My Shikon Shard Of A Soul Rebuilt
“Say cheese!””Come on, Inu Yasha, smile!!”
No one ever realizes how lucky they are to have the true friends that they do. Not until after it’s too late most times, anyway. When I was a kid, I was naive enough to think that I would be forever friends with the people I had then, even though a good number of them didn’t treat me right. They’d turn on me at the drop of a hat, heck, they’d willingly trade my friendship away for a Snickers bar. (And I know one person is at least grinning at the private joke behind the lowly Snickers bar. Lol.) But those were the people I had.
As I got older, though, I realized people faded away. Or just left altogether, without reason, explanation, or closure surrounding the issue. The first meaningful erson to me that that happened with was a guy named James. I’d known him from the time I was four years old, and that was back when I believed in Disney magic. See, James was one of the people who never treated me right, though I didn’t know that at the time. He didn’t abuse me or anything, just jerked me around mentally to whatever degree. We were friends in secret, because I was never popular in school, and to whatever degree, he was. In any case, he would have been made into just as much of an outcast as I was if he was seen with me. So, he rarely, if ever, was.
Me, the idealistic youth that I was, believed myself to be in love with him. I figured that we would hang out through middle school in secret, but once high school hit, say our sophomore years? James would realize that he was, in fact, in love with me as well. We would start dating, making our newly formed relationship known, we’d go to our Junior and Senior Proms together, we’d graduate and go out and celebrate together, we’d go to the same college, and evntually get maried and move into our own house. Perfect, right?
Yeah, right. Except for the fact that in January of eighth grade, he started ignoring me, completely cutting off the friendship. To this day, the only thing I can figure is that he was basically leading something of a double life. One side with me, and one side with his friends from school, who he didn’t mind being seen with. And eventually, it became too much for him to deal with, so he had a choice: drop all of them on the one side, or drop me. And he chose to drop me. In all honesty, I don’t hate him anymore for it. It’s just something he needed to do. Yeah, it may have been shallow, yeah, it may have been unfair, but I can honestly say that in a friend-wise setting, I did not mix with the other people he was hanging out with. Not to mention that the group he did hang out with were a bunch of smokers/drinkers and who knows what else. So, now, I’m just as glad he did drop me. I’m better off.
However, him doing that to me, and events afterward, left me with a distinct distrust of the future. Nothing was certain, because the one thing I had believed my entire to eventually come true, would now never happen. The only thing I felt certain in, that I figured would never change, would be my friendship with Dolly. I thought that she and I were rock solid, and nothing could change that.
I was wrong again.
I’ve had far too many experiences with betrayal, abandonment, and just plain losing people I care about. I hate putting trust in people when that trust should never have been given. And unfortunately, a person can’t really know whether they should put their trust in somethng or not until they know not to. And by then, it’s too late. You say you’ll never make that mistake again, but when someone new comes along, and they seem so this and so that, you find yourself trusting them, only to learn later that it’s a mistake.
The human heart is the weakest and strongest of all things a person can possess. Strongest, because it gives us the strength to remain fiercely loyal to those we love. Weakest, because when we care about someone, it blinds us to faults that person has. It causes denial, and believe me, I know a few things about denial. Heck, I could write a book about that. (Oh, wait. I am! Lol.)
No one should be blind to who anyone else really is, but so many times, we are. We see what they present, or what they want us to believe. There are always some who see through it, but it’s always a question of will those people be believed?
I’m glad that, after coming so close to emotionally losing myself, on the return trip, I’ve picked up so many people. It’s like . . . Well, during the entire thing with James, it always felt like he had pushed me into this bottomless pit, of sorts. Dolly was my one rope, that barely held me back from losing it. Then, I got into the Beatles, and four more ropes came sailing down to help me up. Then I met Ryan, and another rope came. With Shannon, Kathy, everyone I met my sophomroe year, still more ropes came down. And fnally, I came back up over that cliff, but have remained tottering there. I caught myself during the entre experience with Jason, because I couldn’t fall back over. I had someone else I needed to save. Will, however, pushed me back down. But Mike grabbed a grappling hook, and shot down after me, catching me himself and bringing us both back up. For awhile, he had me firmly planted on solid ground. But then, thanks to his mom, and Dan, the fight with Dawn, the fight with Dolly, the fight with Melanie, I kept getting pushed, closer and closer to that edge. When I fell that time, I was trying to claw my way back up, purely out of defiance. “You want to leave me? Go ahead! I don’t care! I’ll make it in this world, with or without you!!” But the more that attitude didn’t work, the more angry and depressed I got, and when I found myself slipping, I let myself fall. What did I care? Nobody cared about me.
