Letter To A Friend I Never Had

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I like people.  And then again, I don’t.  I’d never make it as a professional gambler because, while my experience with lies and deception go deep in my history, the expressions on my face give away too much – no hiding behind a mask for me. 

So, why then do I still have the feeling that I’ve spent my entire life hiding behind brick walls?

Human interaction is my life.  It’s my lifeblood.  Without others, I’d have nothing to write, nothing to say.  There would be no feelings or emotions to fuel my fire – and fire is something that sits in the dark of my belly.  I need people, but the truth is it seems nobody ever needs me.

It gets harder and harder every day to put myself out there.  Sometimes as the sun sets, my thoughts pour out of me, spilling across the horizon, melting into the pinks and oranges and blues.  Who ever really hears them?  Like the stars in the sky that go unnoticed, these thoughts just twinkle for a brilliant second, then somebody pats me on the head and I’m stupidly grateful for that. 

I’m not the best friend to have.  I speak my mind, throw my opinions in the face of others, and am impatient as hell.  I ask a lot of my friends in return – that they listen to my superficial ranting and raving and complaining. 

Every so often, someone comes along and humbles me.  Someone touches me.  Someone leaves their mark. 

I’m not even forty years old, and they’re dropping like flies around me.  The strangest thing is, they are people I have never had the blessing to meet, so why does it hurt like a whipping with a willow switch?

There isn’t a day that has gone by in the last eighteen months that I haven’t thought of Carolyn.  She passed away in March, 2009.  I can’t explain the connection we shared over the world wide web, but the loss of her slapped me so hard I can still feel the sting on my cheek.

Several months ago, I found out my friend Bryan died while incarcerated in prison.  To hear a stranger’s voice telling me this – it leveled me.  Bryan and I had never laid eyes on each other, but knew the road map inside each other’s minds as we traveled them together over years of correspondence. 

Tonight, I received a goodbye letter.  A goodbye, and we never got to say hello.  I’m already missing him, and I never even knew him.

No, wait - yes, I did.  I do.  Right from the beginning of our Facebook friendship, he touched me on a level that most don’t see, or don’t want to see.  Behind the funnyman, there was a little boy who pulled at my pigtails to get a laugh but saw, too, what was behind the freckled face.  Reaching out with random thoughts, shyly holding out my hand, it was reassuring to know that my fingers were touched in return – even if lightly so. 

It all started over a night of music celebrating the sounds of summer. 

This man, whom I will call friend because he fell head over keyboard into my parameters of such a label, needs one himself and has been failed by many.  How do I convince him to let me try?  What words can I pull out of my magic hat to convince him that taking my hand may be a chance, a risk, a gamble, as he wages his battles – but a better alternative than becoming the Quasimodo of the 21^st century?  Being alone is a sad thing. 

I don’t want him to be sad, but everyone is at some point.  What I want more is to listen when he is, whether at a distance or side by side.  Never do I want to miss the chance to know someone new, to create a memory that will bring an ember of warmth on a winter day. 

Am I foolish to fall in like so easily, so quickly?  Perhaps.  I wouldn’t trade it in for all of the sunshine, lollipops and roses in the world.