Mended Wing

CHAPTER ONE-letting go . . . as if I had a choice.
"and by the way... go screw yourself"...
Jen told me that would make a wonderful opening line to my story, if ever I should sit down and write. She also told me she was worried about me . . . that my friendship with Sam would end with me having my heart broken. She knew. He had broken her heart as well. Had I known how this would all turn out I might have listened. But no, not me... I knew best ...for I am a dreamer who does not follow a set path, I am a forty-four-year old chaser of windmills who still believes that love conquers all. I believe that true happiness does exist. Perhaps all I am is an old fool.
...And so my story begins. A story with a beginning and an end, and a lot of questions in between that might never be answered. A story filled with incredible happiness that did not last long enough, and was too soon replaced by unhappiness like I have never known before, and hope I never know again. For me, one time was more than enough.
My life was okay. Nothing great. I had been married for more than 20 years and had four incredible children. A nice home in the suburbs, food to eat, and a nice car. I should have been happy and satisfied . . . but somewhere in my heart . . . where all of my secrets reside, was the nagging feeling that I was letting my life pass me by while I sat on the sidelines watching. I was not happy. I was merely existing. And as my children grew into people who did not need me as much and my husband grew into a man who did not listen anymore, I grew into a woman wanting more. I did not think it was too much to ask to be happy. I went out into the world in search of my happiness.
Sam. I did not invite him into my life. He appeared seemingly out of nowhere. He came to live in Jennifer's home while she and her family went off to Africa for two months. Sam. A thirty-one-year-old, unmarried man originally from Britain. Quiet, unassuming, kept to himself. An unlikely friend for a drama queen such as myself, but we hit it off immediately. We soon began to e-mail and over time developed a strong friendship. Sam began to confide in me his dreams and deepest fears. Did I mention that I am married? Sam seemed to be everything that Allen was not. I liked that Sam listened to me. And he really seemed to be interested in what I had to say. As the weather turned from spring to summer, we began to run every night. And we laughed and talked and when life got to be too much for Sam, he talked from his heart in a soft voice that I came to know well. He told me of a sadness that consumed his soul. How was he to know I was the perfect person to tell? That I understood because I had been living with that same sadness for so long. We connected. I believed with everything I know to be true that I had found the friend I had been waiting for my whole life. I felt happy. From the bottom of my toes to the top of my head and everything in between, I was happy. I likened myself to a twelve-year-old child who has just met the person who will become her best friend. Her family of choice.

Sam needed me. We spent countless hours together just talking. I felt needed, wanted and loved. In friendship. I never worried if I was pretty enough or smart enough . . . that never mattered. We were friends. I was so undeniably happy. I liked it best when we did nothing, when we just walked around the park and talked. Sometimes we held hands as the sun was setting and I found myself feeling a sense of belonging like I have never experienced before. We had so much in common. We had the same silly sense of humor that few people have. We laughed about everything and about nothing at all. But we laughed. We quoted stupid lines from movies and both enjoyed the lyrics from the same ballads. Soon Sam began to represent a safe place for me. A person I could be with and not worry if I was good enough or not. Sam called me all of the time, sometimes just to say hi. It was nice for me to feel so important. I wonder now if that was a bad thing. Feeling important. At the time it felt good. It felt nice knowing that another person wanted to be with me, wanted to talk to me and wanted to hear what I had to say. It felt good to believe deep inside that another person cared about me. The real me, the me that no one ever took the time to see. You know, the person who lies beyond your eyes. Sam took the time to look beyond my eyes deep inside. Sam was my dear and trusted friend.
Too soon the summer ended. And as the seasons changed and the leaves began to fall, I began to feel as though I was losing Sam. He stopped calling all the time. He was too busy to see me. He decided that going back to his former girlfriend was his life path. And with that decision came the beginning of the end for me in terms of our friendship. At first, he did not want me to know, so he began to lie. But I always knew. It hurt to know that the person I trusted so, felt the need to lie to me. He knew how important the truth was to me. Then came 'the reasons', a plethora of ridiculous reasons why Sam could not be my friend anymore. I was too old, I had a friend who gossiped, I was married, he did not have the answers to my problems. And with each silly reason, I fought harder. I wanted to show Sam why he still needed me. Well, I learned the hard way that you cannot show a person anything. They have to find the answers inside themselves. But I exhausted myself trying. I began to feel a sadness deep inside. The sadness of a desperate person trying to save something when they know that there is no hope. There was nothing I could say or do that would make any difference to Sam. He was ready, for whatever reason, to move on and away from me. I represented something he did not want to deal with anymore.

