and then something changed....
Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2002
I want to talk about this because I want to remember this, not because I want to entertain you the reader so this might not entertain you but it means something to me. My friend Bry�I want to talk about my friend Bry.
Bry and I met so long ago that I have to think hard to remember when it was. And then when I do remember I get all caught up in remembering all the funny stuff that started our friendship. When I met Bry he was living in a motel. Not a hotel. But a cheesy strip motel and he seemed to be sad and struggling with trying to overcome so much. I had my own set of problems and mostly I never was much there for him because I didn�t know how to �be there� for myself at all. I just sorta told him a joke and tried to get out of those tough and sad conversations. Every now and then I would succumb and let him ramble on and then I�d feel like shit that I didn�t have the right words.
Then one day it happened. I lost it and I told him my best �what for� speech and it went something like this.
�You are living in a fucking motel room where there has got to be a certain sort of persona or human being around you at all times that is just not up to the standards of the person that you want to be, yet you surround yourself with less than what you want to be, so what makes you think that this would ever make you fucking happy? Get the fuck off your deadbeat ass and get a life and then maybe you�ll be happy. You have no kids, no wife, no one to tell you how to live your life so apparently you are the only one that has made those choices and if you don�t like them then blame your fucking self! If you have no friends, then join a church or get a new hobby or take a college class. Get out, talk to your neighbors, invite a coworker out for a drink, be friendly and make some! Furthermore, you don�t have it nearly as bad as I do, I have a cheating husband, a young child to raise, a crappy job and a car on its last legs. So if you must talk to me and want to talk to me, find something happy to talk about because if you keep whining about how bad your life is I might just lose my mind and shoot myself in the head and then who the hell will be your friend?�
Yeah�.wicked bad of me I know. But I did it. And to top it all off, I hung up the phone. I was nasty and mean and bi�otchy! Of course he didn�t say much because I hung up! LOL What a way to avoid a come back. I don�t think it was cause he did anything so horribly wrong, it was because I just didn�t have enough within myself to deal with anyone else�s shit at the time and because I have a tendency to hold back and not say what I really think to people. I just let them walk all over me in the sense that I never say �enoughs enough!� Well Bryan asked me for my cell number saying he wanted to talk to me about something important and while I�ve avoided giving him my number because I just have not wanted to encourage him that way, I gave in and he called me tonight and told me that my little tirade above took place last year right before the holidays. He was whining about how he didn�t have any plans and nowhere to go for Christmas and no friends. I had forgotten that part, the part that brought on my rant. So I said, �oh yeah?� He said, �yeah you were a real bitch to me, but you know what kwisty?� I said, �no�.what Bry?� And he said the following�
�I hated you for a long time for saying those mean things to me. I hated you so bad that I wanted to make you wrong but the problem was that you weren�t wrong. So in the past year, I got my own apartment, then I even stopped going out for chicken and wice (w typed intentionally) every day and I started to watch Food TV and I learned how to cook and I lost 35 lbs and I started to read books, because you said people that read were smarter, and I found out I like to read classics and I like to spend time in the bookstore drinking that latte stuff you told me about. I liked getting out of that room and being around people again. I stopped complaining and started to write down the good things I did each day. *note below* And something started to change, and something started to happen. I was proving you wrong but it no longer mattered because I was getting happier. I was changing and things were good. So now its been about a year and I wanted to talk to you tonight because tomorrow�s Christmas Day and I�m going to my brothers house and I�m taking the turkey, yeah I�m making the turkey kwisty!� I wanted to tell you all of this, because it started with you screaming and yelling at me last year. I want to wish you a Merry Christmas and thank you for being friend enough to speak to me when someone needed to.�
In one moment I realized it�s not what you receive in this world that will give you the most pleasure, it is what you give. I have been teasing Bry about the fact that he hasn�t given me a Christmas present, and tonight�what he told me�.how he thanked me for something I unknowingly did for him. I had to wipe tears. It is not that I have gained anything. It is that I did something that caused someone else to gain something. Happiness. I caused someone else to find a piece of happiness.
I now understand when �he� says he wants to help me without a reason because the fact that he just wants to. That there doesn�t need to be a reason or even a rhyme to how and why things occur, and maybe when there is no if and or why about it, it is at its purest form. And sometimes even without good intentions we can cause actions that roll into reactions that turn into the cause of something amazing. I now understand so much more than I did before. So if a year ago I said something that changed the course of someone�s life, I am so pleased. *note* I just want to say that my telling Bry to write down the good things everyday, that was a direct result of �him� and isn�t it amazing that if a person takes the time to help someone that in the end �he� might be helping more people than those he directly knows. It�s all so amazing to me. I am sitting here in awe of how beautiful life is. To think that if you can cause something good to happen without trying, what might I be able to cause if I just tried?
I�m glad Bryan called me. I�m glad he went out on a limb to tell me that this year he will eat dinner with family because he crawled out of the rut his life was in, because he wanted to �prove me wrong�. So this year he will not stare mindlessly at his TV in room 102 feeling sad and alone. Just knowing that makes me smile. The fact that he called to tell me makes me feel pretty great inside. Makes me believe in Christmas...
-PoeticaL
