It was the best of times....

I just got back from an interesting little road trip (i.e.: unwanted thing for work), and come
home to find my best friend hurting, and there is nothing I can do about it. I know that he is and
grown man, and that he is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but the very thought of
him in such pain really brings out the "Mama Grizzly" in me.... We have been best friends for
well over 12 years, and as far as I am concerned, he is my family, and you just don't treat him that way!! We have cried, screamed, fought, and laughed over just about everything in that time... I just hope he knows that I am here for him, and I will always have his back..no matter what. Well, I have said my piece on this...On to my own personal melodrama...

While I was out on my gay outward bound, I made the crazy decision to stop by and see an ex of mine... Before the peanut gallery starts chiming in with: "Oh, I know you did him," and "Tramp", shut the f/u and listen to the rest of twisted little tale. I took care of the thing I needed to do for work, but whenever I am in Fresno/Tulare area, I get that inner need to pay him a visit. Call it a force of habit, contact high, or just plain nostalgia, I have to go by just to see if I had made the right decision in ending our little Affair to Remember. So many things were wrong this relationship; he could never fully coming out to his friends or even to himself, and he was extending this invitation for me to rent out space in this closet of his. And me being the young and restless fool that I was at the time, gladly accepted the invite. But not anymore.

When I came up on the house, everything was the eerily the same. The smell of his front yard, the sandalwood smell of his house, and that pungent scent of skin of sweat and aftershave that always made me pop a tent. But just before I gave in to the "Love Hangover" disco porno music playing in my head (I need medication for this), my mind did a replay of the last few years we spent together. Being passed over so that he could take a "beard" to his high school reunion, sleeping in separate rooms (except when he the Hershey big block), so that people might not suspect, and being so embarrassed to claim me as his companion (sorry, not into whole idea of being called "Lover") when it truly would have a mattered.

With those things in mind, the wood went away faster than Jessica Simpson's career, and I was able to maintain a detach distance while speaking to him. We enjoyed a nice conversation and reconnected about our shared history and how things have changed for the good and bad. We must have talked for a good three hours, but just as I was turning to leave he started in with the "Oh, you must be tired. You sleep here if you like. I promise I won't try anything." I have seen enough ABC Afterschool Specials and Lifetime (television for women (and gay men) to see where this was going. It took some doing, but I was able to Markie Post my way out the situation, and get back to my destination.

As I was driving down the road, I had another epiphany (the first of many to come, my imagined dear readers). It would have been so easy to give into the memory impressions and the history this guy represented. But at what cost? Making the naked pretzel with him would have got the wheel spinning all over again with the demands that I drive up to see him, only to spend the evening with his neighbors doing our Sigfried and Roy drag, and another piece of me dying inside. I was right in ending the relationship, because my resentment would have only grown, and I truly would have hated him for it. I can take comfort in the fact that they we made some truly special memories together, and that he came into my life at a time that I needed to learn something from him. And then irony of ironies, Styx's "The Best of Times" was blasting out of my car stereo. Needless to say, I was pumping fist (not in the dirty sense, filthies!) and singing along, much to the dismay of my fellow drivers witnessing this event.

And so I close with this little kernel of knowledge for my best friend that is hurting out there: These are the best of times. You have your friends, your health, and your life. Everything else is negotiable. Although it seems like your heart is on the floor, there are so many people that are willing and able to stand with you through the fire, and all the drama that is sure to follow. Long live Hellfire!......