thanks, part 4.

Hey Guys, another week of thank youuuuus. Who knew I could keep this going for four weeks? Not me. Sorry it's so long, just know I'm making a conscious effort to cut down my post-lengths. What can I say, though? I've got a big mouth.

As always, thanks for reading!

XO Sare


 

Hi, Stranger.

So, I know we're not speaking. Since the falling out; that argument via text about you being shady and unreliable and me being morally bankrupt. But I'll allow this thank-you note to slide in and I don't see it as me giving in first. If you do, that's fine. We tend to disagree these days anyway.

I don't know if you know this, but you were my first crush in a new town. The end of eighth grade, track practice- I'm cast as the new kid, yet again. You were tall and quiet with a weird name. I was desperate to make friends that didn't participate in the make-yourself-pass-out game in the bathroom during lunch. Anyway, we never spoke, you and I. But I knew who you were and I'm just glad you were there, thanks for being a distraction from the garbage I was wading in.

In high school we had German together every. single. semester. And usually another class too. And cross country practice. And track practice. I thankfully made brighter, better girl friends. We saw each other, interacted every single day. You were always so cranky during wrestling season, even if you weren't cutting weight. Now that I think about it, that may have just been the winter blues. They get the best of us. You always took the longest to take tests and quizzes- checking and rechecking, still hunkered over that too-small desk when the bell rang. I can't remember exactly when, but at one point we became actual, legitimate friends. You were so weird, your family life and religion-centered upbringing- when all along I thought Catholic guilt was bad. I'm so glad I knew you then, thanks for being the first real male friend I ever had.

I remember having a vague crush on you throughout high school, but nothing heartbreaking, I had a crush on just about everyone. I think I more liked you as a person, the strong, stoic, soft spoken type. Anyway, you never dated. I was boy crazy. I've always been a little boy crazy.

And then the summer after high school. That summer the four of us hung out every single night. That's not an exaggeration, every night. You three guys and me. Sometimes we'd throw in a few more faces, one girl we were all friends with or another, but it was always the four of us. D left for college first. M worked nights. School started late for me, almost October. You were getting ready to go on your mission. Thanks for that summer. Thank all three of you for that summer. It was sticky and full of fishing and country music and driving around aimlessly. All that time and heat to kill, but nowhere to go. 

You're a DAD now. And a step dad. Or maybe you adopted her son. I wouldn't know.  I never saw you as the type to get married young or to have children. You were never nurturing, I can't picture you as a father-figure. I mean, engaged after how many months of knowing her? Five? I find it ridiculous and I'm sorry for that. I've seen you as many things, but never a nurturer. Remember how you used to eat locusts after cross country practice when people would pool together enough money to make the bet worth your while? I wonder what you spent your winnings on.

Anyway, I can't help feeling like I lost you to that mission somehow. Two years in Brazil. I was busy partying and finding my passion for the world and you were learning Portuguese and bringing God to the people. You did come to visit once before you shipped out, though. The three guys, my three amigos. It wasn't your scene, but still, thanks for coming. I'm sorry if I'd changed or something. It was never something I could feel tangibly, but it must have seemed stark.

I can't remember exactly when, but at some point during that summer we all hung out every day I stopped seeing you as someone I had a crush on, and started seeing you as just my friend. Not that I didn't like you as a person anymore, I guess I just felt you were bigger than that. You were my friend. Friendships don't usually end suddenly in a break-up. Maybe I subconsciously wanted to remove the risk of losing you. I don't know.

Anyway, you were gone before long. Brazil. I wrote you letters. You wrote me letters. The entire two years. I'd never have guessed you'd have written me consistently for two years. I mean, I've seen how slow you write. How you agonize over every sweep of the pencil. (always pencil) German, remember? Sometimes I just want to remind you that people write in pencil so they don't HAVE to be as careful. Pencil can be erased.

I always write in pen. But you got my letters, you know that.

Anyway, thanks for being my friend then. Really, being my friend. you sent me birthday cards when I had no idea you even knew when my birthday was. You told me how you felt in small ways for the first time since I'd known you. We were friends. I tried to send you a stick of gum once, that letter got sent back with a nice little note from the church.

