I don't remember exactly when I met Joe. I think it was at a house party here, where I live now, but before I had even considered living here. I was very drunk, and in what was probably one of the last really obvious signs that I was actually a girl and really ought to just figure that out pretty soon, I put on Kimbra in the game room, cranked it up, and kind of wandered around the rest of the grounds doing my best to dance just like her.
It would've been a drama crowd from the community college kind of thing, for my part, I think. But the link between the EvCC drama kids and the Grandview kids was Alex, and this is his house, so both groups were around. At some point, some asshole turned off my Kimbra, and put on their own shit. I wasn't in the game room when that happened, but I noticed before long, and unceremoniously took the stereo jack out of that player, in my righteous drunkenness, and restored Kimbra to her true and rightful place. And then I kept dancing. Many months later, Joe told me that it was his music I had shut off to put Kimbra back on. We laughed.
We would team up and play League for hours. There would be hilarious plays, sometimes a funny bug, this week a new Champion release to try to beat each other to the pick for, that week a cool new skin that one of us might gift to the other, maybe a pro match we both wanted to watch the week after that. Sometimes we'd lose sleep and probably cause our grades to suffer for it, but it was obvious we both kind of needed that escape. Game after game into the night, one of us would say to the other one of two things; "can't go out on a loss like that, dude!" or, "can't quit now, after a win like that, dude!" We laughed.
It wasn't just League. Joe was very much there for me in a lot of ways, when I really desperately needed someone to give a shit about me. I needed to be saved from myself. My gender revelation was barely a year away, and everything that caused that dam to finally burst was building up and becoming impossible to keep holding in. I was in full self-destruct. All the switches had been thrown. The Jason Construct was finally crumbling.
During the fall of 2013, I performed in my final play at Everett Community College. It was called The Seagull, and I played the part of Soren, an old and rapidly decaying Russian man; a supporting role. At the director's request, I grew out a pretty full beard, even though I hated it. I would do anything to serve the character. She silvered it with some makeup before every show, along with some of my hair, which, in its ragged and unkempt state, was kind of perfect for the role anyway, minus the lack of gray. I hunched over and leaned on my cane and spoke with an affect that was a mish-mash of every old man I'd ever really stopped to listen to. So, basically Morgan Freeman, and the guy who voiced Deckard Cain in the original Diablo.
The director had, I think, some kind of personal trouble going on while the show was building towards opening night. She had become increasingly hostile with the entire cast, and it was incredibly apparent, even to emotionally-challenged me, that nobody was happy about being there. Most of us were only still showing up in order to not fuck over the rest of the cast. The director's behavior, combined with stressful classes and the uncertainty of moving from actual functional homelessness into this house, which was better in most ways but worse in a few very important ones, left me ready to implode.
The last night of the show ran, and I rather contentedly told everyone who would listen that at the cast party, here at this house, I hoped to drink myself to death. People laughed, because they were used to me deadpan saying things like "hope I die on the way home tonight. See you tomorrow if I don't." I don't know if they knew that I was serious, and didn't know how to deal with it, so they would laugh, or if they just figured I was joking. I never knew. But I did want to die.
I got home that night and had 10 shots of Grey Goose within about an hour. I remember every one of those shots, and I remember about 20 minutes after that. I failed to drink myself to death, but I got much closer than I ever had before. I woke up the next morning, still drunk, covered in what I naively assumed was cat barf, bleary-eyed, stumbling. I fell back asleep for awhile before long, but when I woke back up for the rest of the day, I spent most of that time writing people individually over Facebook messenger, and apologizing for anything I may have said or done that might have offended or hurt them, because I had foolishly gotten extremely drunk, and just did not remember anything after about the first hour.
Reactions I got from that ranged from, "you were hilarious, don't worry about it,"to "you kept falling down lol," to "you were very charming actually," to "you kissed my neck." All of them were embarrassing on some level. A couple of them were mortifying.
I was later told the story of what happened. Or at least some of it. Joe and MJ had apparently taken it upon themselves to keep me from killing myself in really what would have been kind of the dumbest, slowest way possible. Drunk and/or high though they almost certainly were, they got me to my bed, kept a barf bowl near me, and returned often to roll passed-out me onto my side, so I wouldn't choke on my own vomit and die. I also remember really breaking down hard and sobbing my eyes out over I-don't-know-what, probably just my entire life. And I remember them consoling me. And I noticed that they left that part out.
