Desperate Measures

August 7 was a sort of unanniversary. Its been what feels like decades since my best friend turn heel and left me. She had “more important” things going on in her life besides me, at least, things she felt were more important. It hurt being on the losing end of that, especially considering what those other things might have been. But, it was, and remains, her choice nonetheless.

Likewise, I still suffer her absence nonetheless.

However, I have developed a new momentum, and do my best to carry on each day. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have tough days, or even months.

July was such a month. July, I was desperate. Desperate for not just her companionship, but ANY companionship. I missed the time I spent with her, I missed her unique contribution to my life, but I was also desperate for any contribution. And I was found wanting. Major wanting. So much so, that I tried some desperate things.

The Friday before my trip, I drove past Yort & Trynity’s home 3 times, seeing Trynity’s truck in the drive, before I pulled in.

Several years before, I had extolled Yort on the advantages of acting proactively, making deliberate choices in life – specifically when it appeared they were being screwed out of a contract on their new home. That evening, as I drove home, I realized that I was letting someone else cast a pall of fear over me. Someone had set me at a distance, and I respected that distance, wrong as I thought it was, but still drove by in wonder. So I stopped by their home that night, following my own advice. The result was a shortlived but wonderful reunion. I was glad to have followed my advice.

This day, then – this Friday noon – I decided I was in the same place. I was being held distant, for reasons I was not even aware of, and decided that I needed to confront that gap – close it if possible.

So in terror I pulled down the driveway, parked, took several deep breaths to study myself. Then I exited my vehicle and marched straight for the front door.

The inner door was open, and I could see inside as I wrapped on the glass door frame. I felt transported out of time, as if I were standing on the threshold of a pivotal moment in time. Shoes just inside the door. Paperwork spread out in the living room. I noted that Yort was not keeping the wasps down from the doorway – a potentially fatal hazard for Trynity. So much was the same as it ever was.

I knocked again. I hadn’t really thought about what I would say when she came to the door. Now I began to consider what I’d do if she didn’t. She could have been in the bathroom, or outside taking a smoke. But the door to the back patio was visible from the front, and it was closed. And she would have hit the toilet immediately after coming home, and I had driven by several times already.

I knocked a third time, a little louder, but a little shorter. I ranged my hearing: it was full of the buzz of bugs and the gentle rush of breeze in the trees…but no sounds of Trynity.

I made my way back to my vehicle, and wrote a note for her windshield. Plausible deniability. She couldn’t answer the door. It would have forced a confrontation of worlds which she wasn’t able to handle. I nodded to myself – it was Pure Trynity. She hadn’t changed – something both reassuring and disappointing in her. I pulled out of the drive, and took comfort that at least I had made the effort. And she would know that.

I think one reason I felt I needed to pay this visit, was to undo another desperate action from several weeks before. I had been in this desperate funk for the whole month. On July 3rd, I actually pulled up outside her office, just hoping to catch a glimpse of her, just that brief connection, to help reassure me that her world existed. A touchstone.

As I didn’t know how long I’d be waiting, I took along some reading material. I sat for an hour reading a few lines, glancing up, reading a few more, glancing up. Eventually, I became engrossed in a particular story. When next I glanced up, I saw her walking away from my vehicle. I died. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t begin to guess how she interpreted that. My fear was that she thought I was deliberately ignoring her – that I had gone out of my way to park nearby and then ignore her, as if to make some terrible statement. I knew that would hurt, and I’d have rather died than give that impression.

But it was too late. She kept talking on her phone, climbed into her truck, and drove away. I told my coworkers about it, and they thought my attempt was dear, my reaction dramatic. They also agreed though that I might want to try to fix the problem in case it did exist. So I think that was one thing I hoped to clear up when I knocked on her door some weeks later. To clear that up, and to experience the touchstone I had originally hoped to occur.

July has been a hard month. Coming into it I was so desperate. I felt very much alone. I cried out to God.

And he answered.

The very day that I dorked up the encounter with Trynity, I received a call from a nightingale (or was it a Robin? *g*) who has since helped soothe my ache, and given me a purpose for this time. Someone to care about, someone to receive my focus, my attention, my love. Distance to keep it safe, keep it focused. And locally, God send a few friends for occasional companionship as I had real need. It is not much, but it is enough. It was an answer to the cry of my heart.

Maybe not the answer I desired, but there are others and their choices involved too. It was an answer, and it is enough. Thank you Lord for remembering me, and preserving me.