I was pissed.

Thanks for those two years of easing me into losing you. I mean, we had letters, but really, they can only go so far. Especially when you came back the way you did. I always knew you were close-minded, and I'm grateful in a sense that I got to experience a true friendship with someone whose views differ so greatly from my own, but when you got back it was a different kind of intolerance, you seemed angry.

I can't decide if I blame whoever brainwashed you or just YOU for changing so much. Where you used to be shy and almost gentle, you became rash and completely fanatical. It was probably bad timing, too. I mean, there I was going through a personal ideological revolution of sorts and it just came to a head.

One of the last times I saw you was at your engagement party. It was a weird night. M and I were the only friends from high school you invited there. And we weren't even invited to the wedding. What happened to you? It was so weird to hear someone call you Baby. I never pegged you as a pet-name guy. But then again, I guess you married your first girlfriend. I probably wouldn't have liked her anyway, but it was icing on the cake to see her act whiny and fake the entire time we were there.

Then you and your wife were at A's wedding. What a horrid night in general. I mean, the wedding was lovely, but the table vibes were enough to send me to the open bar and mingle with strangers instead of catching up with three of my best friends. Your wife was pregnant with your first child that night, I remember thinking it completely ludicrous. It was the first time in years the four of us were together, sitting at the same purple-clad table. Dressed up older than I felt. I got drunk, you and your pregnant spouse left early.

The next thing I remember in regard to you isn't your daughter's birth, although it should be. I was ready to be the eccentric old friend that buys cashmere sweaters that are completely impractical for a rapidly growing infant.  It wasn't to be, eh?

I guess my heart could have put it to rest if you married a woman you were madly in love with that had a jealous streak and didn't trust your old fishing buddy who happened to be a girl. That wouldn't be too much to handle. But I just remember the bubbling rage that started in the pit of my stomach and quickly boiled up my insides and out of my mouth. Me, screaming alone in my car. Attacked for the way I think. The way I patched together a world for myself through reading and seeing and doing everything I can get my hands on around me with wonder and excitement and open eyes.

Now, I know everyone doesn't see the world the same way. It's a truly remarkable phenomenon and it lends us something completely invaluable, perspective.

But I've never had my character or personal being attacked the way that you did that day, so easily. I guess I'm grateful that I've learned from that my ability to stand by myself, unshakable for what I believe is right. Thanks for the test, I passed. Maybe I'm not religious, but my way of thinking doesn't have me attacking other's for having different ideals than I do, either.

And thanks for making it so easy to walk away. I know you started pacing the other way as soon as I did, as if preparing for a standoff. Only there will be no standoff, because other than one last thank you, my honest gratitude to you for showing me that I'm growing and will continue to do so and thrive, I'll never turn back around.

You may have the Mormon God on your side, but I've got the golden rule. 

I'll always wish the best for you and yours, and I'm eternally grateful to have once called you my friend.


 

XO Sara

thanks, part 3.

Looks like this lovely feature will live to see another week.


The letter below is addressed to my dear friend Devin, who now lives in Chicago. We met at work and he pretty much got me through the first five months at my current job.  




Hey, D.


I'm smiling while I type this right now because I feel kind of silly about it. But let's get it rolling, shall we?!


Remember the first time we hung out away from the office? Thanks for suggesting that. Tennessee beat Ohio State, it was March Madness,  we were alumni rivals and pretty much instant friends. It was a shitty game and I was bitterly disappointed and you started singing Rocky Top right there in the bar in Indianapolis. We barely knew each other and you were yelling throughout the place and cursing at your players and we settled in as friends that very night. Mutual respect, or something like it.


What a gamble though, you know? That transition from work friends to real friends can be a dangerous game. Not for us. The office where we met and the job from hell, it brought us together- so I guess I can't hate it too much. That place is brutal, though huh? I'm still wasting away in my little cubicle cell and you've got two moves under your belt since then. It's fantastic that you keep growing, fighting tooth and nail to get to your professional goal, it reminds me that I need to fight off looming complacency at every turn.

