Best Friends For Never

I am taking a break from the narrative style story telling I have been doing in my blog lately, to better explain what has been weighing heaviest on my heart in the past few days.  As everyone is pretty well aware of at this point, 2011 hasn't been my greatest year.  I have accomplished a whole lot, and looking back to where I am now, versus where I was 3 years ago, it would be crazy to think it's been all bad.  I am a stronger person than I have ever been, I am making healthier, better decisions for myself on a regular basis (although I slip up from time to time, who doesn't).  I am becoming financially stable, I genuinely love my home, and my job is my proudest accomplishment to date. But this year has been the year of my father's diagnosis, the rise and fall of Chatie, my best friend's Dad passing, my Mother's cousin passing, failed marriages, fights, lots of tears.  And now - on top of all of that goodness, the best friend. Is. Gone.

I was devastated by this all day long.  I broke down in tears at my desk more than a handful of times through out the work day.  And I don't think my therapist even got her office door closed all the way behind her before I fell apart on her couch.  I have been battling a bit of depression lately.  Which, I believe, is a result of being so lonely.  I work all day with people I love, at a job that most of the time I love too. But lately (and by lately I mean the past 3 months) when I come home from work, I spend an eternity by myself.  Well, me, my cat, and Harvey Levin.  Curtis has been that person, that even when I am being depressed and mopey and don't want to see anyone in the world, I would prefer to be on my recliner.

Now, I am not going to go into the sob story of how our relationship has fallen apart.  And if anyone one knows the two of us, and our odd chemistry, it was probably only a matter of time before one of us broke away.  But the timing couldn't be any worse for me personally.  And from someone with preexisting abandonment issues, I'm a bit shaken that the loneliness I felt before now suddenly feels exponentially worse.

I can't help but lump this sadness into the recovering feelings about Charlie.  And in saying this, I am by no means referencing the romantic relationship.  But I think back to that Easter afternoon I was tucked into a back alley doorway crying harder than I can ever remember crying saying "I just lost my best friend.  I just lost my best friend."  When my dad got diagnosed this spring, there were two people I allowed myself to breakdown to.  Charlie and Curtis. And though the relationships were very different, they were my lifeline.  They were the two people I could always count on to make me laugh when I needed to laugh, and let me cry when I needed to cry.  They both, to this day, still mean the world to me.

I am not trying to snub my other friends, who have been beyond words supportive through a particularly rocky year.  But I have a tendency of keeping face even when I am being honest with people.  I can give you a power-point presentation of my life, every last gruesome painful thing and at the end of it, you will shake my hand and leave thinking I am genuinely alright.  These 2 guys were the very few that I never even bothered faking it for.  They knew everything, and then they saw me. And they made me want to show them me more and more every time we talked because I wasn't afraid to show my real feelings, to breakdown, to be ugly. 

Alas, you can only count on yourself to be there at the end of the day.  And not that I don't wish to have a friendship like that in my life again.  Or that the people I do have don't do enough.  But I am alone.  And I need to be okay with that before I can let anyone see me ugly again.  I am 24 years old, I live on nobody's paycheck but my own.  I keep a roof over my head, food in my belly, TMZ on my television.  Even after the longest work weeks, I get up, I show up, and I give 110% of myself for a job I truly find rewarding.  I think there is more to be said for that sometimes, than a great friendship or relationship.  Plus, my therapist thinks that even through my tears and sadness, that I still sparkle.