or just the one

If you insist on reducing everything to a life-changing moment, denying all of the countless events that made it so that one radical change was not just possible, but ultimately inevitable, then the moment I realized I was too nice happened when I got hit by a car and nobody did so much as stop by to see if I needed anything. I didn't even like these people, they weren't about to do me any favors, so why did I spend so much energy helping them? I always told myself it's just what any decent person would do, and maybe that's true, but if it is, none of them were decent people.

(We're ignoring all the other times people let me down when I tried to lean on them. The truth, of course, is that being everyone's doormat was not sustainable. But we can pretend for now.)

Practicing saying "no, I don't want to" is easy enough, but it's another thing entirely when someone's right there demanding emotional support. But the anger that I'd built up over the years of giving and giving and giving without so much as a word of thanks flowed through me then. So yeah, when the kid who said he couldn't pick me up from the hospital because he had nebulous plans to "hang out" with his new girlfriend came by the house and started complaining the relationship wasn't going well, I told him I didn't actually care about his sad white boy problems.

(Watching him go from "I need your support" to "fuck you, you stupid bitch" was priceless.)

Being casually but deliberately cruel, in case you're curious, is a good way to alienate your friends, but the only person who ever seemed to think of me as more than a walking source of favors was gone, so what did I care? I was done being nice. A few people, possibly to their credit, asked if I was okay, said this wasn't like me, and I just laughed. "Never fucking better," I said.

This lasted for, oh, a month or two. Then I spent all evening just staring at the wall, unable to move or think or do anything but wonder what the fuck I was doing to myself, and then when the sun came up I gave notice to my work and landlord, packed everything up, and skipped town.

At least it was good practice, I guess.

so many people

I've been thinking about this friend I had back in high school, a million years ago, who was just the nicest person you'd ever meet. She'd drop everything if you asked her, and I definitely asked a couple times. I'd have done anything for her because I had the biggest crush on her but I don't think she ever asked me for anything.

Like, one early September about ten years back I got way too drunk with her, and by "with her" I think she maybe had three beers, and the only part about the evening I remember is telling her I loved her, which . . . fuck, maybe I did, who even knows? I was young and upset about a boy whose name I don't even remember and I was very, very drunk. And you know, anyone besides her would have maybe talked to me about my little drunken confession, or acted a little different, but she was just too nice. Let me pretend it never happened.

Here's the thing though: girl was a goddamn doormat.

So about a year later--November, around her birthday--we're drinking again, right? She doesn't like big gatherings but she's invited, you know, half a dozen people, give or take. Two people show up. Me and her big brother. She doesn't say anything but there's this look in her eye, like something's snapped. She's not okay. But I ask, her brother asks, and she just says "I'm fine, I'm sure they're just busy," and starts drinking.

She's wasted by the time her brother takes off, and I get the check because it's her birthday and I walk her home, hold her hair back while she pukes, you know. The things you do for your friend who got too drunk on her birthday. The friend you might be in love with but you've been dutifully ignoring those feelings because thinking about them is . . . complicated.

I leave her some water and some ibuprofen and I crash on the couch in case she needs something in the morning (and also it's a long walk home and I'm broke). Over breakfast the next morning (if you can call 1 in the afternoon 'morning') she says thanks. Says she's glad that, just for once, someone is helping her with her problems. And for the rest of the day she talks to me about her life. Because of course she has problems, she just doesn't tell anyone about them. Until that day.

I moved out of town a few months later--it's a long story, filled with sighs--and we fell out of touch. These things happen. But like I said, I've been thinking about her lately. I hope she's found friends who will try to put her first sometimes--God knows I never did. And I hope she was at least a little pissed at me for that when she figured it out, that even her best friend, the one who loved her, walked on her just like everyone else.

We're all so many people throughout our lives. I hope she's become one of the people who realizes she's too good for fuck-ups like me.