I felt so secure in this friendship that I once joked with him about our impending falling-out. He asked if it was still on for the next month, and I said, "no, no, six weeks," or something. The idea of us not being friends was absurd, ridiculous; to both of us. We laughed.
It wasn't all hugs and puppies, of course. He would snap at me sometimes, and I never quite understood why. He would say something kind of vaguely hurtful and usually more or less accurate, but that would come out in a weird sort of mini-blow-up over nothing, and then never be spoken of again. To the extent that I triggered these outbursts, I never knew how.
When I realized who I was, and started coming out to only my very closest friends, in person, in private, one-by-one, he was the second guy that I told. The first was Alex, mostly because his room was closer. I guess it still is. Joe doesn't live here anymore. But the second person I told was Joe, and he could not have given less of a fuck. I might as well have come in and told him I picked up some eggs, if he wanted any. He kind of shrugged, and was like, "cool."
A little while later, he came to me and asked if I was changing my name or anything, and what should he call me when we play League together on VOIP with strangers, he, or she? I hadn't really even thought that far ahead by that point, and it meant a lot to me that he had. While his initial reaction was good, for me, in that it was a non-negative response, the questions that followed showed that he actually was there to support me. That he actually cared about me.
When I started going out in public dressed as myself, Joe was one of the first, if not the very first, to happily and nonchalantly go out with me. We'd grab lunch, or maybe see a movie, or whatever. Just friends hanging out, nothing unusual about it. Except that I'm trans, and this isn't Seattle. I cannot imagine he did not know the risk he was taking, to be seen treating me like a human being in public. Looking back, that was when I knew that I'd love him for the rest of my life, even if I couldn't have articulated it at the time.
He moved out, eventually, to go live with his girlfriend, MJ — herself one of my closest friends and biggest supporters early on in my transition. She had come with me to the courthouse for my name change hearing, very early in the morning. Since I lost Joe, I can't help but feel like I've lost her, too, in a lot of ways.
He started coming at me with this really aggressive tone, saying that the headphones were stupid, and that I shouldn't waste my money on them at all. I had no idea what prompted this. I still don't. But as people in the thread started challenging him on his stance, he dug in deeper, and said that since I was living off of taxpayers, I didn't get to decide what to spend my money on. That the government was giving me that money for my education, not to spend on silly toys.
When he originally posted these things into my thread, I was furious. I had posted a light-hearted, happy thing, asking my friends to help me coordinate my outfits, really, by picking what was going to more or less be a birthday present to myself. (The ship date was around my birthday, plus or minus a week.) I wanted to go off on him. I was full of this really righteous indignation. I was also waiting for my bus in a very cold and dark and wet Seattle, and could only reply on a smartphone, which, if you've ever tried to use angry, you know, is a poor choice in such situations.
By the time I finally got home, about two hours later, I wasn't angry anymore. I was really almost entirely just very, very sad. I felt numb. I could not understand why one of my closest friends in the world was so ready to attack me, and so openly, with an audience. I resolved to address the main fallacy of his position, but to disregard anything else that would require me to go even marginally on the offensive in order to respond to it in any meaningful way.
I pointed out that the G.I. Bill is not welfare. That it is not a giveaway or a handout. That one must not only serve in the armed forces, but must also, at least when I was in, pay into it for a year right when they join. Right when their rank is likely lower than it will ever be, right when they really need all that money the most. That it is earned as part of an overall compensation package for service, just like the perpetual VA benefits one receives when medically separated, as I was. That the tuition is paid directly to the institution, and that the stipend that the beneficiary receives is meant to supplement or replace income, to allow the veteran to focus on school as much as possible. To be spent as they please.
24 hours later, I deleted the entire thread. I never got the headphones. I no longer wanted them.
I messaged Joe privately. I told him that I was incredibly hurt by what he had said. I told him that I could not understand why, even when presented with irrefutable fact that showed how completely incorrect his premise was, he did not come to me and acknowledge that he had injured me. That I needed him to at least acknowledge that he'd done that, if not actually just apologize for it. I told him that I didn't need an immediate answer. But that I needed one soon, because I actually had self-respect now, and I could not keep someone in my life who had so little respect for me that they could attack me that way in the first place, never mind fail or willfully refuse to acknowledge the damage they'd done. My last message got marked "Seen" before long.