Except one person who I thought I’d never trust again. Jason. From where he was, he burrowed his way into my bottomless pit, and caught me. He encouraged me to climb back up. By myself, though he provided a safety net, of sorts. And on that climb back up and out, I’ve picked up a lot of other encouragment from people I thought I’d never speak to again.
Perhaps it was better that way. Instead of having ropes and hands come down to help me back up, it was better that I did it myself, but the people who cared about me provided me a safety net. And as the number of people behind me added up, the net got stronger, and came closer to the surface. I doubt that pit will ever close for me, but now I know that if I go down again, I won’t have as far to fall before I hit that net. And there will be people reaady to help.
<Palign=center>–Notes–
I am uplifted and filled with sorrow at the same time. Your story proves the beauty and power of the human spirit while highlighting the jaded crumbling world for what it is. Know that we all need friends, and no one can truly LIVE without them, no matter how long they stay. Perhaps it was their duty to pull you back and nothing else. (Writing my recap of all advice today and picking one) [Angel Knight]
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Sounds almost like my life story, with a couple name changes of course :). Well anyways you see awesome and I Hope everything turns out okay for you. [Princess CherryT]
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RYN: yes, I am. haha, and I wrote those entries in his diary all by myself, the horrible boyfriend, and the 11 pm one. 🙂 [starswillcry]
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Really? The 800th? That’s coolio! Okay, I’m all done my entry, and I hope to see more of yours. They’re always very inciteful! [Angel Knight]
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Kate, I never abandoned yoiu or betrayed you and I’m really getting sick of you describing things as if I had. You told me not to try talking to you ever again and went so far as to block me from IMing you and then set Jason on me. You said any letters I sent would go into the trash unopened. The real prob was that you expected everyone to behave as you, to like the same things, believe the… [HyacatDuncan]
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…same things, or you just couldn’t believe they were real friends. I voiced my change in religious views, you learned I’d smoked, and I was pregnant at 18. ANd because they weren’t YOUR choices, you threw me away like a defective toy. You shouldn’t need to be perfect to be loved or accepted, Kate. I shouldn’t need to be to stay friends with someone who was like family, my own godsister. [HyacatDuncan]
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I honestly believe that in order to be a good friend to someone and have them be one to you..you have to be secure with yourself and your decisions. Knowing you as I do now, your insecurities might have pushed people away. You always seemed to think that people were going to hurt you before they actually did..and once someone hurt you, you took that anger and held on to it. Your angry feelings [SolarEclipse] —————————————————————————
with Dan caused some bitter feelings. To some degree, you took your anger with Dan and took it out on people who were friends with him because you thought we were all on his side. But I believe you are learning to be yourself first, and stay true to yourself without being judgemental and bitter. I am proud of you for that. You’re doing okay now because you have learned to have more faith in people [SolarEclipse]
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So Mike really helped you then. What’s his story? He sounds like a really nice guy, the way you talk about him sometimes. Didn’t he care that you were hurting through that time, or was it just that he couldn’t bring himself to choose between girlfriend and family? I know I’d have trouble making a choice like that… Wow… Anywho, what kind of guy is he? Did he really just drop you like that?– [Swimming In Circles]
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because it sounds like he basically just walked out on you or something. Or is that related to the whole thing in your later entry on why you broke up? Did he walk out on you because of the abusings and left you to deal with the stuff on his own? Wow… Can you write me on this? I honestly wanna know now. My significant other left me a while ago, too, so maybe I can offer a fresh perspective. [Swimming In Circles]