Circles within circles. If you haven't thought about it, that's what life is all about. On the physical level, on the mental level and on the emotional level. We are all revolving ever onward. Think about it, don't just click your tongue, of course it's stating the bleedin' obvious. Look deeper.
You meet up with a school friend you haven't seen in twenty odd years, you find a piece of jewellery you thought lost forever, you see someone driving a car exactly like your first one. Your mind immediately thinks of how that friend looked at school, when you last saw that ring, what you did in the back seat of that car. As a result, something in your life has come full circle. It's up to you to make what you will of it.
I recently bumped into the brother of a friend I'd had for twenty years. We'll call her Tanya and the brother Gareth. I met Tanya at high school. She was fresh from England where her dad had been in the Navy, now he was in the Australian Navy. She and I got on well, became very good friends. We finished high school and kept in touch. I could see, early on, that she was dissatisfied, but with what, I couldn't say - and that proved telling.
After being friends for twenty years, we were celebrating my birthday, as you do, with plenty of liquid refreshment. We were talking, a subject I remember well for it's strangeness: Darwinian Theory. At one point her face darkened. It was like a switch being thrown and all sorts of venom spewed out. She expressed a wish never to see me again or hear my voice. Still being relatively sober, I demanded that she be very sure. She was. That she remember her words the following day. She would, she promised. Okay. Nothing more I could say, it was a done deal. Twenty years of friendship, thrown away.
For nigh on seven years, I abided by her wish. She did write. Twice. Once to ask to get together, and the other to apologise for her behaviour and confess no memory of the night.
Then I bumped into Gareth. He said that Tanya had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and had, apparently, had it for some time, although he couldn't say for how long. He also said he didn't know how to contact her as he'd found out she'd moved.
My first reaction was to help him find her, but I held my tongue. Circles within circles. The final tragic confrontation wasn't the first time I'd been subjected to her volatile mood swings. Did I really want to go through that kind of hurt again? Absolutely not. Did I want to help? Her, no, him, yes. Gareth I could help. Help him understand his sister's illness better by giving him a timeline.
I have no guilt in this, that finally passed the year she sent the apology. I knew then that she was ill, and wrote to her that unless she got help, I couldn't put myself into the situation where she might turn violent and not remember. I had broken the circle that had been around me for those long years.
It is not that I'm unsympathetic to her plight, but neither am I a martyr to a lost friendship. For me, that has been resolved. I'm sad that an intelligent woman should be on the downward spiral, but we all make choices and have to live with the consequences. Her choice was continued drug abuse and denial in that it was harming her in any way. My choice was to walk away, and sometimes, that's all you can do, if only for your own health.
There are many circles we face every day. Some are bigger than others, but all need to be adjusted or broken to be able to move on with our own lives. If we don't do anything, that situation will return, and return until we figure out how to make changes.
Watch for the memories, smile or pause in thought, but don't wait... Do Something. Make the choice and live.
No comments:
Post a Comment