11.25.2002

 

Life shocks me sometimes. But when it really and truly shocks me, it generally happens in a good way.

Earlier this summer I started dating one of my good friends. We had a really good relationship, and I'd wager that a reason things were great between us because we developed a really strong friendship before anything else, and we had a mutual friends with whom we spent a lot of time. But we did have one problem.

One of our common good friends was crazy about her, and he had been for years.

When she and I started dating, my friendship with him abruptly ended. I don't really feel the need to explain why things fell apart, because it was much more than your simple "you started dating the girl I want, so I hate you." I will say that things basically hit the skids because of something I did, or perhaps didn't do. I understand that we're not really friends anymore because of me. I'm not particularly pleased about that, especially since this guy was probably one of the great friends I've ever known in that, for whatever his faults, he always knew how to do those little things that good friends do when you need it.

In trying to mend things, he more or less told me that he never wanted me to call him again. And I haven't, though I won't tell you that I don't think of trying to contact him frequently in the hopes that the water might have flowed under the bridge.

He contacted me today. And he made me remember why he was always a great friend.

I received a sympathy card today from a great guy in which he expressed his condolences at the loss of my grandmother.

I'm so pleasantly shocked right now I don't even know what to do with myself. I'[m so excited that he wrote to me, and simultaneously I'm a little sad that as amazing a guy as he is, I didn't have it in me to be a better friend earlier this year.

I cannot wait to write him back. I just wish I knew what to say.