A little someone keeps hassling me to post someone, so hold on to your knickers....
When I first came to Charleston, the hardest transition to triumph was the new core group of friends I soon acquired - mostly due to gender. I had become accustomed to a male majority where drama definitely existed, yet wasn't given the power to stifle one's ability to have fun. Let's be honest, that was mostly due to the fact that is was the fucking Danger Crew - good times weren't an option, rather a requirement. Then came Charleston, with the bitches and the bickering, and I found myself break on more than one occasion, screaming "get me the hell out of HERE!"
Alas, I am now going on my seventh year in the Holy City, my armor dented by betrayal, lost loves and friendships, and my patience as thin as a sewing needle. As my friend Kim so eloquently stated from time to time, "I have a limited bullshit tolerance," and I find myself following such a remark as a day to day mantra, culminating in my latest confrontation ending with a simple yet sizeable 'fuck off.' Avoiding sounding like a recipe from the most recent self help manual, it's not that life is too short to deal with such trivial theatrics, but moreso that it simply isn't worth the effort put forth in attempts to keep certain emotional trainwrecks from running their course.
It's no secret of mine that I attend therapy twice a month and take medication daily to pretty much save me from myself. With such a dramatic group of friends here in Charleston, it's easy to get wrapped up in their troubles and postpone working through my own. Recently, I've begun to feel the burdens of such selflessness and the wall I've built around my own issues has started to decay, causing some to spill out unexpectedly, sending me into a nostalgic whirlpool of bad decisions and sad memories. I've come to terms with some of those choices and assumed responsibility for my actions.
Yet now I've started to worry that I'll never be content. I don't wish for happiness anymore. Happiness is fleeting, present in moments and memories, only existing in life's honeymoon periods, but never tangible. I simply wish for contentment, a feeling a calm- perhaps only achievable by less contact with estrogen.
Now back to mending my wall.
11 comments:
after most of the crew split up and made thier ways east or west, i found myself with few friends locally. having spent the five or so previous years with various iterations of the danger crew i was at the best spoiled and at the worst a total ass when it came to friends. i was piss poor at making new ones b/c no one was as good as the ones i already had.
so after a long period of realative isolation, i nearly had a total fucking meltdown. between working for meditz (seriously fucking boring 9 to 5), problems with my girlfriend and all my friends being away, i cracked and lost it. when i came through on the other side i was humbled (yes, me) and not feeling so fucking supieror anymore. and i started making friends again. and a few of them actually rank in the pantheon of GREAT friends.
so on the whole i'd say i'm friendlier now, and i'm happier for it. as for drama, it's what you let it be. any drama that's happened in my life is %99 my fault anyway, and any drama that's not not 99% yr fault can be easily shrugged.
of course, the majority of my friends are male, and this makes things easier, though for diffrent reasons for me than for you i suppose.
we'll probably never find friends again as good as the danger crew, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying.
well said you two. friends are hard to come by. i hate almost everyone. i often find myself thinking i just don't care. however, no man is an island. i have often been prone to long periods of isolation. why? i guess that's just who i am.
as for male/females i'll i can say is its really hard to connect with others. if you can find people you like regardless of gender its important to suffer bullshit and put forth the effort. that said i often give up and retreat.
i think what all of the danger crew have i common is that we all love each other very much. i feel lucky to have some friends that i can say this about.
i don't think it's so hard connecting with others. i guess it's my personality plus five years of being a bartender...if i'm in a decent mood i'll just start talking to almost anyone. kinship is easier to find than you might think in most situations. most people are thinking the same things as you- i just want to get to the end of this fucking day so i can do whatever the fuck i want.
people love to be talked to and they love to talk about themselves. i've found you can bait most people with a few simple questions and next thing you know they're telling you what they're all about. it's fun, but it's also a job. i do find myself hiding alot when i'm out downtown- so many people think i'm thier close friend, when in fact i was just doing my job.
but you carry your work with you into your life, out of habit if nothing else. if you make great coffee at work, then you're probably going to make it at home, and if you make friends for a living, your going to do it when your off. i love it though. most of the people i meet aren't that cool, but through sheer numbers i make new friends, and i love them.
maybe i'm a little more dismal, rick though i find that hard to believe, but every man is an island.
the bridges and connections we've all made are far more important than delving too deep into that argument though, as it's bullshit in itself.
we can't fully understand other people, to a greater degree i feel we can't begin to comprehend ourselves. bias, perspective, and the well tried truth that the greatest lies we tell are the ones we tell ourselves.
