Thank You For Being A Friend in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

I know it’s been so many months since I’ve written anything significant, but after my suicide attempt in September, I had to change everything about my life.

I cut everyone off, quit my job, and just shut my brain off. All I did was work, write my novel, and try to shut off the pain I felt. I don’t know that I can truly explain what that’s like, but severe depression is a motherfucker. Luckily, my job was challenging enough that I didn’t actually have to think about my life for a significant period of time.

Having gone back on my PKU diet has actually cleared my head quite a bit, and I’m relieved that I’ll actually be seeing a doctor in a few weeks. I haven’t seen a doctor since 2003, and I think it’s time that I actually start to take seriously the health that I always assumed would deteriorate. Well, it did, and it wasn’t pretty.

On Tuesday, while I was at work, I got a text message from Richard, the first since I cut-off contact in September. “I miss you. Can we be friends again?”

The truth is, I was experiencing some residual anger from our relationship, primarily because on Instagram he was posting pictures of a vacation he took. He rarely used Instagram so I didn’t block him on that like I did everything else. He posted a picture of his vacation in New Orleans and I just felt a fresh wave of rage toward him.

For almost two years, we were planning to go together. He always said that he wanted to go with me because he knew it was my favorite city in the world and he wanted to see it through my eyes. But there he was, eating beignets, wandering the French Quarter, and photo-bombing LaFayette Cemetary without me. He went from zero Instagram photos and to nearly 20 in a 15 minute span.

I sat on the text message for nearly 6 hours without even officially opening it because I didn’t want to send a read receipt.

Eventually, I called him back.

The conversation was, well, stilted. He told me a lot about how he has thought of what happened, and he didn’t exactly, apologize, but implied that he’s changed or something. Then he started talking about New Orleans and all the tourist things he did and how he didn’t get to see everything and how the whole time he thought of me and whether or not I would be doing those things… in all fairness, he’d done things and taken tours I’d never even heard of. I lived there, I was never a tourist.

But then he said that he intentionally avoided doing things I said I wanted to do with him because he hoped one day we’d go together.

He also mentioned that, before I cut off contact, I’d bought him a Golden Girls t-shirt that didn’t get delivered until nearly a month after we stopped talking. He said he hasn’t even taken it out of the wrapper because it didn’t seem right.

Not having Richard in my life was hard. Apparently, it was hard not having me in his life, as well.

After he said that, I realized that I haven’t watched Golden Girls or listened to Stevie Nicks since we stopped talking. I don’t know what that means because it was completely subconscious, but I think we’re good.

And I’m okay. I guess I just have to find my way back from wherever I was.