Remember the email thread? There were periods of time I spent more effort crafting responses to the thread than I did on work. Like, long periods of time. Thanks for the bullet points. Thanks for the morning greetings, the promises that it would be a great day, the onion articles, the laughs. Thanks for all of it. I wouldn't have fared without you to prod me along.


I like having a friend that I can relate to, who grew up with a father also in this industry. The constant travel, the moving around. Serial transplants. It's probably why we get along so well, always having to make new relationships sort of forces you to learn how to talk to people, make fast friends. Thanks for getting me that way,  for being able to relate on that level. Charismatic fathers and cocktail hours, we're alike in so many ways.

There's something to be said about strong personalities; at one point we'll be having a casual conversation about anything from sports to politics and before I realize it we're shouting over each other to get a point across. In a public setting. Causing a scene. Per usual. It's never conflict driving our conversation, it's excitement, interest, passion. Thanks for bringing that to the table too, it feels good to have heated and animated conversations. It feels good to have someone give it back.  


You wear your heart on your sleeve and expect the best out of me. You hold me to it. Thank you, truly, for that. And when I'm down and doubting myself and deeping worried that I'll never get out of here, you remind me how smart and talented I am. You tell me how I'm meant for more and encourage me to reach out and take it. I'm so grateful to have such an eloquent friend with so much faith in my abilities. Even when I'm hating myself and lower than low, you will take the time to raise me up, no questions asked. I only wish I can be there that way when you need it too.


Dev, you make me feel cool, and so important. You want to hear what I have to say and you make the effort to stay in touch with me when I'm busy getting swept up in the bullshit of my everyday life. I'm sorry, so sorry, that I'm so terrible at making sure we're still always on the same page, all caught up on what's going on in our own lives. I feel terrible when I miss you or forget to call you back. And then I let too much time pass and I feel even worse and guilty and avoid it altogether.  I feel absolutely horrid that I didn't have the time and energy to drive over to where you were to see you this weekend when you were in town. You would have made the effort. You're always willing to make the effort.


I miss that. I miss getting beers with you after work, sitting outside and taking about our families and our goals and our hellish workdays and the motley crew of our department. You're one of the best and I know you've literally never had an ulterior motive to get ahead. You do things the right way, the fair way. Life is so goddamn unfair, thanks for showing me the good ones can still end up on top. And you'll keep moving up, too. You're a hardest worker I know and you've earned every bit of that cockiness you throw out sometimes.


At the risk of getting overly emotional and sounding idiotic, I want to thank you for being so bold and in life's face. You're always fearlessly wearing your heart on your sleeve and being your this-is-what-I-expect-and-deserve, but also  let-me-help-you-self. You've never once complained to me about how hard it is for you to get around, with the exception of the "Really? You people don't have any fucking handrails? This is a goddamn death trap." Comment last spring after a couple of Beams. I can't imagine how much you've gone through for your CP, and still, it never rules your life or defines you as a person. You'd be damned before it ever did. You've got such a big personality, a great personality, that I often times forget all the shit you've got to deal with on a daily basis.


You're stronger than I'll ever be, thanks for showing me such a forceful strength in spirit. You'll always be one of my best friends, no matter how often we see each other or how frequently we find time to catch up with one another. I'm so grateful to be able to safely say that.


Thanks for coming out, you always bring all you've got.


XX Sara

thanks. part 1.

Heyo, I've been writing like a lot of thank you notes to people near and far lately and I think I may make it a weekly feature. butttt, I HAVE tried that before... and obviously lacked the crucial motivation to keep it going, so we'll see. It could be lively. 


The people I'm writing to thank sometimes pop into my mind and I may still talk to them often, or may have cut ties them them many years ago- like the old friend below. 


Regardless, it just feels good to say what I have to say to them, whether or not they know it, so that's what I'm going to do. 


Here is letter numero uno:




DEEEEEEP BREATH. 

Hey, Girl. It's been a minute.

