If You Could See Me Now

The title of this entry is also the title of a song I recently wrote, and it does relate, but I won't reprint it here. It's in the MySpace blog if anyone is interested. It's also the name of a Peter Straub novel which I haven't read. I'm sure it's the name for a lot of things. It resonates in an odd way. It is wistful, longing, tinged with either pride or regret. I haven't gone to any high school reunions, and I don't plan to...not unless I change a lot for the better. I worked overnight at the store a couple years ago, and another person on our crew was this 19-year-old punk who bragged about being on meth, and he called me a loser. For working that job. For living with my parents at my age, mid-thirties. For...probably a number of other reasons. I knew that it was wrong for him to say what he did, but I didn't disagree with him. If I had, it wouldn't have hurt so much.

Here's a story I've told many times, but I suppose I'll keep telling it until I figure out whatever it is I'm supposed to learn from it. If it sounds familiar, from my previous entry, you're right. And bits and pieces of many entries before that.

When I was in high school, there was a boy I thought was the most incredible young man on the planet...Surely God's perfect creation. All I wanted was to be friends with him. It never happened, though we had a mutual respect for each other, and did some class stuff together. College saw the same thing happening, still wanted a deep friendship with this person, but never made it happen. Then the time came for him to leave town; he was going away to another college. And after six years of making him an idol (God forgive me), I felt so completely devastated at his coming departure that I was beside myself, wondering what to do. I decided to spill my guts to him, tell him how I felt and see if a friendship could be formed. And what do you know? We were friends, just like that. But I screwed it up. It doesn't matter how...I mean, it does matter, but not for the sake of this blog. He ran from me as from some viral hot zone. And I prayed and prayed to get him back. I said, "God, I put this in YOUR hands. This friendship between me and him, consider it YOURS, grow it, nurture it like something that belongs to YOU."

But one of the hardest things for any Christian to learn is that when you give a matter to God, you must then leave it alone, wait for Him to do what He will do. He may not do what you want Him to do. And I think that's why we make the mistake of taking things back from Him, because we don't trust Him to do OUR will. We know that He will do His own will, but what if that is not what WE want?

This guy would have nothing to do with me. Answered no phone calls or letters. I was dead to him. So what did I do? I moved to the town where he had recently relocated! You know, it's amazing how we can fool ourselves. Oh, I prayed about it. "Dear Lord, should I move to where he is?" Yeah I prayed night and day, but did I wait for an answer? If I had heard an answer, would I have listened? Would I have obeyed? I knew what I wanted to do, and I did it. And the situation became much worse. I was lucky he did not go to the police and get a protective order against me.

After less than three months, I went home to lick my wounds. I knew that all hope was lost. But I kept tabs on him, via the Internet. I kept an eye on what he was up to, not because I was going to DO anything, but just because I wanted to know. He had known that I wanted to become a filmmaker. That was not his ambition, it was mine. But through the years, he got a scholarship in screenwriting, then made some movies, and is now a successful Hollywood screenwriter. I could name drop some of the celebrities that are involved in his projects, but there's no point.

A few days ago, I googled him again and found out that he was wed in Italy a couple years ago. All his family and friends were there...all except...one. Well, no, I mean I'm not his friend anymore. I WAS, but haven't been in almost 15 years. That small mistake I made that made him back away...and the thousand bigger mistakes I made trying to correct the first mistake...That meant that we were not friends, like we would have been. I was not the one to read the rough drafts of his screenplays and tell him what was good and what wasn't. I was not the guy for him to bounce ideas off of. I did not work as part of a crew for any of his movies. And of course I would not be invited to his Italian wedding.

But like everyone else I suppose, I have these "what if...?" moments where I think, "What if I hadn't messed this up?" What if our friendship had survived? How would my life be different today? Would I still live in the house I grew up in? Would I still be financially dependent on others? Would I still be insecure, depressed, lonely, scared, and confused? Or would I have had the tools to solve all these problems? Might I have grown wings and taken flight? If he could see me now...If he could see me now, would he feel disgust or just pity?

I can't blame God for not blessing that friendship. I ruined it all by myself. Maybe I think God should have restrained me somehow, kept me from doing all the dumb things that I did. But He gives us free will. I was not nearly mature enough back then to trust Him and let Him show me how to handle things. And the sad thing is, I'm not a lot more mature now than I was then, although I try. Yes, I try, but I still mess up.

Maybe something terrible would have happened if he and I had continued on the course of friendship that I had wanted. Maybe it would have taken me in a direction away from God. Who knows? I don't envy his life. And I don't regret the experiences I've had as a result of not living that other life. What I regret is just not being a part of his life because I really did love him, and I wanted to be there. And I wanted him to be a part of my life, even if it was a small part. At the wedding, I would have patted him on the shoulder and said how happy I was for him. It would have been the essence of all that I had wanted.