Gone too Soon

This past weekend, someone I used to train with committed suicide. I hadn't seen or talked to him for the past 6 years but a mutual friend found me on Facebook and gave me the news. It's hard to define how I feel right now. I have lost several friends and relatives but never by suicide.

Rick and I were never really friends but we did spend a lot of time together. We trained together in karate for 4 years but we were more acquaintances than anything else. I always found him arrogant and was intimidated by his bravado. He was one of those macho guys who seemed to take pleasure in causing other people pain and embarrassing them. I imagined he kissed his biceps every morning when he looked in the mirror.

Like a lot of people who study martial arts (myself included) I'm sure Rick was driven by something in his past. Physical or sexual abuse? Shyness? Fitness? Self Esteem? Trying to cope with anger/loss? Hyperactivity? These are all reasons that people I know have given for studying martial arts. The decision seems to always stem from a decision to take control of your life and cope with or escape from your past.

Rick was a very accomplished martial artist, achieving a black belt in three different styles and gaining some notoriety on the amatur mixed martial arts circuit. He married his high school sweetheart and had a good job. He seemed to have it all together but obviously he had demons that none of us knew about.

I am surprised by how much I am thinking about him and reminiscing about the time we spent together. I keep going to his wedding website and old karate pictures where he is smiling and happy. I analyze episodes from our past together for clues of his depression and honestly I can find several but that always happens in hind sight. I know I wouldn't have been someone that he confided in. I doubt he was secure enough to show that side to anyone. I wonder if years of putting on a front and acting like nothing bothered him was too much for him. I wish someone could have stopped this.

It's so strange that I want to reach out to his family. I'm sure he never mentioned me. I had never mentioned him to anyone outside of karate before this happened. I probably wouldn't have ever thought of him again if he were still alive. But there is something about losing someone in this way that makes you appreciate that person's life more. It erases all the negative thoughts that used to come to mind when I thought of him. All I can think about is Rick, a misunderstood 32 year old man who couldn't beat his demons and a brilliant life over way too soon.

The Kind of Girl I Am

I’m the kind of girl who didn’t have girl friends as a little kid. All of my friends were boys and I was having coed sleepovers from the time I was 3 through college. I enjoyed spending time with my father more than my mother and loved to play and watch sports and get dirty. As I got older I realized a lot of girls were tomboys and I wasn’t that unique. But event though I got more girl friends I never became as comfortable with women as I am with men.

I am also the kind of girl who likes to wear cute clothes and pretty dresses and have people tell me how fabulous I look. I have an extensive jewelry and accessory collection to coordinate with all my outfits and love to shop (alone of course or maybe just with my husband early in the morning before the mall is crowded). When I was younger, I felt like I had to be either the tomboy or the girly girl. Depending on which friends I was with, I only exposed them to one part of my personality.

Somewhere along the way I started to separate other items that were unrelated to being feminine or masculine into each column. The problem with being a straight woman and having all of your closest friends being male is that you end up falling for them. And depending on which you they got to know, you can spend years in a relationship and not have that person know important details about your life. I remember that my boyfriend in college didn’t know that I did volunteer work. I participated in an all-night volleyball tournament at a local high school to raise money for a local charity and I actually lied to him about where I’d been that night. In my silly little 21-year old brain volunteer work was feminine. My boyfriend and I played on the same intramural sports team and spent a lot of time hiking and doing outdoor activities. He made jokes when I wore dresses to class; there was no way I could let the feminine me out.

Another problem with dating someone after being their best friend for years is that they say things to you that they would never say to their girlfriend but have no problem saying to their best friend. So they talk about how hot other girls are and forgot to treat you like a girl. They stomp on your self esteem on a daily basis and then wonder why you’re moody. They don’t remember your birthday or buy you romantic gifts because you’re still one of the guys even though they have sex with you and sleep next to you every night.

Or worse yet, they fall for you and you don’t return the feelings. So you lose your friendship to this horrible awkwardness and you can never get back what you had. And by no fault of your own you are the bad guy and all of your friends feel bad for him because you broke his heart. Some of your other friendships also suffer because they side with your friend. They never think that maybe you are hurting from the position that you were put in. And when you fall for one of your friends and he doesn’t return your feelings the same thing doesn’t happen. It’s a total double standard.

Five years ago, and four years after my last relationship, I was lucky enough to meet my husband. I feel in love with him the moment I met him and we became best friends and a couple all at once. He knows all sides of me and helps me to feel more confident in myself than I ever have before. When I met him I left behind a lot of the baggage that I had collected over the years. Unfortunately, Facebook has brought a lot that baggage back.

