This is cheeseball week on my blog. I guess that's okay. I could post about how I am slowly taking over New York , about how apparently I am the most attractive person in my laundromat (a story for another day), but I won't. Instead, I got a text message from somebody today whom I haven't seen in over a year, but who I consider a very close friend.

You were my eyes when I coudln't see
Saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith because you believed

It's very safe to say that I am who I am because of this person more than anyone else; it was she who taught me how to be happy, how to recover from disappointments, how to let go of anger and pain, and how to hit a field hockey ball.

Say goodbye
To not knowing how to cry
You taught me that
And I'll remember the strength that you gave me
Now that I'm standing on my own
I'll remember the way that you saved me

I have a habit of lionizing our relationship. I think I have to, though; it's the only way my memory will let me see the past, the only way my entire history makes sense to me, and the only way I understand myself now. I can't be objective about any of my own past, but here are my thoughts, as I believe them.

I was a mess as a kid. I was a mess all the way up through junior year of high school, practically. I've never really suffered from self esteem problems, never had any issues with my sense of self, but I have harbored a roiling hate for the world and almost all things in it. I guess that was my "mess." A lot of things caused this anger, and I'm not going to go into them. I was fed a steady stream of accelerant throughout my time and I used it. It was my right to use it, of course, and I used it every chance I could. I burned through people, things, and toward the end of it all, myself.

It ultimately took someone I couldn't burn through - somebody stronger than I and equally experienced in destroying things - to stop my train from derailing. It was a laborious process. From enduring physical abuse to putting up with my heckling and attention-getting schemes to restraining my destructive intentions and cleaning up my destructive actions, she put up with it all and when I was finished burning, she picked up my destroyed and exhausted self and then led me out of the hole I'd dug myself into, always watching out of the corner of her eye to make sure I was still there, still following.

I was taught how to be happy. By a person who had finally found it herself, through much trial and error, feeling her way through the darkness. She stepped back into it four years later to find me in it and lead me out. And now, I'd like to think we're both out of it. We threw the shovels out of our lives and stopped digging. She started climbing and I'm still finding my footing.

Will we ever be that for each other again? No; we have other people now, other people who watch (over) us and keep the demons at bay. And the thought struck me that I'll never be able to repay the tremendous favor. That I was helped but I can't help in return. And I can't help anyone else, either. I don't have whatever strength is necessary to step back into the dark. Maybe that's why I'm still trying to find my footing.