Regret, regret and regret

About six weeks ago I lost my best friend; my closest confidante; my primary life consultant; my greatest source of inspiration and of hope for this society. He played some central role in every purpose and life endeavor that is important to me. He meant all of this to me and much more. I lost him under baffling circumstances. It's still hard to imagine ever fully recovering.

I seem trapped in an endless cycle of grief, anger and love. Grief… anger… love… grief… anger…

When the anger; the outrage takes over, it is the briefest cycle. I imagine fighting back; throwing damning judgement in his face, and there I immediately despair. Despite the immense hurt he so easily; so chillingly heartlessly delivered me, there is still nothing so horrible to me than the thought of him being hurt; and to be hurt by my own words or actions? The thought of that is immediately agonizing. I would still rather die than allow that.

I am worn down. I am threadbare. I wonder does he regret words he said in some moment of drug-induced other-mindedness? And might he wish to re-connect but the thought of such a perilous conversation it is too frightening for one with such crippling anxieties?

It’s inconceivable to me that he wants nothing to do with me. The idea is completely crazy; completely insane no matter how I look at it. How incredibly different our perspectives must be, though I cannot imagine how they could have become so. Does he imagine I have been dishonest about something? I have been utterly profoundly honest with him at every single moment.

I have also failed to demonstrate the depths of my wisdom and intelligence (where soever they may rank. I’m not bragging). I have been so patient; never eager to reveal the products of my work and insights; letting him guide the realms; the limitations in which we explore, which is often a place trapped within certain illusions which I have defeated and which he has not.

We seem to never have opportunities to build upon these evolutions because of the long frequencies he dictated between our visits and the changes in his perspective which would always occur between visits. He seemed always to change his mind about everything between visits and so the progresses I envisioned would be abandoned over and over again. And I was too patient to urge us along any path which he’d lost interest in.

I regret not being firmer than that and not leading us toward available progress. I certainly regret being so lazy during these last years and not producing published books or more-functional music; not giving him a better look at my potential as a creator. I have always been more concerned about his own progress than mine. Part of that, I’m sure, is my laziness manifesting as seeing myself as a coach and not a producer, as a Morpheus and not a Neo, and he as the one who would learn from me and bring my own potentials to life, enclosed within his own.

And I certainly regret being so amenable to his secretiveness. It’s so strange in hindsight that I did not fully acknowledge how important it apparently was to him to keep our relationship quiet, nor the degree of it. I treated all the signs like they were something a little different than what they were.

Was he always planning to not remain lifelong friends? Was he using me all along? Heartlessly trying to manipulate possible insights out of me; solutions to his problems, without any loyalty whatsoever? And now he tragically thinks that that’s all there is? When in fact he has gleaned a tiny insignificant fraction of what I have to offer?

After all the neglect; the “radio silence” which some of his alienated friends refer to, I must wonder if these were periods where he was trying to lose me. Hoping I would go away? Without him having to summon the courage to tell me to go away?

To assume such would be to call him a liar. To say this out loud now makes it feel absurd. He told me I was one of his two best friends (without offering a specific ranking). He told me on occasions that he wanted to move in with me; and not that I asked. He told me I meant a lot to him. He told me of a book he much enjoyed and when I asked what he liked about it, he said that the author “sounded like me.” He told me once that he was sorry he hurt my feelings; not that I revealed that to him much. I ate 99% of my hurt feelings, not wanting to burden him.

He was like a son to me and I never doubted I would die for him the same as any father would say of their child. Would I really though? Who could ever know? I really think I would. Yes, I really do. Even now.