Mine in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

Since I started back to the school I last attended three years ago, I’ve seen quite a few professors I knew, and occasionally a few students. Well, really only one student. She went to Paris with us… We’ve played catch up, but the truth is, we never really spent too much time together in Paris. I’m speaking of Edgar’s sister, Ileana. While I spent three years in Los Angeles going to college, Ileana got married, moved to Venezuela (that’s where she and Edgar were originally born) and got divorced; she’s had a packed three years.

She and I were never really close, however, I was very sensitive to the questions she might face due to my involvement with Edgar. When we were there, rumors were flying about whether or not Edgar was gay, if we were a couple, and people were asking Ileana all these inappropriate questions. With the exception of their side trips to Barcelona, Provence and Florence, they didn’t spend too much time together. And the only time I spent any time with Ileana was when we went to St. Malo and Mont St. Michel on a weekend trip, although I spent most of it with RJ, Edgar’s roommate.

In communications theory, one of the basic concepts within conflict communication is the idea of face-saving. I was extremely concerned with maintaining the idea of Edgar’s heterosexuality even though we were together. In the end, this backfired on me miserably, but I seriously didn’t want our relationship to cost him anything. I suppose I was playing the martyr a little too much. I felt like she was a cornerstone to this whole idea of maintaining the status quo.

Ileana, Edgar, and I had class together in Paris in which she got to see the silliness of Edgar and I together.

I have run into her several times on campus, and finally we decided to exchange numbers and try to meet up on-purpose. We never did get to meet up, but we started texting back-and-forth. Eventually, the subject of Edgar came up. We got around to it when I was explaining what happened to me last weekend when I was stranded.

It went like this:

Ileana: Why would they ditch you like that?
Also, in case that happens again, which hopefully it doesn’t, Edgar lives in midtown just a few streets away

Me: Edgar and I aren’t in the best place.

I: What?? Damn, I’m sorry… I didn’t know

Me: Yeah. It makes me sad but we kind of stopped talking shortly after I got back in April.

I: That’s really lame :/ I had no idea

Me: There was a time where I couldn’t imagine not talking to Edgar… ha

I: Yeah! I thought you guys still had that. Is the friendship completely shot?

Me: I don’t really know. I’m not even sure what happened. But I always have hope.
Maybe we’ll find ourselves trapped in a room again and forced to sort things out.

I: Well, idk if you knew but Edgar got into a really hard place in life this year. Lots of addiction to many things. He was pushing everyone away. Said some nasty things to me, too. It got so bad that my dad was thinking about sending my mom to come live with him… But he’s slowly starting pull out of that place in his head. Depression can be fucking crazy, specially when the people you hang out with all use drugs and alcohol to escape :/

Me: I didn’t know that. That’s one of the reasons I got out of comedy in the first place.

I: Hey, I’m hoping for it. Because your guys’ friendship was, at least from what I saw, a special one.
Yeah, it was sooo fucking bad. One time I came to visit him. It was like 3pm and he was sitting outside his building with a book and beer completely shitfaced. And he had been for two days straight. It was a really scary time. My parents gave him enough motivation to do something for himself though, so he went out and found a job. And that’s been helping a lot.

Me: That’s good.
I was worried about him, but he didn’t really want to hear anything that I had to say.

I: Yeah, he was like that with me too. That’s when he said the things he said to me. He just would push away anyone trying to help and sink himself into a deeper depression with more drugs and alcohol. And not just weed, but like he started trying hard shit. I mean, it would make sense that he pushed you away because he did that to everyone who was telling him he deserved more for himself.

Me: Ugh. That’s hard to hear.

I: Definitely… It’s heartbreaking when someone you care about just absolutely does not give two shits about themselves. Like, it was so easy for him to say such mean things to me, but it was because he just literally lost any and all regards to anything having to do with life and sober-ness. But he’s better now, although not fully.. He’s slowly working himself out of that situation. He loves his job. He’s a waiter for a new bar/sushi restaurant.

Me: Cool. I’ll make sure I reach out to him.

It took me a few days, but I followed through on my promise. Last night, I called Edgar for the first time since I awkward drunk dialed him in April. His voice was somber and less-animated but he was still my Edgar. He made some random comment about how my voice sounded like it had gotten higher and wasn’t as deep as he remembered. That spun us into a conversation about how I had recently read an article from a Moroccan film director that discussed shame-related behavior self-modification. I was relating how I saw myself in the director’s own experiences of re-training himself to behave differently in order to remove the danger his inherent femininity presented to himself.

Finally I stopped myself and apologized to him. He was minutes away from going on stage to do a stand-up set and the last thing he needed was me randomly talking about something deep and dark like the inner shame I felt about my own processes at minimizing my femininity. Instead of accepting my apology, he just said, “Fucking good for you for recognizing that and fighting back.”

The conversation was easy and organic. It was us being funny, there was still that spark that brings out the best in each other. It was quite a nice conversation. We didn’t talk too heavy about ourselves, he did mention that he was getting out of a depression, that he works and loves his job and that he’s happy to have a new roommate that he thinks is crazy.

When he finally had to go out on stage and do his set, we said good-bye. It was out standard good-bye. Edgar and I always say “I love you” when we hang up. In my entire life, he is the only person that I say that to when hanging up on the phone. I hear it fly out out of people’s mouths all the time, my cousins, my mother… I’ve occasionally said it to my little brothers (they usually say it to me).

When I told Ileana that I’d spoken to Edgar, she thanked me for not giving up on him. I told her that I’d always be there because he was mine, my Edgar.