By John Goodman haileris2323@hotmail.com
Date: 19 September 2000

Downward Spiral

“I love you.”
“I love you too.”

A nightly litany that has become as empty to me as what I find Sunday morning.  Call and response, automatic answers, garbage in garbage out.  Once I savored how feeling would well up inside me, spilling out into words too small to contain my emotion, yet large enough to eclipse the world.   Now, I don’t fell a damn thing.  “Do I even still care for her at all?”  I ask myself in the quiet of my mind.  Long I stood inside my head, waiting for answers.

Silence.

Typical.  Why would I try helping myself to know what I feel?  Don’t bother to answer, it was rhetorical anyway.

Maybe I’m looking too hard, and the answer is what I’ve always suspected it would be.  I am empty.  I don’t feel at all, though I sometimes delude myself into thinking I do.  But if that were true, I’d be such an asshole.  And I don’t think I am.  Mostly, I’m confused, which is probably worse for every one in the long run.

*****************


“So how was school?”
“Oh, the usual, 1rst period sucked, second period sucked, et cetra ad infinitum.  You?”
“Much of the same, but during English, Sarah told me that Jared…..”

I don’t talk to her anymore.  I make her do all the talking.  Sometimes I pretend to be really out of it to shift the bulk of the conversation to her, other times I do it subtlety.  I really can’t think of anything to say, and I’m not sure I want to talk.  I like  being with her, not saying a word, holding her close, but in the beginning, we’d stay up chatting until 4 on a school night, and do it again the next day.  Now we have those conversations once in a blue moon.  Am I starting to get bored with her?  I don’t know, I don’t know ANYTHING these days.  I think it is very possible that I fell of the edge a little while ago, the world seems like I”m looking through a twisted window.   Maybe I should try to tell her, she knows me, she might be able to help me out of this….

“Love?”
“Yeah, Rob?”
“I… never mind, I gotta go make dinner.  I’ll call you later, ok?
“Ok….Is something the matter?  You’ve been acting strange lately…”
“Nah, everything’s coo.  Talk to you later! I love you!”
“I love you too.”

I’ll tell her tomorrow.

*****************

We’ve been busy.  I haven’t seen her in a month, and she couldn’t call me all last week.  My parents are breathing down my neck about my responsibilities and my school work.  I need another 50 pts. on my SAT’s to get that scholarship, and I KNOW I fell over the edge.  It happened the night one of my friends tried to kill herself.  We were having one of our mutual bitching about life talks on the phone, when he says,

“Rob, thanks for everything.  I want you to know I’ve always appreciated you being there for me. “
“Hey man, no prob.  You’ve always been there for me when I needed you, that’s what friends are for.  People don’t make good collectibles, they devalue with age and disuse.”
“I just wanted you to know that.  I really gotta go man.  Bye.”

And the next day he was in the hospital getting the bullet out of his brain.  I’ve lost it.  I’m gone.  And no one has seen it.  NO ONE.  Except the girl that I don’t even know how I feel about anymore.  She knows somethings wrong, and I can’t tell her till I know how I feel.  And I have a feeling, I won’t know how I feel until I tell her.  Life is real funny sometimes.  To coin a kindergarten phrase, so funny, I forgot to laugh.  I forgot to laugh.

That may be part of the problem.

*****************

“Jen.. I need to tell you something”
“What is it, love?”
Far from it.  Don’t mind me, my mind does interesting things, but see if you can’t find the play on words there.
“I… Jen I need some time…alone.”
“You want to get off the phone?”
“No.  I need distance.  From my friends, mom and dad, school.. everything.  Even you.
“I don’t understand.. If there’s something wrong, maybe I can help..”
“No!  You can’t help, only I can help myself. Jen, I don’t think that I love you.  Sometimes, I doubt I ever did..  I think it would be best if we stopped seeing each other.”
There, I said it. It’s out. I’ve made my decision.  And who knows, it may be the right one.  I feel, lightened, now that I’ve spoken, one secret lighter in my heart.
“….::click….”

I think… I made a mistake.

*****************

I’m on my bed. It’s almost time, only two more minutes.   I’m not confused any more, I know how I feel.  I’m not crazy anymore,  my mind is rational and sane.  Everything has become so clear.  The lights are off.  The only light comes from the digital wall clock.  One minute more.  I don’t know why I wait up for it. It’s 3:59:30 AM..  Almost there.  I’m crying. 4:00:00 AM.  Happy one year anniversary.  I found something out in the last two days. I know how I feel.  I know why I felt as I did.  I know every thing now.  I know.

And as I lay there on my bed, my tears coursed freely from my eyes   I always loved her.  I chased her away when I needed her most, and she will never love me again.
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