I have a few friends that our somewhat famous in their own right, a couple of them related to John Lennon. In fact I dated one for a short time a long long time ago. I have another friend who's on his way up in the rap game and another, Frank Liston, who was my best friend for a long time. Although I knew them all personally, it's the last one that makes me think twice a little about my life choices.
See, I am a musician, proficient with a few instruments, but best at the drums. When I was in grade school I was always getting in trouble for drumming on the desks. All I wanted to do was play the drums. I went to criminal lengths just to play them, literally. In 7th grade I broke into my sisters high school band room in the middle of the night just to play the drums on several occasions until I got caught, ran, then busted the next day.
Anyways, the point being that I had an unwavering passion for music. I got really good at the drums at a young age because of this obsession. 'One of a kind' type of good in the sense of original style. People saw that. I "made" every band I was in, I was the best part. I put it together. Face it, you could have the best vocals, awesome guitar riffs, great song structure and melodies, but if the drums suck, your song sucks. I have "it" and when you meet another musician that has "it" and you click musically. You have something rare and special. This is what me and Frank had.
Then a girl came along. She fell in love with him and I silently fell in love with her, hard. I still love her. Or at least the memory of her. She carved a very deep hole in my heart. I don't understand it and it's irrational. Regardless, I kept this horrible fact to myself and never crossed the line with her out of respect and love for Frank, respect for her, and her friendship. This arraignment went on for nearly a decade. The times I spent with them are my favorite memories. They were my favorite people to be with. I'm no longer friends with either of them anymore. I fucked up our friendships pretty bad. I opened my mouth during one of their break ups and shattered my loyalties to both of them. They were my family for a long time and they saw me through some of my sketchiest moments.
She always had a little more influence over me than Frank, due to the strangle hold she had on my heart. She would paralyze the very core of my being until I was merely a shell of neutral behaviors in her presence. She inspired a great deal of heartache and inner tension when I was with her. It was constant despair, yet I cherished every moment, how sick. To make it worse I had to constantly hide it from them both. In doing so I developed a very heightened sense of self-awareness. Every action, every word, every movement and any subtle nuance of communication had to be conciously calibrated in 'real-time' to come out as if none of these nearly overwhelming thoughts and feelings were bursting through my seams. It's the reason I found it so hard to look her in the eyes. It felt like she could see right through me and tell that I loved her. It's amazing how casually she could look at me and make my stomach turn. I constantly wore a mask of casual demeanor while my heart screamed in agony. It was torture. I hid it from them for years. She became one of my closest friends. She secretly became the most important part of my life, the inspiration behind so much art and endless hours of work that never had the chance to see the light of day. It was the only way to deal with it since I couldn't tell her.
I have healed from all other heartbreak in my life. My divorce, my 2nd wife's death, homelessness, alcoholism, family death, etc. I'm extremely resilient when it comes to these things, except her. Even now as I've been writing this the last few days, I've started seeing her in everything. Just like I used to. She was my ONE. No one has ever had this effect on me. At least to the extent that it lingers on so relentlessly in their absence. If I saw her today, I don't know what'd I'd say to her. If anything I would just say I'm sorry for the way things turned out. I don't care if she ever loves me, or if she's with someone. I survived 8 heart wrenching years of friendship with her. I'd be happy for her as long as she's okay. I'd be able to be natural with her. Simply out of practice and experience. As I've matured I've developed the ability to separate myself from my emotions. I also realize that I've had the same power she's had over me, over several others. So I know what her perspective is. This makes it easy to know how one will behave and what they are thinking. And with predictable behavior it's so much easier to relax and know how to behave yourself.
During our friendship I never knew how to act, simple because I couldn't think straight. So I would just focus on trying to appear as if she were just another one of my female friends. This was such a crude and basic level of functioning, however. I felt that I had to hide how I felt at all costs. We had had mutual friends that had hit on her and they lost their friendship as a result. I was flying blind and by the seat of my pants when she was around. There were countless moments where I would almost uncontrollably blurt out how much I loved her. Not to try and steal her away but for my own sanity. We had extremely intimate conversation. If nothing else, she was having an emotional affair with me, unbeknownst to either of us at the time. I'm not saying this is a fact, but looking back at it somewhat objectively it looks like that's what it was. Or maybe it was just all in my head and I read more into it than what was there. But I do remember a couple occasions where she referred to our friendship being like a marriage except for the sex.
There were many long stretches of time where her and Frank were emotionally and sexually withdrawn and though her friendship to me was always strong regardless, it seemed to intensify as the years passed on and their relationship grew stale. The thing that really makes me just shake my head in disappointment is that he was in love with her best friend and he had to hide that as well. This is all old ass news anyways and looking back, deep down I think she knew.
The really sad thing is all that passion for music I had when I was younger faded out and began to focus uncontrollably on her. I say uncontrollably because I knew nothing would come of it and I should just focus on making music with Frank, but couldn't. I enjoyed their company. But Frank and I always had a business like aspect to our friendship where the depth of our relationship seemed somewhat contingent on whether or not we were making music together. Whereas her friendship to me was completely organic and developed independent of any common interest. Not to say that we didn't share plenty of common interests. It's just that our friendship grew regardless. I'm also not saying that Frank and I weren't close, because we were, but I don't think we would have been as close as we were if I weren't a drummer. There's nothing wrong with this, it's just the nature of our friendship. We did plenty of things together that weren't musically related. He and his mother took me into there home and we lived together for years. He introduced me to all his friends who in turn became good friends of mine. I introduced him to mine and that's how he met the girl. I knew her for a couple years before they met and I had always crushed on her at those times, but it wasn't until she feel in love with him that we were in constant proximity, and that's when I really feel in love with her.
Looking back we were all just a bunch of lost kids, drop outs, stoners, music enthusiasts, free thinkers, drinkers and partiers who found comfort in each others company and did all of these things together on a daily basis. I could tell I was one of her favorite friends and she knew she was one of mine. We spent a lot of time together in the mornings before her boyfriend would wake up. This is the only time in my life where someone would wake me up and I would be happy. Just happy that they wanted to spend time with me to the point that they would wake me up. Of course she had her best girl friend, but I was the other ear she would confide in when she and her boyfriend were having problems. I always stuck up for their relationship. In doing this I could cover the fact that I loved her. This was a vital maneuver to neutralize any suspicion of ill intent that may have arisen on my behalf. I never had any ill intent, yes I was heavily saturated with love for this girl but it never escaped from inside me. We all had a good thing. The love I felt was a disease and I was the only barrier keeping it from infecting and destroying our friendships. I'm sure she knows now as I vaguely remember sending her a message in the midst of a drunken stupor. Oh well.
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