so there i was, zzzz-ing away the evening, when i'm like, what's that clanging noise? the house is quiet, so pretty much any noise sounds loud, and even through the closet door and my box door, i'm finding this one pretty clatter-rific. so i say, mostly without thinking, "ugh, what is that sound?" and ariel says, "mfphl," and sasha says, "rrhmg," and elle says, "sounds like the dryer to me."
anyway, now i'm awake and i find msg in the living room looking glum, and he looks up and sees me and says, "oh, crap. i'm sorry, i didn't mean to wake you up."
"uh-huh," i say. "you realize, i hope, that if you're sitting around upset in the dark because something is keeping you from sleeping, it's actually worse if you didn't mean to wake me up than if you did? 'cause now not only do i feel unintentionally woken up, but i don't even get the compensation of knowing you woke me up because you knew i'd want to help?"
"oh," he says. "sorry. yeah, i guess that's worse."
so i sit down next to him and put my hand on his knee and say, "well, make it up to me by letting me fix things. what's wrong?"
he sighs. "people just kind of suck."
"ouch! damn, that one's actually a ways outside my ability to fix. got an easier one?"
"sorry."
"you keep saying that, and it's part of the problem. quit it. i don't need an apology, so when you act like you need to give one, it's really just a form of beating yourself up."
"s-- ... erp, i mean, sure."
"so what's up? besides us two."
"i had a dream, and [former friend about whom he has abandonment issues] was in it, and now i'm stewing over it. i'm tired, i have work tomorrow, i need to get some rest, but my brain won't let me go back to sleep."
"so it's not really that people kind of suck, it's that [__] kind of sucks."
"no, [__] is just symptomatic. i mean, look around at the world. there's --"
"bzzt! wrong. [__] kind of sucks, and you can't handle that. you put all this emotion and energy into a friendship it turned out you couldn't rely on, and you want it to not be the way it is, but there's nothing you can do to change the way it is, so you're up doing laundry and moping and beating yourself up and making excuses for [__] by thinking that people in general suck, when what your problem really is, is, [__] in specific sucks."
"okay, but it's not like i didn't do my share to screw things up, and --"
"bzzt! again, wrong. sorry, babe, you are mister wrong-o-matic tonight. yep, you stepped in it in a couple of ways. but real friends deal with that kind of thing and work it out. instead, [__] just left you high and dry, and couldn't even be bothered to respond when you tried to patch things up. it's great that you're willing to bear your share of the blame, but even if you're 60-40% to blame for the friendship getting off-course, [__] is 100% to blame for ditching you."
"i suppose. but --"
"listen, normally, this is the part where i would entice you into having sex with me and hit you with that flood of love and satiation that i know would totally do the trick putting you back in snoresville. only i'm looking at you and you are soooo droopy and obviously sleepy, i'd feel bad about keeping you up for that. so howzabout you go get back in bed and put your sweet, brainy head on the soft, soft pillow and just think about how right your girlfriend is until you fall asleep again."
"if i wasn't so tired, i'd encourage you to try that enticing part."
"i know you would. let's mark it on our calendar for tomorrow."
"okay."
and then i kiss him and he goes back to bed and everything is fine.
stupid [__]. now i can't get back to sleep!
grr.
(not really. i'm a pretty forgive-and-forget type. goodnight, all!)
xoxo,
claire
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