Exits and Restoration

          Photo Credit: © Tomeda (http://www.ephotozine.com/u77691)

Once upon a time I had a friend. We were young. And stupid. And dramatic (at least I was). If there had been a video collage of our friendship, it would have played like a movie snippet. From baking with flour all over the kitchen and our faces while happily singing along to some lame song that was a hit at the time (You know the song, it’s the one you hear many years later and you can’t figure out why you ever thought it was so amazing...except for the fact it takes you back to that precise moment.), to crying over whatever angst high school dished out.

We had songs we loved to ham up together. She always took the rap parts. (Which you would appreciate the ridiculousness of, if you knew her~ she was as Wonder Bread as they came. Sweet. Saccharin almost. With the voice of an angel.) I took the singing parts.

Sometimes she would play songs for me with sexual lyrics, telling me to ignore the lyrics and listen to how wonderful the harmonies were. She had a thing for that...harmonies, not sexual lyrics. Only person I have ever known that could find a beautiful harmony in those kinds of songs.

She was a morning person. I was not. (That has changed for me somewhat.) You know the type; she would just as soon paint the house as get out of bed in the morning. Never have I known someone so happy at the advent of morning. {And we were 18, mind you. What 18 year old likes mornings?! :) }  The thing I always loved though was that she had the space to be as chipper as she was (and you have never seen chipper quite like this~ literally fluttering around, singing~ nauseatingly cheerful) while I had the space to be as cranky as I was. (And believe me, I was cranky yin to her chipper yang.)

When the boy I loved in high school broke my heart in a way I would never let anyone break again, she was the one that came and stayed with me in the middle of the night. In the moment of that heartache, while my mother screamed and told me it was my fault and made it about her own pain, my friend was the one that prayed with me. Sang to me. Hugged me. Crawled inside the dirty corners of my life with me.

After I had wasted months of time deluding myself that he would come back, she was the one with the courage, honesty, and love to look me straight in the eye and say, “P, he is not coming back.” If I close my eyes, I am still there. On her couch. Looking at her. Feeling like the most loved person on earth. (Who does that at 18?)

This was not your standard issue high school friendship- personality driven, fickle. It was real. And it mattered a great deal to me.
 

Several years later in college, it was my turn to be honest. It did not go so well. My friend that I adored, that I was sure would be my friend for life, forced me to pack her up into my mental suitcase sooner than I was ever ready.  I mourned this for years. Tossed it over in my head, looked at it from every angle, regretted it. The high school me who was sure judgment was my calling (Yep, I was...) was long gone by this point and what I had said was truly only out of love, but I sure was wishing I had left it alone.

My husband (the writer) brilliantly wrote in one of his fiction pieces, “In a way, looking back on a relationship was like looking back into a room just outside the exit. Everything you had seen and known inside was now framed by the way in which you had left it.”

A couple months ago, I got an unexpected email from my friend, offering an olive branch. Years ago I waited for this. Needed it. But I think in order to heal, God always has us swim out to the deep end, past our need, to where the truth is. So today, she truly never needed to say anything at all. Because I long ago realized that when God gives you a fountain in your desert (she was there for me in the worst years with my mother), you dump all the other stuff. And maybe with age you realize that often the things we do to each other that sting are really due to the pain orbiting our own lives and don’t really have a whole lot to do with the other person at all.  It is here that, instead of framing the relationship by the exit, you realize that “all that is good and true between us, this will remain the same.” (Amy Grant, “After the Fire”) So you fold up the memories in gratitude and store them lovingly in the mental scrapbook of your life. 

The email was gravy...

I allowed myself the dream

For eight years I have lived next door to the walking PSA for alcohol abuse...

The first time we met our new neighbor it was over a conversation about fences. Yep, fences. (Serious irony here.) My husband and I were surprised to return home from a weekend out of state to find a new fence put up along our property line. A fence much higher and more conspicuous than any of the other fences in the neighborhood. And one which violated the city ordinances. (A fence, I must admit, I was quite glad existed as time went on and we got to know just what kind of neighbor we had.) When we explained to him that we had already begun replacing the old fence in our yard and wanted to match it all around and asked him if we could work together on this, he said we could and then continued to do what he wanted.  This was both an introduction and, sadly, a recurring theme. A theme which only got bolder as time marched on.

Our second visit included a tour of his home (my brother still questions my sanity on this one), which looked more like the inside of a party store. The kitchen cupboards were absent what you would expect and instead contained nothing but alcohol. The same goes for the top of the cabinets. And the refrigerator. And the counters. Small talk in this space involved mention of a “something-something” job he had on the side that he “didn't like to talk about,” as well as the six DUI convictions he had been “awarded” by the time he turned 28. We had the full story of a book I am sure we never need have opened.

Subsequent visits involved his waiting for us in our driveway drunk and high, screaming, refusing to leave, and once even insisting he was going to take a tour of our house. Then there was the time my husband came home from work to find our neighbor's father weed wacking our lawn (which if you know me at all~touching my yard is a big no-no). This is to say nothing of the many nights of being jarred out of sleep by the loud music and/or power tools. He usually started his “days” at 5pm, and assumed everyone else did as well.

Then this past March, he performed his coup de grace. He flew across all the lawns and sidewalks in the subdivision on a snowmobile, going about 45 mph. When I told my Dad about this he said, “but there wasn't any snow...” to which I responded ,“Dad, you have met the man...” God bless my dad for trying to apply logic to an alcoholic; I fell into that trap more than once myself. Finally everyone else in the neighborhood got a dose of what my husband and I have been dealing with all these years. When I looked out the window and saw three cop cars racing down the street, combined with the fact that my neighbor never came home that night, I felt glad that for once justice was served. This time, I wasn't the one who had to call the cops; several neighbors beat me to it. This time, I was vindicated.

I have not, admittedly, been like Jesus with this neighbor. I was getting so frustrated and angry about him, that at a certain point, I am sure there was nothing he could do that would not bother me. Call it a cumulative effect. But considering I was expecting my first child in mere months after the snowmobile incident, my frustration turned into prayers that either we would be able to move, or that he would. The worry of having runaway snowmobiles running my daughter over in the front yard, or whatever other dangerous behaviors she may be subjected to living next door to an alcoholic did not sit well with me. So I prayed. And prayed.

And then it happened....

First there were trucks and trailers in the neighbors driveway everyday...

And my husband told me not to get my hopes up...

And then there were appliances being moved out...and his bike... (his only means of transportation, since the judicial system had long ago taken his driver’s license away)

And still my husband cautioned against reading too much into it...

Then there was the mattress and BBQ grill along with about 20 or so bags of trash on the curb... 

Then even my husband started to get excited...

When a man appeared a few days later, taking pictures of the house... 

We could be sure...

And so it was, that God had answered my prayer. I only pray we don't get someone worse.

 

Friend in the rearview mirror

To the casual observer the sign says 

"For Sale,"

but it taunts me with it's true meaning~

"It's now official, 

your friend is leaving,” 

and “Yep, this really is happening.”

The sign can be found at the intersection of things you pray for someone else and things you selfishly don't want to happen...

Truth be told, I saw God putting up His own signs from the beginning... When the conversations about applying for jobs out of state started, I knew... knew in my heart that God was going to give this family a much needed new start... knew that He was about to launch an awesome season of blessing on them, because when God moves on a situation, it is always best for all those involved. God is awesome that way, loves all His children equally. {Although, for the record, this does not work out best for me :))}

I have always thought that goodbyes season life. They force things to their crisis and remind you how important the things you get used to having really are. So now in the coming weeks I will have to say goodbye to my friend...