Day 530 – Untitled

As you know, the entire world has fallen apart since my last entry. People are dying and getting sick. No one I know, but our lives are changed nonetheless. We stay in our houses, walk around with masks and gloves if we must go out, and we are forced to face our own mortality and wonder what we’re doing on this Earth and what to do next.

Yesterday was quite a strange day for me. I had started some daily routines in my life – exercising, praying, meditating, writing poetry, writing in my journal daily for 17 days straight – but yesterday, it all fell apart. It was like this heavy, opening energy was flowing all through my body. Like I was in a dream or something. And I couldn’t get off my bed. I spent most of the day on my bed. I wanted to get up and at least write my journal entry, so I wouldn’t interrupt the flow. I was wanting to write for at least forty days straight, but I didn’t. I interrupted the flow.

Now here I am. I think I need to close my eyes. It has been challenging for me to know what to focus on and what to do in a day. I still miss my best friend. He is on my mind more than anything else. I still don’t know what to do about him. I imagine us talking, but what will we talk about? He’s still him. I try to think about the good things about him, but it’s hard. That makes me even more sad. Surely there were good things about him. Surely there are good things about him. What hurts most is not being included in his life. I know, when I write about it, I guess we were a little too close for adult platonic friends, but his life was my life. It was our life. I was living life with him for so long, and I took for granted how close we were. And how fun it was to have him. And how lucky I was to have him. And how he would mostly show up for me when I needed it. When I needed to get out of Africa because I was literally dying and none of my family quite understood the severity of my situation, he was the one who mobilized my family to get me a plane ticket out of there. I had tried to get one myself, but was so out of it that I booked the wrong date.

He was the one who came and nursed me back to health and cooked me porridge when I was at my lowest, and he has been there so many other times. I remember when I was in Africa losing it and throwing up everywhere, I called him. He told me I wasn’t gonna die, even though he thought I might. He researched bees for me when we had a bee problem… etc, etc. He wrote me a birthday poem. It was a sorry poem, and it felt like he wrote out of guilt, but it was what he could do.

Now he’s gone. I’m all alone. If you’re wondering what he did, it’s a compilation of things. Many things had happened over our twenty years of friendship, but the straw that broke the camel’s back is that he came into town specifically to help me with something, and then he decided to go date one of my friends and schedule his dates for the times that he was supposed to be helping me with stuff. We got into a big ol’ argument about that. It was awful. I was the one who originally thought that he might make a good couple with my friend, but after they both treated me like they did, I told him that the two of them don’t have my blessing anymore (not that it matters) and asked him to not tell me anything about her. I guess they kept in touch, and at some point, while I was overseas, he slept with her. Then when I came back from overseas, he tried to sleep with me. I was sick as a dog when he tried to sleep with me. I didn’t sleep with him, but afterwards, he wanted me to stay in his hometown and move in with his family so we could help each other get our lives together. He has a bunch of health issues, an over the years, I had been helping him manage his life and get his health issues together.

I didn’t stay. I told him I could help him remotely. He was hurt, but I didn’t feel emotionally safe with him trying to stick his tongue down my throat and trying to touch me whenever I was around. I was sick of him using and abusing me. I don’t think he really saw what he was doing, but it didn’t matter. He was still gonna do it. He was still gonna be frowning at me all the time – his frown hurt so much. He was always frowning at me. Even when he was helping me, he was frowning at me. The only time he wasn’t frowning at me is if I was dying, but then, you better believe it, as soon as I got back to health, he was frowning at me again; condescending, violating my vulnerability, not caring about doing things that hurt me deeply…

After I returned to LA, I helped him with managing his life a bit. We had a schedule. He was always good at structure and discipline. We’d meet up on the phone and said goals and act on them. He would encourage me to do things that were out of my comfort zone. You know what I notice about most other people in my life? They don’t want to live life together. Not really. Most people just don’t want to live life with you and be real with you unless you’re their mate. Working with my bestie was working my nerves, because he was ungrateful. He was still mean and frowning about everything all the time. And I kept thinking about the fact that he slept with my friend (who is generally sexually careless) and then tried to sleep with me, being willing to expose me to shit, etc. I was hurting. I didn’t even understand why. I was in so much pain. I was having nightmares about him and just waking up crying all day and just feeling so butt hurt about things that I couldn’t even process.

Then one day, he told me that he’s gonna help me with money if I help him get a job. That was one of our goals. That I would help him get a job. I told him I didn’t know he was gonna help me with any money and hadn’t expected it. He’s never given me any money before whenever he gets extra money and generally uses all his extra money on whatever girl is in his life when he gets money, always forsaking me. Me saying this turned into a big ol’ argument, and then he messaged me talking about I don’t want to help him because I don’t think he’s gonna help me… I was so livid. And so sick of him. All these years, the thought never even crossed my mind that I’m going to help him so he can help me, but he was sitting over there talking all this shit. We went back and forth on the text. He tried to call me, but I didn’t want to talk. Finally I told him that I don’t respect him. I’m disgusted with him. And I told him that I was gonna tell my friend that he tried to sleep with me after sleeping with her. I’m sure that he had planned to go and try and sleep with her again and her knowing that he tried it with me might impact her decision to give it up to him. After all her shady movements, she would know that she’s not so special to him after all. Just a dumping spot.

That’s what I felt like, too. After all this time. I know it’s not all the way true, but I felt like it nonetheless.

Now here I am without a bestie. My childhood friends are all gone. Some are around, but we have grown so far apart. My guy friends are either boo’d up with women who disallow them from getting too close, and I understand; or they are single and trying to mingle with me at last.

I am here. Literally on an island (I’m quarantining on an island with my sis and her son) as the world falls apart. I don’t know what to hold on to and what to let go of. I don’t know what to fight for and what to let be.

I know I’m not alone, but I feel so very, very lonely. I’m thinking about my sister, who’s on her own during this time. I’m thinking about so much sad stuff. My bestie used to say, “turn it around.”

What do I do about him, God? He’s a bitter, usurious, misogynistic, psychopathic, manipulative, jealous, mean, grumpy, closed off, stank breath warmonger… He’s also a brilliant, empathic, generous, strong, action-oriented, fun leader.

And me? Who am I? That’s another entry. I’m heartbroken at the moment. I miss him. I wish had like something motivational to say here, but I don’t. I just miss him but I don’t miss him and I don’t know what to do.

Take care, y’all.

Sincerely,
Laydie

Day 530
Untitled