I know if I saw you today on the street our meeting would go one of two ways. If you are by yourself and we bump into each other in line at H&M, or knowing you, Express, you'd do that thing where you act like no time has passed and you still tell me all your secrets and let me ride your coat-tales. If you're not alone, more specifically, if you're in the presence of anyone that knows us both, you'll probably pretend you don't see me and do that mean sideways-glance-loud-conversation thing that people of your social confidence do to make people like me feel small. I don't feel small often, but you could always take me there. I know now that even if I got the first version you'd probably just pump me for tiny scraps of useful/relevant/to your benefit information and then hang me out to dry the way you always used to.

But really, I promise, this letter isn't to cut you down. It may not appear this way, but I'm actually trying to thank you. Show gratitude, that's what I'm trying to do here.

You see, I learned a lot from you. A lot about people and a lot about myself. I'm very thankful for that.

So first of all, thanks for letting me into your world for a while. You seemed so glamorous in a way, so popular and charismatic. My own real-life Samantha, so worldly and outspoken about everything from your sexual exploits to everyone else's underbelly. Our flingfriendship was brief, under a year, but fairly deep. You were funny and confident and so comfortable with farting in public and always saying things like "God, I'm so good-looking," only half-jokingly. I loved that. I loved having a friend so strong and openly confident with herself, it was mesmerizing. Thanks for oozing self-confidence when it seemed like everything around me was insisting that no woman could possibly be good enough as-is. You were. I was. That felt good. Thank you, truly.

It took me a while to realize that you needed me at that time, too. You never made it seem that way. But you were always broke, your parents aren't worth a damn, and you didn't know anyone in the city where you'd moved and I happened to live. I still don't know why you moved there after the summer, other than someone offered you a free couch for three weeks that turned into two months. Really, it took me a while to see you for yourself and I'm partially to blame for getting scammed, I suppose. I didn't see at first that you were just trying to survive, that a person like you still gets lied to, cheated on, and deserted. All the people that meant the most to you were always letting you down and you were scrappy out of necessity. I'm not scrappy out of necessity, I do it to get what I want; maybe you do it simply to get what you need.

And you always seemed to have what you needed, but it must have felt precarious, sleeping on my couch for three months, living with your ex-boyfriend's parents the next six, crashing in wherever someone willing would take you- until the siren's summer song of the island brought us all back up for another go. It never occurred to me that you didn't like living that way, sliding in wherever you saw an opening. I thought you were an opportunist- turns out you're probably just a survivalist.

Thanks, though, girl for the shiney moments. We've got a fair amount. You'd take me to trendy places and I'd get polished and I'd take you to the second-hand shops so you could learn the joys of finding a perfectly-worn tee or that just-broken-in pair of Citizens at like a third of the cost. Thanks for helping me get (both) of my two extra jobs that year, I needed that money to live the way I like, and not the way you had to.

I look back fondly on nights where we'd drink bottles of wine and sit on the front porch and just talk. I was 21, and used to getting belligerent and stumbling home from parties by myself. It was good, better, than doing that. I don't miss you going crazy and logging into your ex's facebook every other night and getting hysterical, because I don't understand that way of coping. But I don't mind being the person you talked to about the way life had jarred you and hurt you. I've never told anyone your secrets. I know it meant something for you, even if it seems small and far away now.  You never would have taken a rando to your mother's run-down and filthy house. or your old job. The one where you'd had a fling with the married boss. You looked so small in those places. It was one of the saddest things I'd ever seen, seeing where you came from. I think I started realizing then that your mean was so much deeper in you than I'd ever go. Thanks for showing me that before I got caught in a web I couldn't walk away from, or more aptly, be forced from.

I never tried to come back or salvage any of our friendship and it's one of the decisions in my life that I value most, and I'm grateful you didn't try to keep luring me back in. I didn't need the hurt. You'll always be stuck in that sticky web of toxic people and I get to keep moving. So long as you're a part of that crowd, you and all of them will be jockeying for position, temporary alliances and quick fixes to deep-rooted issues. Thanks for showing me the way things really work, and for letting me walk away relatively unscathed. For as many times as my non-intentioned private words with you were twisted and passed on to less understanding ears.

