In Memory of the Last F*** I Gave
I won’t cry because it’s over, I will smile because it’s over.
I write here today to pay tribute to the kind, caring, simple and best-intentioned soul: the last f*** I gave.
I have been told by many how much they will miss you. You had a calming, if tense presence. You dressed really well; You always smelled very good. You smelled like Axe body spray and fear of judgement. You taught me how to shave my legs, a skill I have yet to use since college. You actually knew what was in fashion. Lord knows that is not an easy skill. Maybe if you had lived to nowadays you would have actually been good at social media.
You were killed not in one swift blow, but by a thousand daily figurative paper cuts, and sometimes literal ones. You took every single one of those like a champ, even as the cuts became as big as machete blades. You understood the importance of good communication, even if you never quite grasped it. You never were good with time-management, but it is hard to be when your head is spinning with all that knowledge (if you can call it that). It is OK though; you were very good at looking pretty and doing as little as possible. Only you knew how to make efficiency wonderfully inefficient. You aspired to the impossible: considering everybody except yourself, even when it was at the expense of yourself. You even cared about looking like you didn’t care at all. Sometimes you even succeeded at that.
You understood the importance of listening. Particularly to the voices in your head that tell you how to be positive and cheerful about the fact you will never succeed or be valued. You knew how to be the center of attention but never wanted to be. You knew how to make silence feel loud and the crowd go silent. You were simultaneously valued and reviled by everyone, but you were just doing your best to thrive amongst the confusion.
I wished I had listened to you when I lashed out at my friends for not being my idea of a friend. You saw through my bullsh*t just as much as I saw through theirs, now that I think about it. Maybe there would have been less angry text messages if you were still here. Maybe some other friends would still be my friend. Probably not, actually, but I wonder sometimes. Maybe I would have not gone through so many jobs. Actually, also probably not. I don’t wonder about that one. But you really did want the best for me, whether I liked to admit it or not, and whether it actually helped me or not. Does the intention matter? I am still not sure. Sometimes it was easier to be you - other times, me. You noticed details I didn’t, and I wonder if I will be able to re-learn to see them when you are gone.
You will be sorely missed by many, but I will figure out how to move on. I think it is what you would have wanted for me.
