New Source of Pain

There's a new source of pain in my life and, as usual, I can't blame anyone for it. As you all know, big changes in barometric pressure and long-ish car rides cause me intense pain. No one can control the weather and no one forces me out on long car trips so I can't blame anyone. This latest source of pain is a little less obvious but I'm not vindictive enough to blame anyone for things beyond their control these days. The latest source of intense pain in my life comes from former heroes who have failed to live up to my expectations.

Long time readers may remember "The Big Three" and (only since I've mentioned them) wondered what ever happened to my search for them. The truth is that I found two out of three which is amazing since all I had for the third was a first name and the state in which she was born. Also, I felt that my link of friendship to #3 was the weakest and the most likely to get me hurt. Therefore, I decided to wish dear old Caroline the best from afar and not bother looking anymore. Finding the other two was a seemingly impossible enough task to occupy those spare moments when the pain allowed me to think.

One turned out to be actively hiding from someone but not from me so I asked a third party to ask her to contact me. She did and we exchanged a few amusing emails before I remembered why it was so easy to part ways before. Even when we were kids and life was simpler in some ways, she wasn't the type to do things like return phone calls or take one step out of her way to stay in touch. I enjoyed the challenge way back when and I wasn't terribly surprised when our email exchange stopped before it had a chance to truly renew our friendship. It's okay. I loved her like a sister or a cousin or something before despite knowing this about her.

Finding the first person on that list was a big deal to me. I spent a lot of time pondering how it was that I failed to just run into her while at a restaurant with Melissa somewhere. Well, it turns out that we live in an awfully big world and some of us spread out into it. Melissa moved from New York to Delaware to be with me and that's what matters. Perhaps she had moved as far away as Sussex County, Delaware. Then again, there are 49 other states in this nation and it was possible that she had moved abroad. That just didn't fit into my view of the world and no one should dare not fit into my view of the world! In fact, I found her and she had moved outside Delaware.

Well, I am over the hurt from her but she's an easy example to use while explaining the hurt from others. Why was I hurt by her? Had she done me wrong in some terrible way? Well, no. What happened? When I was 15 years old, I considered her a miracle worker for her way of helping me survive my life. I was ready to cash in my chips (Yet another euphemism!) because I was a terrible person and a failure at everything. Mostly what she did was treat me like a human being when others did not while being almost half as pretty as Melissa whom I didn't know yet. If she could be kind to me and treat me as a friend which is an upgrade from human being, I couldn't be all that bad. She became my hero and she protected me from my mostly unfounded fears of high school.

What changed that? Well, nothing changed it long term. There are far too many days when the pain leaves me with no one to blame and she'll never know any better so I pick her. Otherwise, she grew up just like I did. Her life seems more normal to the outsider (like me) than mine might but I'm sure it has its own difficulties. After all, I'm terribly behind in all my correspondence with people who matter a whole lot to me and I do have a lot of time on my hands. Obviously, regular readers would know that coping with pain takes up all but a little of this time but you can't see that from far away. Knowing what little I know and won't make public, I can believe that she has things to do that are far more pressing than trying to renew a friendship with someone who is a distant memory.

So, what's really bugging me? There were other heroes from the bad old days when I took abuse all the time because I didn't know better. I used to fantasize that these people would catch my parents breaking my spirit and tell me that I deserved better. I fantasized that these people would find me a sanctuary where I would be appreciated for the person I was and not for who I might be if I were cured of all my flaws. Apparently, they didn't see it or so I thought at the time.

One by one, these older adults whom I fantasized about saving me have decided to continue looking the other way. Thankfully, I didn't need them. They are part of my past now along with my parents. The pain isn't gone, of course. It will come back at the most inconvenient times just as the pain of the cruel words, nasty looks and acts of humiliation from my parents do. My real family, aka the New York family, offers me the love and acceptance that I need and I married the most wonderful woman in the world. It took me a long time to get here but I'm feeling like my old high school friend might reply to my thanks about treating me as a friend with one word. That word might be "duh!"