Ten days later, without any other response from Joe, I messaged him one last time. I told him that I took his silence to mean that I was not important enough to him to deal with. I told him that I didn't know what had happened, but that I was grateful to him for having been such a great friend to me while he had been, and that I hoped he did well in life and was happy. That I hoped it wouldn't be too awkward whenever we'd see each other around in the future. And that was more or less where things sat.
Please don't take any of this to be some kind of indictment of Joe as a person, and an elevation of myself. Do recall that I was extremely difficult and draining to be around, far more childish than I am now. Joe may have failed me, in the end, but I'm sure I failed him in at least as many ways, to which I was (and probably still am) far more oblivious. Which is part of the hell of it all, really. It leaves me wondering what I did to make him stop loving me. Maybe it was nothing, maybe some other things in his life just caused him to lash out randomly at the next annoying thing, and I was it, and I just took it more poorly than other friends of his might have. Or maybe I really upset him and he didn't feel like he would get anywhere useful if he tried to come talk to me about it. And given how long and well he had known me before I knew who I really was, I would not at all fault him for thinking that.
And at first, I thought, hey, great idea, don't just get all falling-down-the-mountainside crazy in love with someone you just met because you were kind of an idiot and got super intensely close, oh, I don't know, less than four hours after meeting in person. It seemed like a very grown-up thing to do. And since I play a grown-up in real life, I figured I should at least put on a brave face and try this approach. I'd been actually doing really well in general with that sort of thing — figuring I should try something that used to scare me, and doing it, and then doing it well, or at least not terribly. And feeling good about that. That's not what happened this time. I started feeling really agitated and irritable. I wasn't able to sleep. In fact, I can't sleep right now. That's why I'm up writing this thing. What a nerd.
Anyway, I realized before long that I was actually angry at the girl I'd just been so very happy to have met. That seemed kind of insane to me, so I backed up a bit to examine the problem. I felt frustrated because I wanted to see this girl that I really liked. I was getting angry in the frustration. But the object of my frustration and the object of my attraction were the same person, so not only did I have the base level of frustration and distress from just being kept from this exciting new person, I also had this sort of freakish sense of betrayal because she was the one keeping me from herself.
I know, right, over-attach much? I was basically feeling a relatively mild version of abandonment. And it was a very deliberately chosen abandonment, that I'd agreed to eagerly. Intellectually, I know this is probably a good (or at least not-bad) choice. I'm being forced to confront, on my own, this whole anxious attachment thing that I seem to have going on. My first confrontation manifested itself in remembering Joe, and how badly it hurt to lose him, but also how little I'd actually allowed myself to feel that, at the time, or since.
Yesterday was my last class day for the week. I've been getting more and more loopy over the last two days because of the profound lack of sleep. I've been singing more animatedly than usual in the car to try to stay awake and not die. I had a bit of a meltdown, trying to reach out to Kim (you remember Kim, from the internet). And when she took her space and finally closed me out for the night, my brain was like, hey, we're already freaking out about abandonment, wanna think about Joe for awhile?
So I got high, popped onto League and started up an ARAM. But I also put on a Liz Phair song. An old favorite from about 12 years ago. When Joe was 9. Haha. Anyway, putting on Friend of Mine was either the perfect decision, or the worst possible decision, because it wasn't long before I was sitting here bawling my eyes out while doing remarkably well with Xin Zhao and ultimately leading in kills for my team, and taking them to victory. I even said in the in-game chat to my team, "hey, guys, good news; as long as i'm listening to liz phair and sobbing my eyes out, i actually do p good with xin."
I also led the team in deaths. It was a darkly funny kind of callback to past-me. I was charging in over and over, to die. Whether we achieved victory or only managed to stall a defeat, I was going to die repeatedly. Either way, I won.
The game ended, but the song did not. I left it on a loop. I was exhausted. I still am. But I couldn't sleep. I still can't. Even after I shut down the computer and turned off the song, it kept playing in my head. Every time through, I'd remember it all again in vague dream-sequence flashes that were more emotion than vision, and I would be racked with sobs. I was gasping for breath after exhaling everything, completely, feeling like I'd just been nailed across the midsection with a two-by-four. Rolling around, silently screaming, trying to inhale, and failing.
