Filed under: Back in the Game
Still cruzin on chill as of 12:42 am on a Friday night. I’d been stuck in the house most of the day awaiting servicemen to work on my place. What I thought would be an hour or two of waiting turned into more like 8! So I was home alone all day working and entertaining myself …some way some how.
I took advantage of some of it by doing stuff around the crib, making my new digs a home. I’d pondered the thought of switching around furniture per Sasha’s suggestion. A ponder short lived after I ultimately decided I didn’t feel like dealing with it. By noon I was starving and getting aggie by the minute. The service guys still hadn’t arrived and of all days cutie pie Christian calls to grab lunch at Houston’s. I was stuck like chuck and it makes twice that I’ve dissed this guy. Unintentionally of course.
I was standing in my bedroom window hoping I’d see a shiny white service truck full of friendly workers pull up to the front. Instead I got my neighbor playing with his little girl across the street. Phone rang. I picked up and the first words that came to mind were Oh Shyt.
I always bite my bottom lip and clinch my fists hella tight when we speak after a hiatus. We go hard body with the hiatus thing…have gone as much as a year and a half without interacting whatsoever. He’s just one of those dudes that you know about but ignore the position mainly out of laziness and selfishness.
Short Story…
We met when I was 20 and working at WebMD for the company’s non-profit. He was a pompous, meticulously dressed fresh meat college graduate. The kind that modern day corporations hire to replace the older folks close to retirement (if they make it that far). Mister commanded the eye of any woman that came within looking radius of him. On top of that he was an arrogant asshole, which I’d later come to understand was only a shield to the unknown that pissed me off on occasion. I was on the elevator one day and he happened to be getting on as I was getting off. Clever move: Just as the doors were about to close he stuck his hand in between, making a heroic gesture in hopes of controlling the moment. A man willing to lose an arm on a woman’s behalf is just my kind of guy. Lol I was interested.
“Hey,” he said. I twirled my neck around thinking ‘ dag did I drop something’? I had an armful of annual reports stacked high to my neck. The doors obeyed his command and he stepped out all regal like and shyt. Chest puffed out. Mister was a tall guy I’d grow to feel a sense of security with. A gentleman who said, “Let me help you with that.”
I don’t remember the exact conversation during our first encounter but it was basically one of those humdrum formalities that ultimately lead to, “So can I call you?”.
We were close for years. We didn’t have too much of a physical relationship although it did happen on occasion. It was different because we knew everything about each other and honestly? There were times when I was just like, ugh! Somehow, in the midst of it all, the respect and love we had for each other as friends held its own for more than 10 years. “It’s just something about our love/hate relationship,” he’d say during our call.
“You know who this is?”
“Uh, what?” I started laughing. My friend was back…again.
We had an interesting conversation during our catch up , and unlike other times I think this recent time apart had been a similar and nearly identical experience for both of us. There was a different tone in the sound of his voice. The way I communicated was different. Our entire dynamics had changed. The friendship had matured. It’s people like grand unshakable Mister that make you wonder. Like…why is this person connected to me and what purpose does this connection serve?
In conversation he asked where I saw him in the schematics of my own queendom. I replied, “There’s a difference in me now Mister. Honestly…I just live. “ I could tell l my nonchalant ambiguity ruffed his fancy but so what. “You know I love you and I always have.” That was his only response before moving on to the next topic…
“Hey you remember when we first met? You were so young, you weren’t even legal,” he said.
“Yea I know.”
“I remember everything about us. You’re just one of those people that I know will be around forever,” he said.
Now…this can be a double edged sword indeed. Just when I think he is out of my life for good, we manage to find each other again. He always says some of the most beautiful things about me that I know are sincere but…if they were indeed so, why would he be willing to let me slip in and out of his life so easily? We cherish what is valuable, and what is valuable we hold onto by any means.
But I guess that goes both ways.
-black girl.
