I’ve had a rough week. I have some sort of sinus problem invading my head and really seriously injured grandmother. She fell, somehow, and is disoriented and looks like she ended up on the other side of the ring from Mike Tyson. It’s rough and it’s more than I was prepared to handle this short holiday week.
In times of crisis..times of emotional and/or physical infirm states, I reach for my one true addiction. It’s not a bottle, not a pill, not food. I don’t exercise to keep my mind right. I don’t crawl into bed and shut the windows.
My addiction is The Friend.
The Friend is the memory that eases my mind. He makes me feel like I am understood, identified with, cherished, maybe even loved. And like a little bit of alcohol..I think one drop won’t hurt me…especially if I ‘deserve it’.
A bit of The Friend takes my mind to another place, where he is literally the only part of my life that makes sense…and where I don’t think about any other bad things that are occurring. What mattered was how we were getting to the football game, what joke we were telling this week, and if he texted me. Too much was never enough.
But about two weeks ago I took his number out of my phone again, after a drunken night of pleading with him to return texts. You see, the day prior, he begged to speak to me. And then the next day was nowhere to be found.
So as I drove home from work and thought about my grandmother’s state, and my physical exhaustion from my cold, I decided that if I couldn’t get The Friend, I’d at least get a piece of what used to bed.
So I went into the house, pulled out a brand new set of satin sheets, put them on my bed, turned out the lights, turned off the TV, and put on the radio–ESPN radio to be exact.
I put on a piece of lingerie, slipped between the two silky sheets, and listened to radio show after radio show of coaches I don’t know much about from teams I never follow. I closed my eyes and remembered all those nights we spent at his house, in the dark, listening to ESPN radio…coaches call-in shows, games, early morning crews. A tear trickled down my face…but it was a tear of relief. I got my fix. I felt at ease.
Funny, I gave myself that Friend fix without talking to him at all. And this morning, like magic, I had a text waiting. I won’t fool myself into believing that he could sense, in some sort of alternate universe, that I needed him. I’ll just say that I have never been so glad to see the unknown number in the inbox.
“Word” was all the text said, and I began punching out a long response of “OMG I’ve needed you and didn’t know how to get in touch with you my grandmother..” but I erased it.
I don’t want The Friend to empathize, sympathize, or pity me. I don’t want him to stop being The Friend and start being himself because of a crisis. The last time I had a crisis I called him. It felt better but not for long. I needed him in another way, I realized.
I simply typed “Word.” and let the conversation flow. From orange pants to our all time top five hook ups (together of course). I told him about my sheets and the radio, about how cute his face is when he stretches. I asked him all the silly questions “Am I cute?” “Do you miss me?”
When we hung up three hours later, I still felt shitty. My grandmother is still sick, I’m sill sick. Nothing in my reality changed for the better. And The Friend wasn’t any closer to ever being mine.
But the conversation was worth it. It took me out of my element, coated my brain in a happy sauce, and let me tune out for a little while. I felt loved, and missed, and like nothing had changed.
But flirting with him sort of deadens my senses and makes things right, even for a brief second. I should feel bad for it, but I sort of don’t.
I am The Blonde and your love is my drug. Stop me when I start telling you of my epic wins.
