Posted on by Liz

A Whole New World

That boy you had a crush on in high school liked one of the recent posts to your Facebook wall. I often wonder if he feels the same way that I do regarding your death.

Years ago, I remember you telling me about how you played coy one year by not wishing him a happy birthday immediately. We were in eleventh grade and you were sitting behind him during your writing class. I was quite taken with your story so I wrote it down:

Her: Your tag is sticking out.
Him: Is it?
She nods.
Her: Happy birthday.
Him: Thank you.

I wanted you and him to end up together. So intensely in fact, that I brought him up in conversations for many, many years. I was so pleased to hear that after crushing on him for so long, you finally had your time together.

But, the depth of emotion during your encounter scared you. You explained that it was too tender, too caring, and you couldn’t handle that kind of relationship. You wrote him a letter and as far as I know, that was the end of that.

Your love life was always so full of drama and angst. I always felt like you deserved better. Unfortunately, I know that you suffered profound emotional trauma which prevented you from accepting the love that you deserved, both platonically and romantically. And that, I think, is a profound tragedy. You were always worth the time and effort and I am so sorry that you never let yourself accept that.

Posted on by Liz

Why.

Hello. It’s been over a month now. I can’t believe it. Time goes by so quickly when you’re preoccupied. Funny how life does that. It distracts you, puts a thousand things in front of you, and then you find yourself wondering what the fuck you were doing for the past thirty days…for the past thirty months. It certainly wasn’t anything productive.

Let me tell you about my life right now. I live in Florida. Yes, that’s right. I moved to Central Florida back in 2017. This August, I’ll have lived here for two years with my husband and two cats in a townhouse in a city located about forty five minutes away from Disney World. It’s hot and humid and it storms every afternoon in the summer and it’s wonderful. People don’t know how to drive properly in this state, but with it being the elderly capital of America, I don’t think anyone would expect any different.

I work in the office of a small business which is not a departure from what my life was up north. I have the weekends off so I can’t complain.

Anyway, that’s enough context. I don’t want to bore you with the mundanity that is always my life. It’s always the same and never interesting. Even when I thought it was interesting, it never measured up to the drama that was your constant reality. I must have reread our online conversations dozens of times in the past weeks and it amazes me how often a new boy was brought up by you. This one you like, this one you don’t, this one you wish liked you, this one stopped returning your texts… I always listened and gave you my advice but you never listened. That was just your way. And I respect that.

From the rereading, I noticed that I didn’t contribute in the same way you did. Shorter sentences, a lot of one word answers. It wasn’t that I didn’t care or that I was uninterested. A lot was going on in 2013 and 2014 and I just didn’t have the emotional capacity to take on any more at the time. I was going through a personal journey – one that I needed to go at alone. And it wasn’t easy for me to articulate that to anyone. We started speaking less and less and then when I got engaged, it stopped completely. I don’t know why. I will never know why.