Nineteen
I went to bed late because I played an extra game with friends. And then I decided to make a steak. And then I decided to watch an episode of TV. And then one more episode. And then I opened up my phone on tiktok for 20 minutes, which I normally don't do. And then I read my chapter. And then I decided to read another chapter, and because of that I heard my phone buzzing on the table and I decided to get up and check it. And because of that I saw that she was calling me.
She sounded somewhat drunk and giggly, and asked me if I wanted to see her art gallery show tomorrow because it was the last day it was there. I told her that I wanted to, but at the same time I'm not sure if this is something that would hurt her when she woke up and when the alcohol went away. She said no she wanted this, and I told her if she wakes up and for any reason doesn't want to do this just send me a text no worries. She kept giggling.
C taught me an incredibly important lesson. We have gotten in so many fights, and we have both done things and said things that we regret – both in our own different ways. We have vices and we aren't perfect. He also has a big temper and a traumatic upbringing that doesn't make it any easier for him. But also that was what let him understand what I needed and vice versa at our lowest.
Often we would get in fights, and we would either have to talk for several hours until we calmed down and we could realize what we were fighting over, or sometimes things would heat up too much and we would take some space apart in a pretty violent way. Usually someone would leave the call and ghost for a little bit. But then we come back and it's like it never happened. That friendship taught me how easy it is to forgive. And also how that can go both ways. Sometimes he will do things that hurt me and that he wouldn't want to do, and sometimes I would be a huge bitch or annoying. By the next day we are still friends. Sometimes it took more than a day. But I have faith that this storm is not enough to break the bond we have.
Maybe it's because it's late and I'm tired, but I'm really thankful for that experience. I'm not sure what's going to happen tomorrow, but I at least feel confident in my ability to leave the past in the past. At least for the things that she did that hurt me, I'm still aware of them, but it doesn't hurt. And so I can act like it did not happen. At least in the sense of not needing an apology or a remediation for it. Sometimes a quiet embarrassment is enough of an acknowledgment to understand that people are flawed and make mistakes.
I thought about being a landlord the other day, and how I would want to be a kind one even though you really don't get any recognition for being kind – you only get recognition when something is bad. And I thought about why I would want to do that and how I could even justify that. And at the end of the day, all I could come up with is saying “I can sleep at night”. But that didn't really capture it, because I feel like that comes from a place of shame. And I still don't know if I can find words to capture it, but the closest thing I can find is wanting to be kind, for just the sake of making another person's experience better. It doesn't help me at all to make someone else's experience better, and arguably it sometimes hurts me. But it doesn't hurt me much, and I somehow feel good about that. It's probably some hardwired, pack animal behavior in my brain – and I can try to intellectualize it by saying that it's a reflection of hoping that someone else is kinder to me, if we all share this value of kindness. But I guess I don't really think about that. I just enjoy the thought of making someone else's life a little bit easier. And so I'm really thankful that I'm able to let go of things. It's not like something super amazing or wonderful or anything like that, but it's something that I could not have, and so I'm grateful that I do.