i've learned more about myself through all of you than some skewed ass internal argument, and not in a selfish way, but in the way i wouldn't understand on the level i do what an idiot i can be, an asshole, a charming son of a bitch on a few occasions, and a confidant amongst a million other things.we reflect each other in different ways, and what isn't common remains intriguing to me as much as the shared interest and experience. a constant source of excitement. i think it's equally important that the same has gone out to everyone else, and hope i've provided in kind. it's not about me, or you, but about us. all the silly, trivial, and genuinely exciting times are great. the frustrating what the fuck times are great. the quiet don't speak times are great.
take one element out and it all falls apart. foils, foibles, and fuck ups.
from being out here for three years, i went from complete immersion and my own craziness to a complete void for the most part, which can be an equal headtrip in itself. i've had my adventures here, don't get me wrong, but with the lack of regular common understanding and the unspoken communication that comes with just being in the vicinity of more than one close friend, it's time for a new chapter. it needed to happen no doubt, i've gotten closer to pete than i ever would have been, and had genuinely good adventures. it's just different and feels like things are missing.
for me it's not that new friends aren't as good as the ones i have, i've used the excuse to block out the possibility of it even happening for the most part. there's a certain part of me that doesn't want any one to be as important and influential on who i am as all of you. that's a fault of mine for sure in some ways, but i feel it's probably true to a degree among all of us.
i hate other people simply because they're not all of you. so go fuck yourselves.
shit happens, things change, but what is surprising in a way to me only because other people find it peculiar, is that we have so many good friends that have stayed in touch on a serious level, and even those of us that have slipped up in certain relations, the fact that we can see each other and pick up like no time has passed is special.
no weirdness. no "oh that's my OLD friend so and so". shit is the same. respect, interest, excitement. i think if you look outside of us, we're a bit of a rarity as a group, and there's a reason for that somewhere in each of us.
drunky mcbabble. Love you all. Looking forward to seeing you all, and meeting some of your new friends, whom i will hate and be jealous of, but will warm up to for the same reasons you did.
holler bitches. i've got a beer to drink.
yeah my old friends are my best friends, no doubt.
but the best thing we can do, in the danger spirit, is to try to make that magic that happened with all of us happen again. and again. i've been pretty guilty of living in the past, but i'm trying to change that. i want to make what happened then happen again, now.
in that way that it could happen now.
i don't want to haunt old times anymore...i want to make things dangerous in new ways here and now. and of course i want us all to be a part of it. so let's start hating and start living like we used to again. i mean listening, getting closer, sharing ideas, etc etc. and new people are always good.
you just got a harumph! outta me
p.s. that should be stop hating....and what is kind of harrrupmhhh, chris?
damn son. Blazing Saddles. Can I get a Harumphhh out of you?
what a can of worms laura opened with this one. this is why everyone should contribute ideas. V im talking to you.
someone said there was free cake in here
Good Lord - When Rick said he commented, I figured it was going to fall along the lines of "tighten the fuck up, you bout a bitch!" But Gentlemen, wow, I am flattered that you all took the time to (one) read my femi-blog and (two) that your responses were so genuine and heartfelt.
I am guilty not so much living in the past but holding in perhaps too high regard. That feeling of comfort has never existed in any other group of friends I've made here or in Columbia. The fact that it was completely normal to show up with a six pack at 3 in the morning, just to sit around and listen to honky-tonk Bob Dylan tunes, or head to the river god-knowing ready to make utter asses of ourselves.
I believe, before we all came together, we were all outsiders of some sorts. Whether it be in the familial, social, or religious realm, we all were kind of square pegs in a round hole - perhaps only subconsciously (some more than others) trying to fit in but not really working out. One by one we were brought into the fold that became the Danger Crew and nothing ever felt so good.
Then the inevitable occurred of splitting off and spreading out. I know that I hold my friends to a ridiculously high standard here. In some cases I want them to be cooler , more intellectual, analytical, outside the box individuals - what I was used to with you guys - where full throttle debate was equally embraced as comfortable silence. Yet I know in the back of my head, they can't be exactly the same. I wrapped myself up with certain friendships down here that I have drained me of any capability to enjoy myself on the level I did with the Danger Crew - focusing only on one of two people for friendship, ignoring those more worthy of attention. And I've paid the price - many have moved, are in preparation to move away, and all I will have left, in terms of those friendships, are majority missed opportunities.
I love you all for the past, the present, and the future. THank you for setting the bar so high, as anything less would be an insult. I know I'm a tough nut to crack and bitch with a whole lot of shit going on in her head. And I can get lost up there sometimes. So thank you for listening, giving me your insights, and continuing to accept me deeper than face value.
Seriously.
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