Не сьогодні. Не завтра. Ніколи.

Boston. 2016. Pro-Ukraine rally.

I still can’t believe what’s going on in Ukraine.

It hurts to even try and wrap my head around it…

But, I suppose, if one could possibly find some good in all of this bullshit, it would be me.

I haven’t kept up with my Ukrainian studies since we moved to Florida, and even before then, I was kind of hit or miss. The only time I was completely focused on the language was when I was cramming before our trip to Ukraine.

I’ve been obsessed - of course - with what’s going on overseas and I’m getting a lot of my news from Ukraine-based media. Of course, that means that all my news is in Ukrainian.

Can I just say? My reading and listening comprehension are through the fucking roof.

I can’t write and can’t speak, but I can listen like a motherfucker.

(Also, I may have a bit of a lady boner for Zelenskyy right now.)

 

- - - - - - - - - -

I had an epiphany earlier this afternoon.

I had this best friend, codenamed Soulmate Boy, because that’s what my dad used to call him.

He was my everything for such a long time but never any sort of love interest. Not even friends with benefits, even though we would have been great at that.

Anyhoo… while I was in college, he went into the Marines. He’d always wanted to be a Marine, but something went terribly wrong and he was medically discharged. I’ve romanticised and torn apart our relationship for so long, that I honestly can’t tell fact from fiction* anymore. I do know it was an honourable discharge, and I’m 99.999999% sure it was health related.

When he came home, he wasn’t himself. He lived in a shitty apartment in a shitty area near the airport and I never wanted to go there.

I get this random call from him one night and I know that shit is seriously sideways, so I jump in my car and drive from Storrs to Windsor Locks. At like 3AM.

He wants to kill himself and apparently I’m the only one that either understands or can stop him. (Again, shitty memory. Sorry.)

Most traumatic experience of my fucking life at that point in time, but the crisis was averted and life went on.

Fast forward to a few decades later and we have, of course, lost touch.

Until I get the calls and text messages to get on any of the major CT channel websites. They are all broadcasting this… situation.

Apparently, Soulmate Boy, decided that suicide by cop was the top item on his to-do list that day.

He didn’t succeed, but he did do several years in prison.

Tomorrow is his birthday and he randomly flits in and out of my life, my heart, my head, despite my best efforts to shove those parts of my life into a little box and bury it deep in the backyard.

Where was I?

Epiphany. Right.

I’m folding my laundry and it hit me hard… what if he really wants to die, he just doesn’t want to be alone when it happens?

Like an assisted suicide?

I have lots of thoughts about him. Our friendship. Our distance. Just… us, but that was a thought I’ve been unable to shake all day.

I don’t know what to do with that. It’s a lot to unpack, you know?

Any way you slice it, though, it’s left me upset in a way I’ve never been upset before. (And I thought I had a good handle on all my various moods.)

I really hope he’s well, that’s he’s living his best life… but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he’s dead, either.

In all honestly, I think he’s kind of both. Like a real life Schrödinger’s cat.

And, fuck, I know that makes absolutely zero sense if you’re not me, but you’ll just have to deal with it.

*I took a writing class and used the penultimate night of our friendship for my assignments. Scott and Kate has been shared with one person I know IRL. C-Rollz loved it, but he’s the only one I’ve ever shared it with, and he kind of bullied me into it. (It’s also posted on a fiction sharing website, but in the nine years it’s been on the site, I’ve never received one bit of feedback about it.) I think about it occasionally and wonder if I should tighten it up. I mean, the teacher raved about it, but it feels so naive. Maybe that’s part of its magic? Whatever.

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