Today I saw an old friend at the grocery store. I hadn’t seen her in four years; we have big history. I used to be in love with her, though she never knew. We fought a lot, and somewhere in-between middle school and her changing personality she slowly become unearthly distant.
She drifted from me.
I was hurt but moved on like always.
We passed each-other in the halls. Our school wasn’t big or anything, but we did not speak. We might have spoken in class for activities or through other friend-groups, but we did not speak the way we used to. Ever again.
But the friendship was not the problem. Being in 2014 and running into somebody I used to know is the problem. Because I’m not really running into them, I’m running into the person I used to be when I was with them. I’m running into the person I spent years trying to slip out of.
What is so horrible with who I was? To give you an idea of the horrible flashbacks I get when I see somebody I used to know, I will tell you that at the time of our friendship I had no idea how to show my true colors. How to feel happy with who I was. Instead, I covered up my unexplainable desire and sublime passion for women so hard that I even went so far as to express my apparent love for men on a daily basis. Why? Perhaps it’s because I didn’t know of another lesbian in that town. Perhaps I wasn’t strong enough, and knew that. Perhaps, and simply, I just didn’t know.
But I knew something was there. All those years I knew. I couldn’t put my finger on it but I knew that something was dragging me down, hard, into the ground and it wasn’t quite gravity.
But because I didn’t truly understand myself, I acted.
I’ve always loved to act.
But at this time, it wasn’t doing it out of passion for a hobby, I was doing it because it was my only knowledge of survival through such a questionable time. Little did I know, acting is what inherently contributed to the death of my soul, with every passing day.
How did I act? What did I do to cover my disgusting fears and inaccuracy that I grew to know as my every day life? I laughed.
I laughed so hard until I couldn’t hear the bad thoughts in my head telling me that something is deeply and unmanageably wrong with my soul. I laughed during the day and as soon as the mountains cuddled up the sun I cried. Just me and the moon. And my bed was the only witness. I spent my five years in high school doing this.
Perhaps that is why I make an honest effort to limit my laughter.
Perhaps that is why I beat myself up when I smile too much.
Perhaps that is why I hate running into people I used to know.
Today, seeing her after four years, I’m pretty sure every inch of me, wanted to duck behind counters and dodge underneath cupcake stands but I decided in that moment that saying hello was better. So I walked up to her. I asked how she’d been and after a few minutes of chatting I walked away. I’m not sure if you know the substance of this particular moment but I feel I deserve a trophy. For, instead of running from something pertaining to my past, deciding to go through it. I never wanted to ever enter this town again, and look at me now, living here, working here, and approaching old friends.
And that is when I thought to myself,
Perhaps I’m here for a reason.
Perhaps making peace with my extinct life is more effective than murdering it.
Perhaps, I will f****** be okay.