Waiting to Collide

I lose friends every year.  I lose them when I move, when they move, when they start dating someone new, or when schedules change.  We all keep getting farther apart, physically.  JC asks how many friends I have here “Not counting the ones who’ve seen you naked!” and the number is low.  Boston is a lonely town, and I haven’t tried to meet people.

I lost Jen this year.  I never wrote about it, hoping it was temporary, but she still hasn’t said so much as “hi.”

I started seeing Dr. McAwesome in the middle of December 2007, a couple of months after I moved to Worcester from Austin.  I was still in bad shape after leaving a city, I have learned, that I consider home.  I got too attached to Mike.  I had too much fun with kickball, Chris, and Fantastic Fest.  I went to the greenbelt, played with my dog, browned in the sunshine, hiked.  Coming North to the cold, a low-paying job, and an empty bed was hard.  I met History Dude, and we hung out a couple of times pretty soon after I got to Worcester.  I told Jen a bit about him.  I was excited — I’m always excited to meet new friends.

Then I met Dr. McA.  I was very excited, and I chattered on and on like a caffeinated squirrel.  If Jen took issue with this, I didn’t know until it was too late.  I brought him back to my place in Worcester for the first time to meet her.  She was in the process of moving some boxes out of the house, so there was only a brief hello said.

After that, she ignored me for the next few months.  Finally, I sent her one last email begging her to contact Tufts — they were in the process of transitioning me from temp to full time, and she was a reference — because I desperately needed health insurance.  She finally told me that she refused to take my calls for months, and ignored Tufts HR’s calls for weeks, because I hadn’t helped her move boxes out of the house that fateful night.  She went on and said that she was bitter about my excitement over men, and that I was not accepting of the girl she had made kissy-face with (cheating on her girlfriend/my friend in the process).  Basically, she was calling me a hypocritical whore.

I guess that moment marked the end of the friendship, because I never regained my trust in her after she put me in such a bad professional and personal spot for the sake of a few boxes.  Had she simply asked for help, maybe things would’ve been different.  I’m still baffled and suspect that something else had happened in her mind that she never shared with me.

I miss her.  Until she went off the rails, she had been my emotional dumpster.

I rode the train home from my job for the last time today.  I felt nostalgic for approximately 32 seconds, and then the depressing nature of the T set in.

I accidentally touched a man’s hand on the railing as I was descending into the depths of the station.  He jerked it back as if withdrawing from a viper.  I apologized, and he glared at me.

I hobbled onto a car, and a woman firmly stomped on the foot attached to my sprained ankle.  She turned to look at me in annoyance when I noticeably flinched and inhaled sharply.

Later…

My phone died a painful death last night.  I drove to the CambridgeSide Galleria to have Apple replace their defective product.  A nice enough employee explained that I had to make an appointment online to check in, and walked me through it.  He went over to help someone else.  There looked like there might be a line, so I consulted with the dour gentleman in front of me:

“Excuse me, are you in line?”
“No, you have to, like, make an appointment, or something.”
“Well, actually, you can do it from that computer in the corner.  Just click the link, and follow the directions on screen.  It’s pretty simple.”
“Do you work here?”
“Um, no.”
“Because you’re acting like you work here.”
“Uh, no, I just thought you needed a hand.”
“Yeah, you’re acting like you work here.”
“Um, OK…”

The woman who gave me my new phone (I have lost all of my contact numbers, please call me!) was quite nice, and told me she liked it in Boston.

And then told me about multiple friends who have been mugged here.

Two more years.  Education better be worth it.