After the lies came the meanness; the angry words followed by silences. But Sam always came back. Because I could not find it in my heart to hold onto anger, I welcomed him back with open arms. For a short moment in time I was happy again. Every time Sam came back to our friendship, it proved to me that he did care. And I thought we had moved on and that we would be all right. But within a week or two it would happen all over again. I would call Sam to say hi, and on the other end I could hear in his voice an all too familiar coldness. He wanted out again. "But we are friends I would say, not lovers. Friends do not break up unless they have a fight . . . and we did not have a fight.” I would ask for an explanation and Sam would tell me I was giving him a headache with all of my endless questions. Of course I had questions. This did not make sense to me. It happened too many times. He caused too much hurt . . . and too much pain. I needed to accept that I had to be the one to let Sam go.
Soon the good times and laughs were replaced by only sadness and tears. Mine. I was left with questions as to what had happened to my friend Sam. Can a person really change so quickly? If this new person is Sam; then who did I come to love over the summer? Who was the person that I was happy with? Was he real or just a figment of my imagination? Questions.
Now as the year is ending, and the weather has turned from warm to cold and the falling leaves are replaced by snow, I am without my friend Sam. This time forever. I gave everything to a friendship that was not real. I was there whenever Sam asked without hesitation, without ever being too busy. He was my dear friend. And I wanted to be a friend in return. I grew to love a friend who perhaps only existed inside my own heart.
Here I sit, still with questions, wondering how could I, such a smart woman, allow myself to care so intensely about a person who was simply using me to escape their own pain? I am ashamed that I confided my deepest fears and secrets to Sam . . . that I allowed this person to see me without pretense. I am ashamed that I loved Sam beyond compare. That I accepted his words without question, and that I believed in him. But mostly I am ashamed that I thought I had met someone who understood me, someone who could care, someone who would be my friend. Someone who would accept me just because and not tell me what was wrong with me. I am ashamed that with Sam I felt safe. That I allowed myself to feel happy. I am ashamed that I misunderstood from the beginning that I was never a trusted, beloved friend, I was only the transition friend. The friends who would fill Sam's time until he moved onto something better. The simple truth is that I was used. You expect to be used in a romantic relationship. That comes with the territory, but you do not see it coming in a friendship that you think is pure. Not in a friendship that was supposed to last longer than a single season. It hits you in the face with such a force that you find it difficult to breathe. You know, that first second after your heart understands the truth. That second in time when your heart tells you were used and then discarded. It hurts to know that everything you felt deep inside was not real. That you never mattered, you were never important. You were just the person there at that certain point of time in Sam's life. Just a body, nothing more. If someone asked me, I would say that is a feeling a body can live a whole lifetime without. It is a feeling that does not serve any purpose other than to destroy a piece of your soul. And that it did.
Who knows what happened? I am afraid I never will. And Sam is too busy hiding the truth from himself to ever stand still long enough to question his actions. Sam has moved on, or backward if the truths are told. Sam went back to Lisa, the woman he told me he could not think of one good thing to say about. The woman who loves him so much, she continues to keep him a secret. She denies being in a relationship with him. Go figure. When Sam was my friend, I was so proud, I wanted everyone to know. And this Lisa whom he loves so dearly, keeps him well hidden. Someday Sam will come to find the truth. About Lisa and all that she has said and done. I kept silent about all that I knew. It was not my place to break his heart. Besides, he was not ready for the truth. When he is ready for the truth, he will see. And he will stop making excuses to make himself feel better.
To me, friendship is God's purest gift. His way of bringing angels into our life to protect us and to love us in a way no one else can. I thought Sam was my angel. I was wrong, but in all of that wrongness I cannot find anger, only desolate sadness.
He often told me he was not real. I should have listened. He was possibly telling me the only truth he had.
Not enough time has passed for me to put any perspective on my loss. I am fine most of the time except the mornings . . . they are so bad. Sam still comes to me in my dreams; in the stillness of the night . . . as he was. As I knew him to be, as my beloved, trusted friend. As my safe place. And until the morning breaks, I am once again happy. It is only when I open my eyes that the sadness comes to me in a rush. And my heart remembers its loss.
So here I sit . . . writing and knowing what I have always known to be true. Everything happens for a reason. Somewhere in all of this is a lesson to be learned.
Sometimes the body knows the answers before the heart. My body knew long before my heart that this wonderful friendship lived in me, but for it to survive it needed to live in Sam as well.
This was not a romance. It was a friendship. It was happy and safe and secure. It was a place where I could be who I am supposed to be without fear of judgment. It was a wonderful place for me to visit, even for a short time. I learned finally what happy really feels like.
Jennifer was right. She told me Sam would break my heart and he did, into a million pieces. Pieces so small I fear at times they might not fit back together. But that opening line with all of its hatred . . . that was wrong. I would not say that to Sam had I the opportunity. I love Sam. He was my friend.
This is my story, my truth. But it is not the end, this was to be the beginning of a journey that would end with my questions finally being answered, but not in a way I ever suspected.