Monday Night Bible Study and a Goodbye Explanation

Location: P-Town
Number of Showers Today: 0
Occupation: Baker
Number of Random Old Acquaintances Seen Yesterday: 1
Number of Friends Departed: 1

Last night to the young adult bible study at a young lady named Molly's house. I met Molly once just before Christmas at a gathering at Pastor Tim's house; She was really nice but kinda weird... Y'know that kind of "genius weird". She's really nice and every now and then she has a good joke/quip but then she abruptly stops being involved in the conversation and stares in to space. She's a fire fighter... Not a normal fire fighter - she pilots helicopters and fights forest fires all over the US, Canada, and Mexico; and she's 23. Turns out that she's getting her masters in National Security and wants to join the FBI... do you "join" the FBI? I'm just reminding myself that society needs all kinds to function properly. We need bakers just like we need forest fire fighters and FBI agents, obviously though under different levels of importance and severity.

I left work late yesterday with a loaf of whole wheat bread and pumpkin bread in tote... On my way from the car to the apartment I saw my old acquaintance Liz strolling up the walk with her 3 year old son Bill. I've known she's lived near me for the last 5 months but because of one thing or another, any arrangements to meet up have been stopped. We talked for a bit and I gave up the 2 day old pumpkin bread as an offering of goodwill and meeting. I hope I get to see her more. Any time with people other than the ones I crochet or the ones that are trying to "parent" me is absolutely wonderful!

After bible study (which was pretty much awesome, not because of the people but because of the topic.) I called my homie Sam for probably the 16th time in the last two weeks. I had completely expected him to ignore me again like he has been; and if he had I was going to be leaving him a ridiculously theatrical voicemail about abandoning his fictional children and how his Oxycontin addiction is destroying our family.... .... ....

***Please hold***

.... .... ... I had to go shut my door, I had overheard way too much about D's gyno appointment this afternoon and the nausea inducing sounds of slobbery Dad and D kisses.... ... ... I can hear everything in their room..... ... ...

ANNNYWAY, back to what I was talking about. I had called Sam hoping to talk with him but knowing that I probably wouldn't be able to. I haven't spoken with him since the first Thursday in February when we went out for a late, late meal at my favorite Shari's in Olympia. That night he and I had a 5 hour conversation starting with the ludicrous amount of items on the Shari's menu that involve "Applewood Smoked Bacon", moving to his beliefs as an agnostic person and mine as a Christian. Then conversation went to the reason I want to go to school and reasons he thought I was going to go to school. Around 1am we left the restaurant and in the parking lot the conversation moved to a place we've been many, many, many times before - him being in love with me and me not reciprocating. This then lead to another hour long conversation standing between our two cars, the sky threatening at any moment to start falling down on us. I told him I just didn't feel the same way and that I would never date or marry a Non-Christian. That topic of course lead to him bringing up my past dating indiscretions. He confessed to me that he had always hoped I would learn to be agnostic too, just like him. Basically saying in not as many words that he thought I was smart and that I would choose the agnostic ideals because Christians are foolish to have their beliefs. When we parted that night he told me he didn't want me to change the way I acted toward him and that we would still be friends; just like we always had been.

Unfortunately though, things are not the same, I think I knew things had to change but I didn't want to think about it. He has been ignoring my calls for the last 2 1/2 weeks, which he confessed to be truth last night and not just something my intuition was telling me. He wouldn't talk, I tried to get him to talk with me like we always had, he wouldn't. Then I started to get mad. I spared my natural reaction for sarcasm and tried to mimic his usual habit of logic in crappy situations. I told him that if what he was trying to do was withdraw from me, ultimately being a jerk and ignoring me would work and thus he would be able to attach to someone else, some one he could have a relationship with. I asked him if there was anything else we could talk about, his response to my inquiry for the 27th time since the phone call started 10 minutes earlier was "I don't know." I was so mad, faining away all the emotion from my voice I could I told him I had to go to sleep and he could call me if he ever wanted to.

I was infuriated! I emotionally ate the dinner I had got myself with record speed, then did the only thing I could think of; Breath and then call Angie. At the time I didn't really know why I was so mad... but, obviously now I realise I was mad because I knew there was nothing I could do to make our friendship whole again. I had lost Sam. I called Ang and explained everything to her, by conversations end I wasn't mad any more, I was heart broken. I tried to go to sleep but to no avail. I could let our (mine and Sam's) last conversation be of me being a grumpy stupid head. I called him up... not really a big mistake but maybe I should have taken a few more deep breaths before dialing. I told him I'm sorry that everything is horrible, I'm sorry that I was a jerk to him on the phone about 3o minutes previously, I told him I understood why he didn't know how to be my friend right now, and if he ever wanted to, I am here for him to call. As I have tried to explain to many times to people, I had tried to explain to Ang why Sam is so important to me. He has special place in my heart. Out of all of the people I've met he understands my ADD infected brain more than any of them and underneath his crude humor and rude actions was someone who for some whacked reason wanted to accept me in all facets. I lost that person last night, officially.

This situation is ridiculous... and crappy... there is no resolution where both parties will be happy. I never thought in all my life that this would be something I... the weird looking, goofy, fat girl would have to worry about. Last night for maybe the 3rd time in my entire life I cried myself to sleep. Not quiet, lost crying like I did when my mom died, or the heart wrenching rejection tears I cried that one time Sister Sarah and I had a big fight, this was gross angry crying because I couldn't fix any part of it. It feels like he's gone and died, or worse, just disappeared without any form of resolution; I guess that's kind of what happened.

Life is so strange, even with different aspects of life falling apart because I'm staying true to myself and my beliefs I'm still the happiest I've been. I'm still stepping out of who I have been and becoming who I want to be. Which is a Gideon Friday after God's own heart, all of these things are just refining fire. I woke up this morning around 3am while rolling over and in those few seconds of awakeness that I would never call alertness the only thought I had was these lines from a random hymn I probably haven't heard in years, "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bare, what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer." Some may claim holy intervention, some may say my subconscious was just looking for answers. I say, God made me with a subconscious to store information so that he can use it to intervene with it whenever his holiness deems it appropriate.

-Ms. Friday