Regret pt. 2

When I said that I didn’t have any friends, it was a bit of an exaggeration. I did have a couple of friends. One of them, S., was with me during most of middle and high school. Also, I made some friends in my first year of high school in grade 10. I was in the accelerated program and rather than attending mixed classes like the rest of the high school, we were all in the same class with each other all day. It was the same group of 20 people all the time and we all got to know each other really well. In fact, the first girl that I fell in love with was in that class. Her name was C., and while we never got together, I think I can still see her face when I close my eyes. I can only imagine how vivid the memory of her would be if we had dated.

That was probably one of the best years that I had in the public school system. It helped that I was in a different school in high school than middle school. I was with different people and those two idiots who made my life so difficult were gone. It has to be said that I don’t think I had any friends that I was completely honest with, though. I knew that S had never had a girlfriend before, for example, but I demurred when I was asked the same question. Even at that age I was too good at keeping a secret. If I had been honest with people earlier, I can only imagine how my life would have been different.

I also had my first heart-break that year. When I first met C, I was told by a mutual friend in that class that she was interested in me and wanted me to ask her out. That wasn’t going to happen without a lot of patience on her part, of course, because I didn’t have any confidence in myself. I wasn’t athletic so I was very self-conscious about my body, and I didn’t think that I had much to offer anyone. Anyways, she eventually discovered my best friend S. S and C were dating on and off for most of that year. Neither of them knew just how infatuated with C I was, and when they found out C was bemused and S felt betrayed because of how he had taken me into his confidence.

I want to emphasize just how obsessive I was about C. She was really my first love, even if she never felt the same way about me. I’m not sure that I’ve ever felt so much pain associated with love since. I’ve experienced plenty of unrequited love – so many women that I’ve known and wanted to be with but never would – but hers was surely the most painful. The only thing that would compare would be what I’m going through right now with my wife.

Anyways, C left the school, indeed she moved to the other side of the country in grade 11, and I dropped out of the accelerated program and entered the general student body. In grade 11 and 12, I was anonymous. I lost touch with most of the people I knew in the accelerated class, and I didn’t make any new friends in any of my other classes.

Fast-forward four years and I’m now 22 years old. I’m well into my twenties, but I’m spending them in my mom’s basement. Occasionally I get a phone call from S – he’s attending a liberal arts school in the US and is telling me about his classes and all the people he’s meeting and the new ideas he’s being exposed to. Most of our phone conversations are monologues – S tells me about his life, and I listen. I don’t have anything to offer – how could I? What have I done? I’m spending all of my time playing computer games and he’s become an adult. I yearn to be an adult, but I’m so depressed.

This is something that really bothers me about my mother. She was told to wait out this strange stage in my life, but I was also clinically depressed. I was attempting suicide and I never got the help that I desperately needed. I should have been seeing a psychologist as soon as I dropped out of high school. But instead, I just lingered in childhood. I was Laura in The Glass Menagerie. I was paralyzed by depression and feelings of worthlessness. I needed to be woken up, but no one would do that for me! Why not? I really wish that it hadn’t been up to my mother to wake me up. I needed to be pushed out the door, but she was so accommodating that I hid out in that basement room and missed what could have been some of the most exciting years of my life.