I got a text message last night/this morning. It was a little after 12 a.m. If I was still awake/or awake, call. I did. It was a ghost. I thought I might hear from him. He was one of my best friends growing up, 7th-11th grade. Funny. I was just writing about 17 years ago, right. Well, it’s been since I saw him. He still looked the same. He’s been married for a about 6 years now. That’s right, I kept thinking 10, but it’s been 6. He’s got a 2 yr. old daughter and a graduating h.s. senior as a stepson and another stepson just a few years younger than that.
Here’s the thing about ghosts. They always haunt you. If you hadn’t have seen them, you would have just been thinking about them and the foot prints they made in your life and where you are now. You can hear their words and laughter in everyday sounds and scenery. And this morning, oh this morning, after an hour of chatter, I dragged myself out of the house (after advising my spouse where I was going) and I met up with him at a coffee shop. Ghost-man was in town on business. 17 years. Maybe 16.
Was it a good visit? Yes. But the ghost is haunting. What’s lingering? The conversation. It is swirling in my head. There are shadows to the conversation that seem almost as if I was snubbed for the decisions I made growing up. That the choices I made and how I live my life are beneath him and the path that he choose. Yes, he is successful. Yes, he’s happy. Yes, his wife is 10 years older than him and the only debt he has is his mortgage. Yes, he travels where ever he chooses and whenever he chooses.
Am I bitter? No. I am so proud of him. I am so more than happy for him. We fooled around once as kids and made out in the back seat of a car on the way to an amusement park, but we never took it farther than that. So, I never felt like he was mine to hold back or to walk the future with. I’ve never felt sad or bitter that ‘we’ never were an item other than best of friends. So, when I see the smug look on his face, or what I once knew as his smug look, I can only help but wonder what he was being smug about.
Sure, I’m heavier than what I was growing up – thank god. I look good with some of this weight on me. Now I have boobs. So, it couldn’t be that he’s thinking, wow, look at her thank god I didn’t get with her, she’s a cow now. I know he doesn’t think that way.
So, I don’t understand why I feel this way. I don’t get why I feel like when I mentioned that I WANT to wait to travel until after my youngest is graduating high school – why does he ask WHY?! Why does he think that I’m wasting time.
I don’t find waiting a waste of time. I find that knowing that I am here watching my kids grow up and hovering over their school work, a wonderful way to breathe and watch the day go by. I don’t want them to be latch key kids. His parents split up when we were seniors in high school. Mine split up when I was 8.
So, maybe he doesn’t understand what it’s like to be a girl and growing up. How much having parental guidance and nearness is an important part of that. I know that he can’t. He has a penis. His parents were together all his childhood and mine. And he was soooo angry afterwards. I remember the way it warped his look on life. Even if he didn’t admit it to me, until just this morning.
But it was good to see him and know that he’s okay and at peace. I had wondered for so long what had happened to him. If it weren’t for him and another best buddy, I would never have survived adolescence as well as I did. I still have some bumps, bruises and scars that they couldn’t protect or shield me from, and that’s a good thing.
I’d like to believe that I made a good impact in his life. He never said. But, if I didn’t, why would he too search me out and make the effort except to feel better about how I ended up, for good or bad. The way I see it, I may struggle here and there with life, but it’s a good life that I have with my kids and husband. It’s filled with love and arguements and vibrant color — just the way it should be. If it were too easy, I’d take it for granted.
I lived as a ghost within the walls of my childhood home. Without my parents noticing that I was in pain and that I was struggling. Without my parents or brother realizing that I was drowning, or for that matter, that I even existed. Maybe because of that, maybe that’s why I choose to be the way I am with my kids.
And when they get older, I will be ready to travel and they will ready to explore the world without me smothering them. To hell with the ghost that haunts me…