All of these people that I haven’t talked to in years, and truly, I didn’t think I would ever talk to them again and I was okay with that, are back in my life. Old boyfriends, high school friends, distant relatives…everyone. I love Facebook because it helps me to connect with people that I care about that live far away but while I’m sharing with them all of these other people are peering into my life and learning things about me that I would never have shared with them.

So I get defensive when they make ignorant comments because I feel like I have defend myself but then I get mad at myself for letting them get to me. If I go off on them about why they’re wrong, years of pent up emotions and grudges from 15 years ago will also come up and I’ll look like a complete ass that has been holding onto all of those feelings for years. But that’s not completely true. I had buried those feelings and those incidents years ago and moved on to other things. But because there was no closure, there was no incident where I got to stand up for myself and set them straight, I automatically go back to that time and the feelings that I had at that time.

Alas, I love Facebook and am addicted to it so I must deal. I have to remind myself that their dumb comments on my page are not important because in the grand scheme of things they aren’t important. My true friends, the people that I love and who know me aren’t the ones who are saying those things. And if they are, then I get to tell them off because I’m going to have to deal with them for years to come and I will not let another minute of my life go by without being my true self or letting others make me feel insecure. Grr.

Breaking Up is Hard

Phil, my boyfriend from 9th grade. I'm a jerk. I'm sorry I wrote you a note and broke your heart. But you had to know that you were just the rebound boyfriend from Jared and that I was just using you to boost my self esteem. Because of you, I put up with people's crap much longer than I should because I fear that they to will accuse me of being a liar and quitting without really trying. Steve, Adam, Christian, ditto. Just insert a different ex-boyfriend's name.

Shortly after Phil, there was Lisa. My best friend in intermediate school. We definitely went in different directions in high school but she still told everyone we were best friends. It wasn't hurting me and really, I was no where near as cool as I thought I was. So why did I have to write you that note spelling it out, sending you crying from the lunch room. To this day her family hates me even though Lisa and I made up just a couple years later. Popularity is fleeting. I wish I were a better person back then. It is because of you that I will never turn down a friend request on Facebook no matter how brief my interaction was with the requester.

Sure, I told my freshman college roommate that I would room with her again sophomore year and then went to the housing office and changed my preference but that sort of passive break up is much easier on the soul. For most of my late teens and 20's I just let relationships get to the point that they were complete crap and then the other person ended them. I would always be surprised when they ended the relationship like it was some tragic loss. I was sad because I had lost something familiar, not something that was valuable in my life. A couple days later I always realized that the relationship had been gone for a long time and that I'd been wasting my time for years. Then I was angry at myself for being the victim and not taking the initiative to end it myself. Of course, I repeated this cycle over and over again. I'm sure a therapist would have a field day with this.

Lately, the people I have collected would best be described as acquaintances. These are people that you meet by chance or circumstance that you don't really consider your friends but they somehow find a way to weasel themselves into your life. The girl at the gym who always says hi to you who one day asks if you want to sit together when you bump into her at the food court. You say yes because it seems harmless and then spend the next 4 years of your life trying to unfriend her. Or better yet, the woman who you meet at a business conference who finds out that you both have dogs and like to run and is suddenly planning play dates and races. One week later you find out that you have nothing in common with this girl (seriously, how many people in the world have dogs and run, that's really not the basis for a friendship) but somehow find yourself going to parties at her house and dragging your husband to dinner with her and her miserable husband for an uncomfortable evening of bad conversation and nervous laughter.

Is there a target on my back that says "Please become excessively clingy to this woman and feed on her like a parasite"? The funny thing is I'm really not a nice person. Sure, if we're friends I am nice and compassionate but to the outside world I am bitchy, sarcastic, opinionated, obnoxious, inappropriate and loud. But that seems to be what attracts people. "Oh Denise you're so funny" or "You are crazy" are said to me on a regular basis. No really, I meant it when I told you to go away and I can't stand you. It wasn't a joke. How can I let my guard down when I meet new people without worrying that I'm going to end up with another leech? It's almost impossible not to be mean to these hangers-on because they just don't get the subtle comments. But I probably won't be mean. I'm all talk at this point. Maybe two out of every 10 leeches will get released. I'll just deal with it until one of us moves or they get the point.

Oh John, you were a horrible personal trainer. That's why I kept cancelling our appointments. You are a total meat head who spent more time looking in the mirror and flirting with the skinny girls than you ever spent on me. You never even listened to me talk. I'm glad that you no longer work at Bally's so I don't have to worry about hiding from you when I'm in the mall. Just because I'm not skinny doesn't mean that I've never worked out before. You talked down to me and made me feel like crap and I hope that someone tells you this before you ruin someone else's self esteem.