Specters of the Past

For the past five years, I’ve associated with the same group of people: Joe, Mary, and Keli. While the core of our friendship group has remained stable, the periphery has been in a constant state of flux. Significant others have come and gone, the excitement of a perspective romantic partner always replaced by the pain of a break-up or divorce. Oddly enough, each of us ended a long-term relationship within the last two years. Through a combination of phone calls, emails, coffee, and cigarettes (three of us have quit smoking within the last year), we navigated a storm of infidelity, mental illness, abuse, and irreconcilable differences . Mary and I were the first to make it through the maelstrom of relationship unhappiness, followed closely by Keli. Joe, recently divorced, is right behind. Looking back, I think our collective story is probably worthy of a novel. And one with a happy ending, too. With the addition of Charles, Mary’s fiancé, and Kathleen, my fiancé, the core of our friendship group has grown and stabilized.

Friday night, three of us (Mary, Joe, and myself) bumped into each other at our favorite Goth/Industrial club. Keli spent another Friday night working at the bookstore, of course. While we used to meet at the club every Friday, it’s been months since more than two of us have been out on a given night. In a strange convergence of events, the specters of our respective pasts also made an appearance. Joe’s ex-wife and her new boyfriend arrived early in the evening. Mary’s ex-boyfriend entered a few minutes later. Despite all the healing done, forgiveness granted, and time passed, there was still a palpable sense of discomfort in the air. Trying to add a little levity to the situation, I turned to Joe and Mary and said, “Well, if you-know-who [my former partner] made an appearance, I think we’d have one of our weirdest club nights ever.” Both laughed and nodded in agreement.

As one might expect, she did make an appearance of sorts. Late in the evening Mary approached me and said, “I just ran into a guy who’s still in touch with you-know-who. They email each other on a regular basis. Check this out . . . ” My ex-partner recently had a nervous breakdown, dropped out of her Ph.D. program (dissertation phase), and moved home to her parents’ to convalesce. While Kathleen expressed relief at knowing she’s hundreds of miles away, I felt relieved, angered, and saddened: relieved that I don’t have worry about running into her (she can be extremely volatile), angered by the fact she dropped out of school (I made a lot of sacrifices to help her get through her program), and saddened by her inability of find some peace of mind. Of the three, I think the third is the thing that bothers me most. No matter how much self-inflicted pain she experiences, she can’t admit she has psychological problems that need long-term treatment. I tried getting through to her, as did Mary, other friends, family members, and mental health professionals. She ignored each and every one us. Instead of accepting that her problems are of her own making, she’ll continue to blame everything on a world allied against her.

Sometime during the evening out, Joe made an astute observation regarding our group. He commented on how each of us had experienced a great deal of pain and how we’d each admitted our mistakes, learned from them, and made significant changes in our lives. He also commented that for having been through so much, we’re an exceedingly happy lot. Of all his remarks, however, one stands out. He said, “It’s taken us a long time to weed out all the riffraff. Finally, after five years, we’re all relatively happy and drama free. I think we should keep it this way for a while.” I couldn’t agree more.