Near Miss

Sometimes I get this feeling that, well, everything is dandy and fine, because I forget and I forget the reasons why things plague me.

2 days ago, I met a fairly close friend of mine at the bus stop below my block, where I found him smoking a stick in a bid to prove to himself -and me- that he was in such a deep pickle that it was absolutely necessary to light up (again) to solve his problems.

I considered calling him a dumbass and leaving right there and then… until he lifted his sleeves. The cuts on his arms dug into my mind, and I mentally slapped myself for being a callous prick; the kind which I would call all the guys around me, the self-absorbed men I swore to never become, the kind which I prided myself to not be.

I told him to get help, the kind I never got, and replied in a frustration… a frustration that I had sensed from those trying to help my pessimistic self. I’m sorry and I really am.

—

Things change, my friends, and I’m nearly giving up… it’s too much damned work to keep anything the same any more, and I can find my wide-eyed hopefulness slipping through my fingers like the finest of sand.

But I’m too good for that, I tell myself. The days still pass, and I try to remind myself that “being myself” is simply… a matter of being the best me I can be.