Friday, February 05, 2010

When Friends Resurface

Hey, everyone! Happy 2010! I know I've been gone for a minute, but I'm back (for now). My body has healed sufficiently, so I will be returning to the gym this month. I'll have to start over, of course, but I'm not afraid of the challenge. I'm still waiting to receive my certificate from the Library of Congress. I haven't written any songs lately and I'm not inclined to resume writing the sequel to the first novel. Work is rewarding most days. My family continues to function as a source of support. Overall, I can't complain.

How many of you remember the post I wrote last March? You know, the one about my friend who vanished. Yeah, that one. Anyway, about a month ago, I got a friend request on Facebook from said friend. I kid y'all not! It was quite a shock. Turns out, T has been going through a lot. Consequently, he relocated to the United Kingdom. He's doing well, thank God. I made him vow to never terminate communication with me EVER again. If he can't call, text messages will do.

This experience was humbling and raised my level of awareness. See, I used to be close to my biological father's son (I used to refer to him as my brother with ease). After maintaiing consistent contact for nearly a year, I disappeared. I stopped visiting the house and returning phone calls. At that time (2001), I was isolated from my immediate family and extremely vulnerable. His mother was making demands that I believed were unreasonable. No one cared that I was operating in crisis mode; it was all about what I could do for them. When I did call him ( in 2004, after his mother tracked me down and gave me his telephone number), he was pissed. Dude returned my phone call at 12:00 A.M., said he didn't need to hear from me, and hung up. We haven't spoken since.

Just as I grieved losing contact with T, "W" must have grieved my absence. I truly regret abandoning him. My actions mirrored my biological father's; years earlier, he left them and created another family. Hopefully, we will have an opportunity to reconcile. I would like that.