Bonds

When I turned 15, as we walked around our local mall, my friend handed me an object wrapped in a plastic bag. My birthday present was a vhs tape, Goldfinger. "It's the best one and I wanted to start you out right," he said. I rolled my eyes. What a waste of a present, I thought. There was no way I was going to watch a movie centered on an egotistical male chauvinist. But I had a huge crush on my friend, Mike, so I didn't act too serious when I teased him about his obsession with James Bond. By the next time my birthday rolled around, not only would I have seen all the James Bond films, but I had copies I'd made of his movies and could recite the names of all the movies, in order, along with the actor who starred as Bond in each other them. Most of us, to some extent or another, will attempt to get interested in things that the people we are close to like, especially when we are crushing hard on them. I already liked movies and, what can I say, his enthusiasm helped me to see more in the movies than just some egotistical male chauvinist.

We aren't friends anymore. After high school, we drifted a bit, but it wasn't until the last time I moved back home that he stopped returning my calls and emails. I didn't realize it until just recently, but I think that all my crazy got too much for him. I understand. At least now I do. When I try to put myself in his shoes, I wouldn't want to be friends with me either, especially the me I was back then. Also, I think that our bond was probably one of proximity and lack of connection to other people as much as anything else. We didn't really fit into other groups at school. We were in honors classes together and shared some interests, like movies. I'm sure that we both wanted friends and to feel like we fit somewhere. It might have fizzled out more quickly if I hadn't been so persistent, which I only was because I thought we might get together romantically. Of course, we never did. He is gay, came out our freshman year of college. It is probably better that he ended our friendship. We had less and less in common as time went along after high school. I truly do hope he's happy and has the life that he wants. Every time I see a Bond film, I think about him. Every time a new Bond film comes out, I wonder what he thinks of it.

TyRoy is the first person I've met since him that was so into James Bond. When we were 15, Mike presented James Bond movies as the ultimate in male wish fulfillment, the toys, the cars, and most especially the women. Of course, I've since wondered how much Mike's talk functioned as a beard and how much he watched Goldfinger to see Sean Connery with his shirt off. TyRoy, however, really does love James Bond for those things, just like he pines to live Don Draper's life.

I saw the last James Bond movie with him. Because of our shared love for Bond, I was sad that we wouldn't get to see it in the theater together, as he's now on the West Coast and wouldn't be back for a trip long enough to see me until Christmastime. But as his girlfriend still lives here, he does come out here to steal some time with her whenever he has long weekends, like Thanksgiving.

And this weekend. It didn't occur to me until, on the way to the movie theater, I saw the field of flags for Veteran's Day that he'd have a long weekend this weekend, which is why he warned me that it would be hit or miss to contact him this weekend. Just before the movie started, I got an email confirming what I had suspected. He's here in this city, probably seeing it right now in fact, with his current girlfriend.

I can't say that I am not a little bit sad. In earlier emails, we'd both said that we wished we could go see it together. I thought that ours was a problem of geography, but I see now that it wasn't. It is a question of time and priorities. But it is not that I do not understand. They do not get much time together, which means that he does not get much time in which to be very happy.

During a recent conversation, TyRoy had asked me the difference between BPD people and regular people. In thinking about this, I had to frame it in terms of how I was before I had my BPD under control and now. I am sad. I miss him. That is as it should be. But I am not mad at him. I do not feel like he abandoned me. I am not crushed. My day isn't ruined. The movie isn't ruined. I do not feel like our relationship is ruined, like our bond is anything less than what it is. I know that in his shoes I'd be watching that movie cuddled up with the my significant other, my lover, taking advantage of every moment that I could get with her. I am just a little sad.

And regretful. I recently told my own Moneypenny that I would never go back in time to change anything because I know what I have now and I can't bring myself to say that I wouldn't want them, which is what that amounts to in my mind. I still wouldn't change anything. The ways in which I'm messed up are what brought me to TyRoy, so saying that I wished I had been better in the ways that might have kept us together would probably have also erased that we ever were together. And it might erase his happiness now. But I regret that I wasn't those things enough that it makes continuing to improve all the more important. You never change for the one who left. I don't want to be in the same spot, several years from now, saying that I could be watching the next Bond movie with my bestfriend, if only s/he wasn't with someone else because I was too much of a burden as a partner or a friend.

We Are What You Say by Dead Sara

You gotta sink to learn to swim
These are the rules that they teach and they want you to live
Apologies will never do and I know that way too well
Brought down by somebody else's lack of education
Shouldn't be you that it hurts
But I took all the advice that I could take
Before I thought to give up

I bet you thought I'd give up

And this is what they told me…

These are the lies you gotta believe
They'll give you everything to lose if you disagree
Apologies are over used and I'd be cutting the line way too thin
I'm aware of this bitter behavior
I lost myself somewhere I never wanted to beNow it's time to start all over - we were held to the light
But we never went blind

Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh
You can't back down kid, back down kid
Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh
You can't back out now, back out now
We are what you say
We are not what you think

Too lonely to survive the loss that was staring back with bloodshot eyes
I almost fell below the ground that I was standing on
Oh no, you said it yourself, you're disappointed
And I'm ashamed and embarrassed to say that
I was a failure, a failure
But not matter how low

Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh

You can't back down kid...back down kid
Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh

You can't back out now

Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh
You can't back down kid...back down kid
Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh
You can't back out now...back out now
We are what you say