Give Peppermints A Try

Thursday, January 18, 2007, 7:10pm

There is a girl in my Sociology class eating Violet Mints. For those of you who don't know what Violets are, they are a kind of candy. A candy I despise. They smell like bathroom freshener to me - but that's neither here nor there.

The thing is Urban Red loved Violet Mints. So watching this co-ed munch on them made me think of U-Red. I haven't spoken to her since 2003. (2003!) That's amazing to me because she and I were closer than panties and ass. We talked on the phone constantly, we went on trips together, we were entwined into each other's families, we had each other's backs and we laughed together constantly. We supported each other through some really tough times - abuse, divorces, being poor as hell, raising our kids, and family crisis's.

The odd thing is as much as we loved each other we were very different. Sometimes differences in friendship is a good thing. It helps to pull each one out of themselves in a way. However, differences are sometimes encumber friendship. I think our differences definitely stood in the way of our friendship in some ways. It's easier to say necessary things to people you feel are like you. It's hard to let someone unlike yourself beyond your boundary point. But I did it anyway. I let her in.

If you are a wimp like me, it's hard to say difficult things to people because you don't want to hurt them. Also, if you are a wimp like me you have let these difficult things fester - now they seem bigger than they actually are........then you get mad......... you get depressed.......you implode. I failed to assert myself - sometimes I failed to separate my self. This led to resentment. Probably resentment on both our parts. She probably resented my neediness, my unrealistic perception of the world, my............well, let's just say there is a long list of things she may have resented about me. But like me she kept mum - and allowed me beyond her boundary point as well.

The thing about a relationship like this, with these kinds of people is an explosion or implosion is bound to inevitable. I imploded. U-Red is not the type to implode, she exploded. And we never fixed it. We never tried to find a way to have a different relationship. One with boundaries.

How do you start over? Every time I consider our friendship and subsequent break I can't get to the part where I know how to start over. I don't know if I've grown enough to do it right. I know I don't have the energy to do it wrong again. I don't know if I care enough anymore. So until then, I think about her. Less often than I used to but I still think about her. How is she? How did she fare after the storm? How is my god son? Is she happy? I think about the fun we had, how we laughed and cried together.

But for now, I'm wondering why is this girl eating those stinky Violet Mints in class?