World of Make Believe

“&all she does is take, and I’ve got nothing left to give.”

Sometimes, I wonder why in the hell people come to me with their problems. Is it because I am a good listener? Because I (for the most part, I won’t lie) tend to geniunely care about people, especially people I consider my friends, and I try to offer sensible advice and/or a reality check? (Yes, some people do get wind of my smartass mouth, but there are just some things that seem blatantly obvious, and I tend to have moments of “they cannot be serious” and react accordingly.)

I got a call from one of my sisters today. I haven’t mentioned them much in this blog, primarily because my family life is so unbelievably messed up that I’m not entirely sure who I am related to and who I am not. It seems that she and my other sister (that I know) got into a fight. My other sister, S (I’ll just use initials for the sake of privacy) has apparently decided she doesn’t need M in her life. That she doesn’t need, want, or have to have anything to do with her. Naturally, M is hurt.

As for myself, I am not surprised. S has pulled this shit before with me. It’s a back and forth game you grow numb to after awhile. You get tired of having stories and lies spread about you, you get tired of giving all you can to a human leech, and then getting yelled at and “cut out of her life.”

People, as a whole, take other people for granted. We don’t feel a need to treasure every single moment we have with someone, because they’ll always be there for us, right? They’re not going to leave. We will end today and wake up tomorrow, and all will be the same. We get confronted with problems, sometimes over and over again, and we work them out, and we move on. Nothing will change, our relationships will be eternal. “GTG, TTYL,” has many fans and is a frequently used phrase. Got to go, talk to you later.

In some cases, though, today is the end of any tomorrows. Sometimes, things are damaged to a point where they just can’t be salvaged. Other times, people become unwilling to try to work things out. They get scared. They will never admit it, but they get scared. Sometimes, you run out of tomorrows, plain and simple. We take people for granted until given a reason not to. We do the opposite of what we should. They’re always going to be there.

M and S’s relationship will never be the same. M’s not like me, she won’t go back to her over and over again. She’s hurt. Of course, she has a reason to be hurt. Me…I like to try and fix things. Hang on to people I know I should. Sometimes too much, sometimes at the wrong time. But it’s not because I’ve done it voluntarily. I’ve taken a lot of people for granted, people I shouldn’t have taken for granted. At first, it was my mother. Then she got a death sentence of a week, was in ICU, and all I could think about was everything I’d done wrong. Granted…it’s fair to say my mother is not perfect. But no one is. Things are better between us than they ever have been before. I’m not above admitting, however, that had she been perfectly happy, had she not been so sick, things would probably have continued on the same path they did throughout my teenage years.

It’s hard to digest, though, when attempting to pull certain things in life together, that some things, some people, refuse. And then you wonder why you wasted those years, those opportunities. Why you argued and fought, and now that person can only remember the fights. Not the good memories, just the fights. Not the inside jokes, the birthdays, the secrets, the love, the knowledge (at the time) that they’d always be there, no matter what. But then it happens, the person refuses. And you sit, and wonder how much time to you devote to making things right? If you think it’s worth it, you keep trying. But for how long? When is enough enough?

Eventually, though, you give up. You have to. You just have this hope, in the back of your mind, that they’ll change their mind. Sometimes, you cry. You might get angry. But eventually…it will fade away. It’s a matter of taking what’s offered to you at that time– because someday, there won’t be any tomorrows, and it will be too late. That’s it. That’s the end.

Then comes the regret. “Why did I say no?” and the tell-all, “What might have been?”

Things change. I don’t want to have any more regrets. I have enough of those. But there comes a time when there’s nothing left to give. I am holding on, but I can only do it for so long.

Checkmate. Game over.