Old friends

I caught up with an old friend on Monday. She goes to my uni although we've never had a chance to catch up until now. I sent her an SMS on her birthday last week and she called me and said "Thank you for the message although I'm kinda annoyed at you for not calling or wanting to catch up and come over for dinner like you said you would do you not want to see me or something and how are you anyway are you feeling any better I'm actually at work at the moment can you hang on a minute?" You'll notice there is no punctuation in that sentence. That's because she talks so quickly that it would be inappropriate to write it with punctuation. Luckily, since she speaks so quickly I didn't have to think of an answer.

The truth is that it's not that I've been avoiding her, nor is it that I don't want to catch up with her; it's that I haven't really thought of her much this year. I know that sounds terrible but the truth is I've been too busy coming to terms with being gay, coming out to my friends, studying, and worrying about getting better (or sicker) to worry about her as well.

So we set a time to meet. I was to meet her at 3.30 on the library steps. 3.30 came and went and I sent her an SMS saying "I'm here, ready and waiting." I was really nervous because I still haven't told her I'm gay yet, although I have it on good authority from a mutual friend that she is adamantly suspicious (she called this friend after talking to me on my birthday and said "he's gay isn't he?"). It's not that I think she'd be upset, shocked, mean, nasty, or anything negative, but just that I know she'd make a big deal out of it, and about how I hadn't told her until now.

She called me at 3.35 and told me she was in the library writing an important email that has to be sent now and that I could come in and sit with her while she wrote it. I'd by lying if I said I wasn't upset that she couldn't spare 15 minutes for me, but on the other hand I hadn't called her in months so I accepted it.

I was expecting (naively) that she'd be the same as she was the last time I saw her -- which was when I was in high school -- but she wasn't. She seemed so unhappy. It broke my heart. She was the mostly bubbly person in the group at high school. But hearing her speak about her life, watching the way she acted and spoke, just being with her was difficult. It broke my heart to see her so unhappy. I'm sure she doesn't even realise it. But as I haven't seen her in literally years I could see it.

It got me thinking about how my other "friends" (and I use the term loosely) from high school are and what they are doing. I wonder if they're happy. Although many of the relationships were ended in one ugly fell swoop, at my own hand no less, I wish them all well. I don't want to see them again necessarily -- it would be way too awkward after everything that has happened -- but I wish them well nonetheless.

"Meanwhile our friends we thought were so together
Left each other one by one in search of fairer weather
And we sit her in the storm and drink a toast
To the slim chance of love's recovery."

-- Indigo Girls

What is it about the memory of high school friends that can make me feel so inadequate? They are all the same age as me and yet by all accounts (and it's not like I follow up on them with any great deal of dedication) they are doing well, all graduated, earning a living. And here's little old me, still living at home, haven't started a degree, not working, not paying taxes, still just as sick as I was in high school if not more so.

But all that means dick if you aren't happy.
And on the whole I am happy with who, and much much more importantly what, I am.