Hey, You.
It’s been a little bit since I’ve thought about you, actually. That’s weird, I know. We share an addiction to the worlds of could have been, and the past we shared until it really started diverging. I can’t even remember when that was. Sometime in college, I think. You were there for the start of becoming a sommelier, and suddenly you were gone. Did you leave when my best friend named you, so we could mock you? Did you leave when she said no for what felt like the hundredth time? We made what we promised was another final play for what we thought we wanted most, and when we didn’t get it, you left. That’s how I remember it going, anyway. It hurt a little, and you weren’t there for me. I missed you.
But that’s only a little of why I wanted to write to you. I’ve seen your shadow twice in the past couple weeks. I met someone we could have been at work. That smug confidence we so idealized, entrenched in the promise of the world at our fingertips. It’s not as though I still don’t feel a pull like that sometimes. I even blame it on you from time to time. As if you’re not me. As if I was never you. As if the person I stared at, spouting stories and platitude-laced insults as pieces of advice, wasn’t who we longed to become. It really wasn’t that long ago that we danced with Francis and Petyr, preparing for a future when we would run the world. I remembered how good it felt, thinking that life was a game we could play, and somehow win. It scared me. It still does.
You know, I just wanted to say that you shouldn’t confuse choosing not to play the game for not knowing how. We know how. I chose not to.
The decision to start treating life for what it was, life, was such a monumental moment for us. If you hadn’t left by then, I’m sure that’s what drove you out to the corners of my mind. There wasn’t a place for you amongst the poetry, the wine, and the stories. If there was ever a time for things like that, it was to make yourself look good. This became about feeling, if not even good all the time, then something. About experiencing life, slowing down a little, and mellowing out a lot. Although, to be honest, very few of my friends think I’m anything resembling mellow.
I wonder what they would have thought of you.
I talk to them about you like that sometimes. As if you’re not me, as if what happened then was because of someone else. Maybe it’s a way of shielding myself from the regret of what we did. What I did. I think you’re still proud of it, most of it. At the very least you can excuse it, and that’s not something I’m up for anymore. Acknowledging the steps that took us here, took me here, is different than accepting that any of it was necessary. It wasn’t, and it still isn’t, and even though I’m at a place where talking to you about these things feels less like self-loathing and more like self-acceptance, I won’t excuse it anymore. I can only try to be better going forward.
It’s funny, though, the ways in which others remember you. While I was in the middle of composing this, talking to another friend about you, she mentioned how we really weren’t as dangerous as either of us thought. It made me feel better, and I’m sure hearing that makes you livid. I hope it does, anyway. Someone else, and I’ll spare you who, said that it was you that got their attention. That they liked you.
If it’s any consolation, we still can’t win there.
Maybe that’s the final piece of acknowledgement I needed to keep moving forward, steps away from the things and people we both thought we wanted and needed most in the world. Even though, where I am, the world feels like it’s more constant survival than moments of experience, I will not invite you back. There’s too much beauty in a spot of sunshine on my desk to let you think of it only as a way to start a fire. I’ll write a haiku about it instead, to savor the memory.
Best of Wishes,
Justin X. M. Corriss
This One, Anyway
P.S. I only recently got into the Mean Girl’s Musical (I’ll let you think what you want about that) and here’s some lyrics for you to reflect on:
This is performance
This is in self-defense
I thought you had the sense
To see through that.