Over the past few days, I've been wallowing in a sea of self pity; trying to understand why things didn't work out between us. I've moved through parts of grieving, some faster than others, and have yet to fully stop and tell myself I'm over it. I feel in love with my best friend and you see it in the corny movies all the time but it didn't end the way those 2 hour comedys make it out. I'm not saying we're done forever and that this is the end but I know for now I'm too hurt to put myself through it again and she's going back to her old boyfriend. I don't know how to describe the feelings I'm having. There's some jealousy, some frustration being told she was over him and ready to start something with me, but more than anything there's love and some sympathy.
I love my best friend, even though I was hurt, even though I was told this is real and we could make this work, reassured time and time again that I was not a rebound. I still fell into that trap, that serene place where in the end I feel like a jackass. I told myself a few months ago that It wouldn't work out, that she isn't the person I want to share aspects of my life. As I look back I can't help but telling myself, "I told you so!" But there is a love for my best friend, it isn't romantic, almost sisterly, where I want to make her realize the things she's getting into and have those hard conversations and be there when it all crumbles down. I think that I can put my head back on and still be there for her. I'm not a guy on the sidelines waiting for his chance to swoop in, I'm over that, over feeling like I was used, over feeling like none of it meant anything. I know that I'm not waiting for her to work though these issues and while I tell myself that I could, I also don't want to be back in the same place I've been for the last few weeks, feeling lost.
There's a sense of sympathy that also resides there, not a bunch, but some. She left her previous boyfriend in the first place because he wasn't making time for her. She wasn't being made to feel special and I have some issue with that. All women are special and have the ability to be strong, capable, confident, sexy, beautiful woman, given the right encouragement. I know as men we put women down on the daily and while I wouldn't like to lump myself in, I've been on the front line, standing right next to everyone else taking my shots. I think that men who get a woman as special as my best friend have to earn that right and while I'm all for forgiving mistakes, I also think people should understand how severely they hurt other people. We shrug it off and throw a smile on for the day and tell them, "it's ok", while underneath, there's a piece of us that is taken. That won't come back but for the encouragement and building words of our peers and friends.
A wise man once told me, "They are men that carry hammers and men that carry rocks." That there are men who will destroy women and men who can build them up. I tell myself every day that I don't want to ever hold a rock again my hands are dry enough from the sand. That I want to use my work to build people up, that my actions and my words won't tear people down and while I may not have all the right things to say and how to act, I know the wrong things to say and how not to act and for now that will have to work.
So, I can sit here and live in my anger and jealousy or choose to love my best friend and be there to build her up. I think I'll carry a hammer for now!
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