At one point, I was struck with the sudden and indescribably awkward realization that I had been attracted to him, too. He was a genuine and decent guy who treated me like a human being, like his friend... just the way he had before. Maybe that's all it takes for me, right now. Maybe that's kind of sad, I don't know. But realizing that, and recognizing the truth of it even as it made me grossly uncomfortable, added a nice sort of knifed-repeatedly-in-the-chest feel to my sobbing. I had thought that I had had the wind completely knocked out of me, but I was wrong; there was a little bit left. This was when I lost that. It was painful in a way that's difficult to describe. I felt really ashamed, for some reason. Like I had done something wrong to find a handsome, intelligent young man who had treated me kindly attractive. Gradually, the tears let up, and the sobs were less intense.
But I was still pretty high. I tried to get up to come to my computer to write this post. I stumbled and started to fall back into a sitting position on my bed. I remembered the cast party, and being even more disoriented than this by the same bed. But nobody was here to take care of me, this time. I lost it again. It was agony. Every time the end of the song came around, the sobs would come back. They'd come back with the questions Liz asks of whomever she wrote the song about, the questions I still want to ask Joe.
It's been so long since you've been a friend to me.
It seems like I dreamed and now I'm waking up to daylight.
What happened?
When did you let go of me?
I miss you so badly.
It's been so long since you've been a friend of mine.
And now I'm crying again.
Maybe that means I'm getting through it. But Liz is still right. I miss you. So badly.
I was in a similar headphones situation years ago, except I was in Joe's position and Lauren, my best friend attending SCCC on a Pell grant, was in yours.
ReplyDeleteThere is something in economics called time preference. There's also some concerns it's socioeconomic bullshit, but it's a very useful framework for dealing with this very particular kind of conflict.
Someone with a high time preference wants immediate gratification. They'll spend the $5 they have to spare. Someone with a low time preference plans for longer term gratification. They'll save the $5 they have to spare towards a car, a house, paying off a debt.
I have a low time preference. My brother has a high time interference. So I've been in the fortunate position of having a lifetime to study this and the amusing stories -but also friction- it can cause.
As children, if we went on a vacation and my parents gave us $5 each, the running joke was that he'd come back empty-handed and owe me $5, and I'd somehow have $15 plus loot.
Lauren spent some of her grant money getting a gorgeous full-sleeve tattoo and used the same "it's for my birthday" style argument. But the larger context of her life was: her partner was supplementing her rent, friends were giving her money to buy groceries, any time we went out, her friends had to pay for her, etc. She was always gracious and kind about these things, but not everybody let's go of that ledger in their mind. So when she spent this money on a tattoo, a lot of people struggled with it. Some were hurt that she never even considered paying them back. Some thought it was vain and selfish.
I kept my own judgments to myself, mostly because I'd already had enough fits about this stuff as a kid with my brother that I'd accepted this was just an idiosyncracy some people have that I don't have the mindset to understand.
It's a gorgeous tattoo. She burned some bridges getting it, lost some trust. It's a gorgeous tattoo. And, there's a price for everything. I'm sorry the price for your headphones was losing a friend that was very much worth keeping.
Was that it, do you think? I wonder if my real ultimate mistake was in going to him with my pain and demanding acknowledgement, rather than going to him and asking what he was upset about that caused him to attack me like that in the first place.
DeleteI don't think I could've taken the money comment even just a few weeks ago without bringing up a different perspective as a sort of counterattack. Now, I feel like both sides end up leaving that person feeling frustrated for perfectly understandable and legitimate reasons, and that that's not inherently awful. That there doesn't have to be a "right" perspective. Or a "wrong" one.
Which makes it easier to go to a friend who's upset with me for something along those lines, and be like, "I get why you're upset with me," and then something like, "is there anything I can do about this?" instead of focusing on my own injury over it.
Seranine, this is beautiful and tragic. So hard to lose friends, especially when you don't get to understand why. I have way too much experience with this. I am sorry for your loss. Head up.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Hopefully I'll have an update one day.
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