The Big Aiyah

A Fine Friend Story

[note: if you're my friend is reading this now, i hope you don't mind me sharing this story. correct me if i get this wrong, okay?]

When I was in college, I had a fine friend. And can I tell you that we started as good friends, and pretty much had a good relationship at that. We were seeing other people, yet were able to just kick it every now and then as college folks do. As I got to know him more, I started to get this vibe from within that "Hey, this guy is pretty cool." That soon grew to, "Wow, he's awesome." Then in a few short instances, it turned into "Shit, I think I like him."

I had to turn that off. There was no way I was going to jeopardize our friendship. And I was pretty sure that he wasn't feeling that way. A few years go by, and guess what, there's a candle burning. All the guys I went out with, he was my benchmark. All the people I would ever consider spending quality time with, he was the model. Yet I wouldn't cross that line, until three years after we met.

I had mustered up enough nerve and backbone to spill my guts. We were to sit together at a dinner, where I knew neither one of us had dates. The time came for our seatings, and he walks in. With a date. I was devastated. I told my friends. I told my roommates. I practiced, I pondered, I spent a good amount of the day psyching myself up for that moment. They all knew that I was going to profess this whole love thing tonight. All of it didn't matter at that point. I had to let it go right then and there, no chance of going back, I said to myself. It's probably a sign (I'm big into signs) that I need to just let it go. Suffice it to say, I was a wreck. It's that helpless feeling, Mista J and I discussed earlier this evening, that you are given a situation that you can't do jack about but you are moved so completely by it, like a leaf in some stream. You flow, but can't do anything about it.

Years passed.

After not seeing each other much, but keeping in touch in little ways, we ran into each other at a dinner. And all of a sudden, through the floodgates, everything came back. All those sugary sweet feelings of warmth that seem to pervade your pores and settle there in some sort of strange glow. But this time it was different, it was that detached affection that I knew wouldn't go anywhere. It just was. And it was then that I told him about that college crush, and the missed opportunity, and that being said it was gone.

Did I miss anything by not taking a chance earlier? Did I perhaps change something that was meant to be? I don't know. I don't ask those kinds of questions these days. It's a part of my past. I'm very happy to still have him in my life as a friend, that's it. My fine friends now (of which there are quite a few, not necessarily FINE nor UGLY, but that's all subjective isn't it)? I guess I can say I'd probably play it the same way. Some of the brothas in my life are just so wonderful, and I know they'd make wonderful boyfriends. To someone else.

All love, and all Voodoo.

posted by Voodoo Child @ 11:11 PM