 I don't hate you.

I don't anything you, except thank you, I guess.

You built me up in a way that not even could you could tear down.

Thanks, dear, for teaching me that I don't like stirring the rumor mill. Thanks for showing me that not all friendships are healthy, but that doesn't mean you can't grow as an individual from their rubble. I have.

I won't see you around. In fact, I can say with relative confidence that our paths will likely never cross again. You're probably still bartending somewhere in the city you fled back to and well, I like to avoid it if it all possible. Different strokes. It is funny, though, because I didn't take a lot away from the island where we met, but the few friendships I've kept from there are full of laughter and genuine caring- and none of us choose to keep in contact with you or your once-enticing circle of sharks. 

Thanks for everything, I really, truly, wish you the best. You always figure out a way to get it.

 

But I know the truth.

XO Sara

Dramazzzzzz.

Hi There!

Wow, I bet you just about shit your little Soffee shorts when you saw you had an email from me, huh? That's ok, if I were you, I would have done the same thing! I just hope you weren't taking a sip of a drink or using any sort of sharp object when you saw my name pop up. I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself! Anyway, fear not, I'm not going to threaten to reach down your throat, pull out your lungs, and use them to make balloon animals. I just though I'd drop you a quick line to educate you a little.

So, instead of resorting to violence or sending you a pithy and passive-aggressive message like the one I got from you, I'm just going to be completely straightforward with you. Ok? Perfect!

Sweetheart, breakups are an absolute bitch, huh? You think you know a person! You let them in your pants, you give them cards signed with x's and o's and you introduce them to your friends, and what do they do? They just up and decide you're not the one! Then they have the nerve to start dating someone else after they break up with you! Just doesn't seem fair does it? Well, maybe that's because it's not, and don't I know it, I've been there a time or two. Fortunately, I learned this about the world and life in general: There are no rules. None. That is a lesson, and you're welcome.

People break up and get together thousands of times a day, all around the world. And my! It's a big ole' world isn't it? So yeah, you know what the smart ladies do when they get broken up with? They put on fuck-me heels and get liquor drunk with their girlfriends. They listen to emo-ass music and ceremoniously burn keepsakes of the lost love.  They watch chick flicks while simultaneously eating their feelings and crying. Seeing as how you're fairly young and all, you may be a tad new to this, so I thought I'd drop you a line, speaking from experience. When the person you've been in a relationship with was compeltely faithful, loving, put up with your craziness, and broke up with you because you aren't the right one for them, you thank your lucky stars that you made it out alive and that was as ugly as it got. It sucks, it hurts, but guess what?! It's been happening for years and ::somehow:: the world is still in orbit.

You know what you don't do after someone breaks up with you if you have even a trace of class in the blood running through your veins? You don't whip out your trendy little cell phone and start chatting up your ex's best friend for deets on their new life, and you certainly don't continue to do it for months and months on end, guilting them into responding to you.  You know why? Because it's not going to make you feel any fucking better and because that's how stupid little bitches ruin twenty year long friendships.

I've been really trying to find a way to play this out in my head in a way that doesn't make you look like a pathetic psycho.... but let's face it, there isn't one. And you know what I hate even more than that? The fact that your shitty judgement and character has made me feel anything in your direction. At all.

On the upside, my conscience is now COMPLETELY clear.

Were you really hoping to be thrown a few scraps of conversation to wolf down so you could let yourself pine away for however long you have left in you? Ew.

Hey, I'm not a mean girl. Well I definitely can be, but I'm not being mean to you.  I'm thanking you for making it so easy for me to dismiss you as a whack-job. I'm helping you.

If you are ever hoping to have a healthy and adult relationship in the future, you really need to mind your business, get over yourself, and move on. I don't appreciate being jarred from my happy life of x's and o's and basically complete bliss and harmony to deal with bullshit because you don't know the appropriate way to handle yourself.

XOXO

Sare.

Oh, and PS, babe, you probably don't want to eat your feelings too much, you know, if you're going to try to get back out on the horse anytime soon.