isaac

isaac and i have a strange history together, and our friendship is hanging on by a thread….given the circumstances i’m not sure why it bothers me so much. but there is something about each call i make that goes unanswered that gets under my skin. i suppose it may just be time to let it go.

isaac and i met around this time last year, in a holding in the western part of the state.  for those of you unfamiliar with the term, a “holding is a state funded facility to live in while waiting to be placed in a halfway house or similar program. i was there for 30 days after i finished detox last year. about halfway through my stay there, isaac came through. i was two and a half weeks clean, feeling better every day….and i was in search of that lethal combination i love so much…..companionship and distraction.  i had broken up with casey only days before, over the phone, because i was trying to get clean and he was still running the streets.  there was alot more too it than that, but that was the catalyst that finally brought action on my part.

so, sitting in the blue room (if you are familiar with holding you’ll understand that one) it was nice to have someone to kill time with. if you’re unfamiliar with holding, i’ll give you the rundown. this is house it was @ my tss (temorary support service) program. it was three buildings, a detox/treatment building….housing the detox on the second and third floor, the cafeteria, nurses station, meeting rooms and the infamous blue room. the mens sleep house was up the hill, the women’s was down the hill. everyday we wake up at six and walk up the hill in our pajamas to eat breakfast, then go back to the bunkhouse, shower, change and come over to the blue room, where all thirty of us, men and women, would sit for the next 12 hours, save for meals and an hour break after lunch. we could go outside onto a patio, but no further. there were intermittent meetings on and off, but mostly time was spent playing cards or dice, listening to music and talking. we watched movies at night. it was blisteringly dull.

so you can understand why good company was imperative.

and isaac was good company.  we had more in common than i could comprehend with my puny human mind. we liked exactly the same movies, books and music. we laughed at the same jokes, had the same sarcastic, character-assasin sense of humor. we ever dressed the same. our whole friendship started because we were wearing the same pair of chucks, with matching argile socks. it was pathetic.

we were never at a loss for words and it was a great way to spend the endless days in the blue room. it was an interesting dynamic we had because drugs were not involved. any time i’ve ever become friends with, or dated anyone, drugs have been at the forefront. all of my serious boyfriends i have met through partying and or drugs. i’m not pround of that, it’s just a fact. so to meet a friend and not be waisted…it was a new experience for me. of course, we were both dope shooting junkies, but we wern’t high at that exact moment. so we had the history in common, but we had never gotten high together.

it was a good feeling for me, to know that i could be just kaia, not the party chick, not the hookup, not the jam-sammich i usually was, and someone could still find my company appealing. ( i know, low self esteem is so unnattractive, but i can’t help but hate myself sometimes) it was nice to know someone could like me for me, sober.

and he felt the same way. isaac’s story is unlike any i’ve ever heard before…..let me try to sum it up for you. he was born on the northshore, and lived a fairly normal childhood. he was into drugs, but never like i’ve been into drugs. he has some kind of heart defect, and he’s got a pacemaker. (yep, 26 year old kid w/ a pacemaker and a penchent for shooting drugs. ha) he’s an artist, musician and poet….an aires if you can believe that. he got into dope when he was 21, after his mother died suddenly….aneurism i think. he has a four year old son with a girl who doesn’t get high, who is now dating his old best friend. he’s been shooting up, doing the detox tour for the past six years. this last time out he picked up smoking crack, but has never shot coke ( i strongly advised him not to, pacemaker and all) he seemed serious about staying clean this time, and talking to him made me feel like it was an actual possiblity. we would talk for hours, drinking smuggled coffee from the cafeteria, music and books, mostly, family guy and life after death….it was a very nice time last spring.

when i got place in a halfway house in the city, we kept up our friendship through letters. now you know me enough to know that this is where i shine. i would send him page after page of stories and poems and little fantasy scenes. our friendship grew stronger. i liked him alot. we talked on the phone all the time…..

when he finally got placed in a house in his hometown, we made arrangements to meet up. i was excited it was going to be so different to see him outside of an institution. we met in the southend, and….it was very different. he was very much into a romantic aspect of our relationship. i thought i was catching feelings too, but when i saw him,  i had reservations.

then i got mad at myself, like hello kaia, you’ve been writing to this kid and talking to him on the phone everyday, you know how he feels, and now you are just going to change your mind? bitch.

it didn’t seem fair, to not even give him a shot. so i let him hold my hand, as we walked down to his friends house. i just didn’t feel right. i can’t put my finger on it. he kissed me and i just didn’t feel it. that spark…..you know what i mean?

that should have been enough of a sign for me, but you know that’s not the case. i don’t trust myself enough to believe my own instincts. so we continued to the friends house, where we went upstairs, into an abandoned bedroom (noone had lived in this house for years, it looked more like his friend was squatting, if you want the truth) and we had sex.

terrible, awful, empty sex.

i couldn’t get dressed fast enough, and he knew the second it was over, that in fact, IT was over.

he kept asking me what was wrong, what did he do? and i couldn’t answer him. because he didn’t do anything wrong. the scene just wasn’t right from jump, and i could have saved us both the pain, but i just don’t trust myself enough. it’s like getting high….i know it’s not right, but i’m just gonna try and see if it works out okay. um…no.

so a couple weeks went by and i was avoiding his calls like the plauge. it took me relapsing to finally get the (alcohol induced) balls to call him and tell him what was up. i would love to stay friends, but we can’t date. besides, i’m smoking crack right now and you are sober, it’s just not fair.

that was this time last year, and we have spoken a handful of times. we have each gone through 2 other relationships besides the one we almost shared, and we are both working on our third (codependent much?) we share small talk, but i haven’t seen him since that one day….and i still miss him.

the him i knew before all that went down. but who knows if that was even the real him?

so i know that next week is the anniversary of his mother’s death, and his birthday. i know it’s the hardest time of year for him, and last i heard his girl was back in detox. he should be coming up on a year clean…..i figured he might need some support.

so i’ve been calling.

like a stalker.

and texting.

to no avail

he texts me back with “i’m sooooo busy, i’ll call you in the near future”

i just want to make a connection, let him know i’m hear for him, not strung out, just looking to be his friend. it seems like such a waist, because we have so much in common and could really be good friends to each other. he introduced me to bright eyes and elliot smith, i will forever be grateful for that. music is catharsis for us both, something deep inside not many other peoople understand on this level.

i just wish he’d let me be there for him.

or maybe being a good friend would be letting it go. he’s clean and i’m not.

i don’t know. i’d like to think i can have clean friends even though i still struggle. isn’t that what friendship is, being there through good and bad.

who knows….i certainly dont.