He Ain't Heavy...

I have a friend whom I love like a brother.

That's a weird thing for a dude to say. It's not just the threat of implied homo-eroticism. Men don't talk about their feelings with each other. And you never use the L-word... no, the other one.

For men, I think in all of our relationships, we assume love is implied. You're supposed to know we love you. (Ladies, feel free to realize why so many of your past relationships were fucked up based on this premise.) I have no trouble telling my Mom or Dad, little brother, Aunts, Uncles, cousins or my server at Outback Steakhouse that I love them. But another man? No matter how close? Can't do it.

But that's not really what this is about.

I have a brother, who is not my brother. And we have known each other a very long time and been through a lot. In retrospect, probably more on his end than mine, but I've been through shit too. But things are different lately.

We had a pretty big fight last year, the second biggest we've ever had. And that might not normally be a big deal... I mean, families fight. God knows mine does.

He'd been picking fights with me for weeks at that point. He was looking for things to fight about. Whether that had something to do with me or not, I can't say. Maybe he was looking to take out his frustrations on me. Maybe I did something. The problem is that most of this fight was him saying terrible things to me. He said a few things that I don't excuse or forgive of others. But what disturbed me most was that the person he was describing didn't sound like someone he liked. If I knew someone like the person he claimed I am, I wouldn't be friends with them. Which led me to wonder, does he even like me? Why are you even talking to me if this is who you think I am?

We didn't talk for many months. He called and left a message. No apology or anything; just kind of a "hey, maybe we should forget about all that" message. I didn't call him back. I was still pretty hurt. Then I noticed he'd deleted me from his facebook. NOW WAIT, don't get the wrong idea. I could give a shit about facebook. People delete me from time to time for whatever reason, and I usually just shrug when I notice. Whatever. But there's only two reasons why someone deletes you from Facebook. Either they have things to hide from you, or they don't want you in their life or in their business. (or also if they just don't give a shit about you, so 3, I guess.) So after a while I went ahead and called him back. We didn't talk about anything that happened. We just went on with life. And for a while, things were okay.

He came in town early this year (he lives in another state) and asked to hang out at literally the last minute. I thought that was kind of fucked up, but whatever. People have lives and obligations, I get that. Really I do. But there's a feeling you get from someone when they do something like that, like they're only forcing you into their schedule because they have to. I dunno, maybe that says more about me than him.

While we were hanging out, he told me I should go up and visit him. The thing is, he says this all the time, and I always say no, because I have a job and no money. But about a week or so later, I realized I finally had time and money to go for a visit. And so I told him, I'd come up. And I immediately got a vibe off of him, like he didn't want me there. I made plans, and took vacation time. After a couple of weeks, he told me that probably wouldn't be a good week to come up, so I asked work if I could move it back a few weeks further. So I told him I'd move it back to a better week. And he said okay.

My plan was to drive up to a nearby city I wanted to visit on that Wednesday. Thursday, I would drive to the city he's in and do some sight seeing while he was in school. Then I'd just hang out at his place Thursday night & do some more sight seeing while he was in school Friday. Then we would actually go out Friday and Saturday night. We're both old though, so it wouldn't be late nights. Sunday I would drive home. So really, we would only be hanging out Friday night and Saturday. Barely a weekend.

I could tell he didn't want me up there though, and about a week and a half before the trip he said it wasn't a good time for me to be there. He was having a really hectic semester in school, and needed every minute to study.

Sounds logical. But then a week later he told me he spent that Friday night out on a date and went drinking all night with his friends from school. And he's been dating that girl all semester. They even went off for a weekend together once or twice. So what happened to studying every minute? Time for all those other people, but not a single measly weekend for an old friend? The same old friend who he asked to be the godfather of his daughter?

And since then we barely talk. When we do, everything is fine. But he almost always has some reason to get off the phone quickly. Even when I ask about his kids--- and I love the 2 of them dearly--- something isn't right. And you can tell that there are things not being said.

And I can't help but wonder if this is the end.

For most people, I'd be okay with that. Sometimes people just leave. But I'm not alright with this. It hurts in the one place I'm vulnerable. You lose family for all sorts of reasons. But to have one of them just up and decide they don't give a fuck about you anymore?

That just sucks.