People keep telling me to put Quinn on the back burner.  To forget about him, and focus on Charlie…  I don’t know what more I could do towards that end.  I haven’t talked to Quinn since it all went wrong.  We haven’t communicated in any way.  He was my friend for seven years.  We fooled around for two months.  How can I just write him off?  And, now, all I’ve been doing is writing here, where neither he nor Charlie can see it, that I miss Quinn.  Is that not okay somehow?  To acknowledge that I miss him?  To admit that it feels like someone ripped a hole in my chest, because a part of me is gone, now…

Friendship means a lot to me.  Where I grew up, it was everything.  Love and friendship were like synonyms. 

And, now, my best friend is gone.  I may never see him again.  How could he be any more on the back burner than that?  It hurts so much to think about it.  I tell myself that I’ll talk to him eventually, but I think that’s just what I say to keep myself in check, so I won’t call (or do something else that might upset Charlie).  Someone told me that I need to make a sacrifice.  Can you sacrifice something when it’s already gone, and may never come back, anyway?  Do I sacrifice the possibility?  Do I resolve to tell Quinn to go away if he reaches out to me as a friend?  I don’t know if I could do that.  I love my friends so much.  They’re a very close, very small little troupe of artists and musicians.  Everyone’s got their baggage. 

My friend Jordan is one of the most together people in my group, and he’d probably laugh at that statement.  He’s a cute cat, who studies animation, and has a degree in architecture.  My friend Maggie, who dated Quinn years ago, is the sweetest person alive.  But, she’s also a very senstive, very depressive person, and she struggles accordingly.  The two of them are like pillars, holding me up, these days.  I feel so guilty, because they’re such good friends, and I can be such a burden.  They try so hard, and I just can’t be cheered up, because no one can give me what I really want.  I want back what I had.  I want a life that can involve Quinn and Charlie.  I want Quinn to be back in our group, rocking out on guitar, and making jokes about politics and history, and arguing with me about religion.  He’s a messed up, troubled person, but he’s not a bad person.  Just very young…  and, like me, very impulsive.

I have felt more hopeful about me and Charlie at times, but that ebbs and flows.  Some moments, I’m sure we have a chance.  Other times…  I’m not so sure.  I know I love him so much, that I can’t give up without a fight.  There’s been no new physical progress to speak of, but I get this sense from him…  this sense that he hasn’t made up his mind to give up, yet.  I think it mattered to him when I gave him that note telling him that our marriage was the relationship I wanted back, and that I hadn’t spoken to Quinn.  I think he might be waiting to see if I can pull myself together, and if we can pull the marriage together, and if so, what that looks like.  He has to know that it would take a lot of work at this point to unmake this mess.  But, he’s still with me.  Still sleeping beside me…  and, if we were past all hope, he wouldn’t be.  He wouldn’t be holding me every night.  But, he needs to give me something at some point, b/c I’m trying really hard, with nothing more in play than my hopes.  The only statements he’s made, to date, are the bleak ones he made when the excrement hit the air conditioner.  If he could give me something more – a  chance (however slight), a bit of hope…  but, alas…  I’m left to speculate.  And, I’m betting high on his love for me.  I’m gonna stay put, and bet everything, that he loves me too much to leave.  That’s the way I always felt when he’d break my heart.  Let’s hope that needy, codependent street runs both ways.