Life is much calmer now than it was a month ago. The fes­ti­val, for another year, is over, and as such, I'm back to desk work. Web­site re-designs, data entry, e-mails, and attempts to slay Pho­to­shop again fill my wak­ing hours. Given the crazi­ness of the past 30 days, I rather think that I pre­fer the routine.

8 Jan­u­ary, 2004.

I hadn't slept in at least 36 hours.

We had just announced the final selec­tions for the fes­ti­val, and so I was fran­ti­cally updat­ing the web­site with new infor­ma­tion, tak­ing breaks barely long enough to pull out small clumps of my own hair. I was leav­ing for the fest in less than a week and I was stress­ing like none other. (I always get this way before trips, but the fes­ti­val is a spe­cial kind of animal.)

On the other hand was a dis­tress­ing voice­mail inform­ing me that we were los­ing our house. On another hand, Jake and I started form­ing con­tin­gen­cies if this indeed hap­pened. On some undis­cov­ered hand, I was attempt­ing to sketch out a pack­ing lis­tand fail­ing mis­er­ably. On yet a new hand, the e-mails kept com­ing. On still another hand, I real­ized that I hadn't eaten all day.

Before I knew it, it was nearly 2am. I was exhausted. I was start­ing to shake. I needed to sleep.

And then things got worse.

* * *She told me that she couldn't sleep. I knew exactly how she felt. I wasn't much for con­ver­sa­tion by then. And then, for some rea­son, she posed this to me:

We were try­ing to make a new start at being friends. Two months went by where, with the excep­tion of a spe­cial cir­cum­stance, we didnt speak. Now was the mid­dle of a hor­ri­bly dif­fi­cult attempt at mov­ing beyond the heartbreak.

This really wasn't a dis­cus­sion that I wanted to have. And it really couldn't have hap­pened at a worse time, but I sup­pose that adding more to a day that was already as hor­ri­ble as it was wasn't really much of a stretch.

*sigh*

Let's take a moment here. After it hap­pened, we agreed to keep every­thing between us to our­selves. I think that lasted about twenty sec­onds. I would have taken every­thing to the grave with no prob­lem. I didn't say a word about anything.…until she did.

I'm the untrust­wor­thy one? Please. I went on to explain to her that, of the two of us, I'm the only one who has even tried to keep their word about any of this. Of the two of us, I'm not the one who has been deceit­ful, con­ceal­ing things in order to save the feel­ings of the other. I'm not the one who hurt other peo­ple as a result of this, and whether or not they know they've been hurt now really isn't the issue.

We haven't talked since.

* * *I received an e-mail last weekher first attempt to con­tact me since that hor­ri­ble night and our ill-fated con­ver­sa­tion. In the time that's passed between then and now, I've gone through some rad­i­cal life changes and more ridicu­lous per­sonal drama than I'd care to ever encounter again. And in the midst of all of it, sure, she's been on my mind.but the things I'm think­ing are start­ing to become thoughts that I really don't like.

For a cou­ple of months now, I've con­sid­ered com­ing clean to the other. I feel com­pelled to tell him all of this; I know that the words will strike incred­i­bly painful, and yet I feel them warranted.…simply because I know that, if I were in his shoes, I would want to know.

When dis­cussing this with one of the only friends who knows about it, I was asked:

And therein lies a ques­tion I've already asked myself sev­eral times, along with its ugly lit­tle cousin: "Would I be doing this for revenge?"

Strangely, no. There's no alte­rior motive here. No want on my part to cause trou­ble. The only com­punc­tion that seems to be dri­ving me is the knowl­edge that, if I were him, I would want to know. I've now been on both sides of this fence, kids; nei­ther one of them really has a bet­ter view than the other.

And no, I don't like myself as a per­son for what I've caused. But do I feel guilty about it? Well, that's an entirely dif­fer­ent mat­ter alto­gether. What I do know is that I will indeed feel hor­ri­ble if I let this per­son make a mis­take and know that, who knows, in a cou­ple of years, it could hap­pen again­not with me, but with some­body else.

I don't want to be the guy that was in a posi­tion to stop things before they got worse. I dont want to be the guy who knew and didn't speak up.

I hated that guy when it hap­pened to me.

*shrug*

Hell if I know. As I told my friend, I feel a need to tell the other about every­thing, but I know that I just don't have the heart (read: guts) to do itwhich, rather than cre­at­ing a solu­tion, makes this more of a bitch­ing ses­sion about how I can't do what I should.

But there was a rea­son we didn't speak for months, and she knew it. I gave her a sec­ond chance to be my friend.…and what did she do? She spat in my face. What am I to do about it now?

This has been fucked twice now.

There will not be a third time.