see her again in the next few months.
Parallel with this have been the unexpected developments with Paige. For the last 3 weeks I have had to contend with a good friend making herself absent from me. I have gone from angry and frustrated to sad and compassionate. All of this has focussed my thoughts on her and on our relationship. Previously I valued but took it it for granted. I enjoyed her company, and in an understated way cherished her friendship. It was unusual I see now, but she was always there when I reached out to her. Then she wasn't - and I missed her.
It is almost 3 weeks exactly since we were what I would describe as 'normal' - that word again. In hindsight our normal wasn't really that normal. In a way we were a psuedo couple without thinking about it - I didn't anyway. We were each the first person we turned to, and each of us looked to spend our free time together.
I realise this now in its distinct absence. Often the way it seems. I realised how much I had come to rely on her, and how dear to me she was as a person and as a friend. I may have got angry and frustrated, but it was from confusion, and from feeling her absence cut deeply in me, as if I had been denied something I needed to be happy.
I fretted I guess, and I questioned, and I wondered. I confronted her and was told that it was not personal, that she was sorry that I felt this way, that she expected we would be friends still. And I lashed back, sorry doesn't cut it any more I said. I need to know Paige: what's going on? Why? And again she responded, I know, I get, I'm sorry.
She got it, but I didn't. And then last night I did.
God, it was all about me, it was about me and being scared and thinking no, no, no, I don't want this trouble, I don't want this trouble - and that's why I tried to take it on, to understand, to get an answer. Things brew in darkness, they take on an unearthly life of their own. You have to talk to let the light in, to make it truly normal, to reduce the scale to the manageable. Too late now for that.
Last night I saw her torment. I saw how torn she was. There I was, as I am mostly, composed, lively, engaging, and there she was part of our group but where I sat there was a hole where I should have been, where she would not look. I felt sad it had come to this. And so sad for her. And I knew then for the first time how much I cared for her.
I could sense in her wanting to be as she was before. She had reached out to me in small ways in the days previous. She had made little efforts which I had responded to in kind. Still there had been something hesitant in it, a simulation of what was once real. In person she was different, quiet and contained, away from me. I could not understand this dichotomy, this hesitant desire to re-engage with her inability to look at me when I sat opposite her. That was my confusion and her torment - and vice versa.
So, today I admitted something: she had me. I didn't want this to happen, but now I'm hooked. Had things stayed as they had been none of this would have happened. Her behaviour drew attention to something I had not bothered to look for, and now a spotlight shines on it bright and obvious. It's there, like the Holloywood sign, the thing I didn't want to know about I now can't get away from.
You know, I had seen this coming from a long way off and refused to acknowledge it. This is where Jen comes in. I knew in some distant part of my mind that something was coming my way if I was not careful, and so I turned to Jen in my mind and in my heart. How ironic, the woman I had tried to shed myself from I now turned to to ward off another. Not to be though. Last night it hit me, and today I'm hit still.
There it is. I didn't ask for this. I didn't want it. I didn't want to be in this situation again for God's sake. Now it seems to me there's a choice of two possible outcomes.
I go to work on Monday with the intent to play the game by her rules. I'm ready in my head to walk away from her altogether when I walk away from the job. Obviously I'd rather not do that, but I'm ready to do what is right. Part of me says flee now.
The other option is that we reconcile. That's what she dearly desires I think, but that is problematic now. We may not have spoken of it, but it is now in her head and in mine. Neither knows what the other is thinking, but both of us know what we are feeling. It's hard to put those things to one side when you look in the others eyes. The only real chance we have at friendship is to get it lanced, to speak of it and put it behind us.
I guess there is one last option. That we come together and follow through. We look in each other's eyes and nod our head, and go to each other.
Fuck life's strange.
