This may be one of those tl;dr posts, but I designated tonight a "writing night" so I had pressure to produce. This was an essay I wrote a few years ago based on an old journal entry of mine from 1997. Oh, and just to be clear, I'm glad it didn't work out with my friend back then, or I wouldn't have met my Poseidon.
Here it is: The red crayon.
I had the greatest best friend in the world for a while in my mid-twenties. He was a co-worker I met when I moved to Philadelphia from Raleigh and we became instant best pals. We were inseparable. Max (that is what I’ll call him) and I loved the city and made it our duty to try every restaurant and bar in Philadelphia, and I think we actually did. We were such good friends that I even helped him paint the outside of his house (I’d never painted a house before, and I can promise you, I won’t ever do it again) when he was trying to sell it. The temperature was in the upper 90s with heavy humidity, and if that wasn’t bad enough, I got a terrible case of poison ivy by pulling weeds away from the house to keep them from getting into the wet paint. I needed 2 shots of cortisone from my dermatologist to get rid of it.
Why did I put myself through that agony? Because he was my best friend and he needed help. Max had gotten divorced three years before and he felt he needed to move on by selling his house and starting over. The weekend after we painted his house, I had a great idea on how I could help him move on. I told him we should have a yard sale and sell everything in his house. At first, he wanted nothing to do with my plan, but reluctantly agreed to let me have the yard sale as long has he didn’t have to do anything. I took charge and put up signs and I believe I even ran an ad in the paper. The night before the yard sale, I stayed over at his house and we went through everything he owned, deciding what was junk, what we could sell, and what he would keep.
The next morning, we got up around 6 am and started carrying furniture outside, followed by clothes, dishes, games, junk, books, records, television sets, knick knacks and things I can’t even put into a specific category. I asked him to help me price things, and he said he didn’t care what we charged, so I priced everything to sell! I’m not joking. I put a $10 price tag on an antique dresser. He wanted rid of everything. We had a steady stream of bargain hunters starting around 7 am. One of the shoppers wanted to buy all of the old board games we had outside, including the original Mousetrap. This shopper was a little odd because while money was changing hands, he began telling us that he was buying the board games for his son. He was trying to gain custody of his son, but his past mental health records were being brought into the mix. Strangers and the stuff they feel compelled to share.
By mid-afternoon, I had sold all of Max’s belongings and memories for a grand total of $155.25. He shook his head at the sadness of the fact that his entire household was worth less than $200.00. We decided to take the money and go out to dinner and a concert. We had a blast. That was one of the best nights I had ever had. Little did I know that this friendship would not last.
Our fun ended because Max felt we should date. He wasn’t satisfied being just my best friend anymore. I told him it wouldn’t work. We were meant to be great friends, and nothing more. We went along as if we had not had the dating discussion, and it seemed to be fine, at least to me. I put his ideas of dating and love out of my head and thought he had done the same, but he secretly carried a torch for me and brought it up a few more times. I really didn’t think much about it anymore until one day he told me he found someone he was interested in dating. I was so happy for him! Finally, we could still be good friends and I wouldn’t have to worry that I was hurting him. The irony here is that I was the one who began hurting. I started out being excited for him, but within days, things didn’t seem so cut and dry.
I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if I finally realized that maybe
I did have feelings for him, or if I felt like I was now going to lose my best
friend to another woman. Of course, it was the latter.
I was very depressed for a while after he began dating his new love because she of course replaced me. I tried to be happy for him and remain cheerful, and we made plans to hang out a few times, but it never happened, and I saw Max no more.
One beautiful Sunday morning, during my deepest depression after my ‘break up’ with Max, I walked around Old City to enjoy the day and do some people watching. As I walked down 2nd Street, something caught my eye. I saw a new, never-before-used red crayon. As soon as I saw it, looking so perfect, lying in the crack in the sidewalk, I felt happy. Maybe I felt happy because spring was coming, making the air calm and beautiful. I don’t know. I only know that perfect red crayon took my soul to a new place, a wonderful place. I plucked the crayon from its hiding spot and took it home. Its newness became a symbol of spring and health to me. I think that crayon saved my life. Who knew that one silly little red beacon of hope could help me move on? I still have the crayon today, tucked safely in my jewelry box and every time I see it, I get such a warm deep feeling in my soul and a smile on my face that cannot be contained.
Amphitrite
