the friendship game

i had a conversation with my friend steve yesterday, (as we were devouring burritos after a mad target run,) and we began talking about bipolar and relationships. now steve is bipolar too and while we only met last summer we have an affinity towards one another and a knowledge of each others struggles without even having to say a word. so we began talking and we went on about certain friends and major relationships in our lives. and i realized that i am still healing. 

three years ago i remember sitting on my couch in chicago crying with my roommate over lost relationships. prior to that conversation i had had dinner with my ex and the man who i still tell people saved my life. he and i talked about where i was in my life and how i was healing. and then he said he wanted his stuff back. now, i thought i had given all of his stuff back given that it had been about a year since the break up, but i suppose distance and time makes it easy to forget your own familiar possessions. so he wanted them back, the "stop making sense" dvd, the bob dylan cds, and the "speedology" book written by speed levitch. in this conversation he also gave back the love letters that i wrote him before i ever met him. they were the letters i wrote to the man that i would love forever, the man that would change my world and the meaning of love in my young eyes. and he did. and though our relationship is vastly different i will never argue my love for him. he will always hold that space in my heart. even josh knows this. but anyways, back to the story. he wanted his things back and he gave things back that were his and only his. and after the exchange took place and he left the apartment i fell apart. and then i cried on my roommates shoulder. i cried over the fact that it was my depression that prematurely ended our relationship and made it impossible to reunite. i cried because it was what i thought was my inability to truly love and have a healthy relationship because i was diagnosed as bipolar. 

i then thought about the rift between my childhood best friend and our broken relationship after a series of events that tore us apart as i spiraled around death and she ran to save herself. i cried and cried and told my roommate that i didn't think i was worth having as a friend, i didn't think that i was worth loving and that i was some diseased person that would only ruin lives and break hearts. and my roommate said that it wasn't true and she wouldn't leave me.

back in my conversation with steve i explained these things and went on to explain that it wasn't actually anyones fault. i told him how i have come to realize that i actually did the best i could and so did they. some people don't know how to handle times of trauma. i now know that i didn't know how to handle it and neither did they. we all just needed to ride the ride and then we all grew from there. i have now reconciled with my best friend and we are closer then we ever have been. i will always keep my ex-boyfriend in my life and though it might take him a long time to come to terms with everything that happened we will always hold a connection that few people can experience.

i then told steve about what seems to be my growing distance with my old roommate. the roommate that i cried to the night my relationships fell apart. i don't know if our new distance comes from our physical distance or our busy schedules, but i always find i hold a certain amount insecurity and fear. i am still recovering and still realizing that sometimes relationships are hard and terrifying, even when you are "normal" and not bipolar. some people float in and out of our lives, some people are like ghosts that appear when you least expect them then disappear, but some people find a place where they become a constant and a power that can never be lost in your mind. these are the good ones and the good ones always come back.