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January 01, 2001
Happy New Year!
I hope you all had fun, and are now all sleepy and bleary-eyed as a result. I did, and I am -- spent the evening at Lee's, with Patrick, MuppetGirl, and MuppetBaby. And Lee, of course. (And I'm too sleepy and bleary-eyed to do the links, but they're both on the Links page...) Lots of munchies, loads of talking and giggling... and late Christmas and early birthday presents! Patrick gave me volumes one and two of the Buffy Watcher's Guide, which I stayed up until 4 o'clock this morning reading... well, okay, a large part of that was spend looking for pictures of Spike, because I'm sad that way. And Lee gave me my own copy of The Sims! Joy! Now I just need the computer to play it on, and so I am waiting very impatiently for my student loans checks to arrive. MuppetGirl gave me a very pretty, handmade Christmas card (which I think I left at Lee's by mistake...)
Yesterday afternoon, I employed a very effective method of warding off depression (the reason for which I'll get to in a minute): spending a wad of cash on new shoes. John Fluevog Derby Swirl boots, in this case. I've longed for a pair since I first moved to Boston, and had a friend who owned a pair -- I figure nine years is long enough, and yesterday seemed as good a time to splurge as any. (The soles have little angels on them, and proclaim me Satan-resistent! Always something to look for when buying shoes, I think...) I also found that flirting with the cute, scruffy shoe store boy cheered me up remarkably well. And hey, he has my address! (So I can get a catalogue... shame he didn't ask for my number as well...)
After the shoe purchase, I attempted to head for home -- an attempt that was thwarted by a broken-down train on the Green Line. You know it's bad when the conductor tells everyone they may as well just get off and walk... which I did, figuring that I'd just cut through the Prudential Mall (stopping in the bathroom on the way) and get on the Orange Line. I forgot one thing -- the people. The Pru was jammed with them -- and they were all of the walk-really-slow-and-stop-every-five-stes-for-no-apparent-reason variety. Arrgh. By the time I got to the Orange Line station, I was seriously contemplated whacking people with my big, heavy shoebox, just to get them to move. Finally got on the train, and headed for home, where I happily clomped around in my new boots, making a late lunch/early dinner before Patrick came to pick me up.
So. The reason for the depression. Remember, back a couple of months ago, when I talked about writing that letter to Eric? The one that confessed to him that I still have very strong feelings for him, and even though he lives far away, if he wanted to get back together, I would leap at the chance? (Well, it wasn't worded in quite that pathetic a way, but you get the idea.) We had talked about it, and he had told me that he was happy that I felt that way, but he just wasn't in any state to have a relationship with anyone. That if things changed, he'd let me know. Leaving me with the hope that he felt the same way, at least on some level. Ha. I called him Saturday night, to let him know I was back in Boston. He had told me to call him that weekend, and I know he's generally home Saturdays. He answered the phone, sounding all giddy and happy, and announced that he couldn't stay on the phone long, because he had a date over. Ouch. Okay, so it isn't that big a shock, really. I never expected him to be a hermit, pining away for me. But... ouch. I think I managed to get off the phone without whimpering, (after he said, twice, "I have a date tonight! What are you doing tonight?" Um, sitting home with my cat, thanks...) and then called my mom to cry on her shoulder (and she was logical about it, dammit!) I thought it through, and decided I just have to let the whole thing go -- I can't have feelings for him anymore, obviously, and I need to decide whether even being friends with him is doing me any good. (And I figure that it's good that he told me this time -- a few years ago, before that four-year gap when we weren't in touch, he neglected to mention he had a girlfriend until he called me to announce his engagement. A month or so after calling me to say that he wanted me to think about moving to the state he was currently living in when I got out of school. Yeah.) I had pretty much gotten over my unhappiness about the whole thing by last night -- until I checked my email in the wee hours of this morning. He'd sent me an email, bragging about his date. I don't know whether it was deliberate -- he's never seemed the type to play head games like this -- or just stunning insensitivity. Either way, it was in poor taste -- and I sent a terse reply that said "I'm happy for you, but given the fact that you know full well how I feel about you, maybe you could stop rubbing it in now." The sad thing is, I don't expect any sort of response. i don't think he'll even get it. He probably won't even notice that I was upset, and it won't cross his mind that he hurt my feelings a whole lot. Who knows, maybe he was trying to. Whatever the reason for it, it comes down to one thing: I have to let this go, and figure out whether I even want the friendship. He always was one of the people who knew me best -- and when we were dating, we were incredibly close. I always thought we were really close friends too -- though I had realized, in the past few months, that he's gotten remarkably self-centered. He's behaved in ways that have shocked me lately, and it's made me very sad. i don't want my memory of the sweet person he was to be tarnished by his current boorishness. So maybe just not talking to him, at least for a while, is the way to go. I don't know.
I'm going to go clomp around in my new shoes for a bit. Happy New Year, thanks for reading (my journal turns one year old this month! Woo woo!) and may this coming year be the best you've had yet...
(Oh, and please excuse the typos in this entry. AO-Hell has this annoying little quirk -- when I hit backspace, it takes me back to the last web page I looked at, and deletes the whole entry. It took me six tries to write this one, since I hit backspace so often. So, after much swearing and retying, I decided to just avoid backspace all together.)
Posted by Mary Ellen at January 1, 2001 11:29 AM