Risk and Closure

It was a fun, amazing and enlightening weekend.

We thought we were taking a risk, not having spoken to anyone in our previous large group of friends since...our "meltdown" (there's really no good way to describe with a word). Some we hadn't seen in over three years, some it has been over two, but we took the risk to go listen to an outrageously talented singer, who we'd known longer than almost anyone else in the city, sing (we had dated one of her drummers for nearly two years). We had been telling James about her since we first met him, and now that he is allowed to travel outside of the United States, he couldn't get us back to the city where we spent the first few months of our relationship, fast enough.

We walked into the venue and she was on stage, we didn't see her at first but James spotted her partially hidden by a column.
Pointing to her he said "There she is." recognizing her from photos we had recently shown him; and just as he raised his finger she looked towards the entrance.
We grabbed James' finger, pulled it down and said "Don't point!", and then retreated towards a side area where we couldn't be seen, leaving James standing there intoxicated by her voice. We could see in his eyes he was hooked. Later he would tell us that it's amazing how good she is, and how she makes it look so easy, and other things, his eyes sparkling with amazement.

At our seat with Fabulous Person we listened to her sing, FP was also impressed, we talked about her voice and we'd bet money James will go talk to her, even though we had told him not to. We had no idea who might be there that we didn't want to see - people who were angry at us for how our friendships dissolved, how we abandoned them, some were angry about this blog - we didn't want to draw attention.

James comes over to the table and says he talked to her, but didn't tell her who he was, only that "My wife told me we had to drive [x] hours to hear you sing." He asked if we'd like her to come over to the table, and we said of course, but it wouldn't be a good idea.

He went off and talked to her again shortly, coming back to the table he said that she had recognized "me" the minute we walked into the bar, and that she would come over and talk soon.

Nervous. Butterflies. Deep breaths.

When she came over we gave her a big hug. It's been three years since we last saw her, and the last time was on a girls trip to a U.S.A. city for the 4th of July...where yours truly had almost got hauled off to the drunk tank for passing out in the hotel bar washroom and then refusing to leave, after a night heavy with substances and alcohol. There's more to the story, but to keep it short...that was her last memory of us. Great.

We asked her about everybody else, what they were up to. To find out she hasn't seen most of them in just about the same amount of time...we were stunned. She mentioned people she hadn't talked to; she mentioned how one of the last times she had talked to The Non-Bestie she was pissed because of this blog; she mentioned how two of the girls had come and had a drink and left without, apparently, talking to her.

She mentioned how funny it was that "I" showed up this weekend...she had just been reading my blog this week

More shock.

We're so glad we went to hear her sing. We're so glad we got to talk to her. We're looking forward to hearing her sing again.

What we risked, was a lot of confrontation, ridicule, a lot of awkwardness, a wide-range of things, from the most important group of people we had ever had in our life.
What we got, was closure.

She bought us a shot, let us gush over how much we miss hearing her sing; we stayed and "closed down the bar".

Maybe the cracks we begin to feel, to see, in the the web of relationships...wasn't out imagination and paranoia after all. Maybe after New Years that final year when we lost touch with everybody, because we stopped texting and calling them, and they us, for the most part, was just...what was going to happen.

Anyway.

We spent part of every day of our trip with Fabulous Person, we had a great time, great conversation, and we're so glad we finally got to go back. We're planning another trip for October.

The city itself, our favourite neighborhoods of downtown, have changed a bit, but it still remains the same: Familiar, comfortable, cultural, unique.
Home.

Home, never to be home again.