Keys

M. called me last night to make sure I was going to karate. He wanted to go grab a coffee pre-training, and 'talk about some stuff'.

Turns out, he's seing someone new. I didn't have a real strong reaction to it - it seems a bit odd for me to imagine, but on the whole, I'm pretty OK with it. I've had some seriously mixed feelings towards M. for the past couple months, ranging from what I'm now calling a relapse, to platonic friendship, to some pretty severe resentment (not having to do with our history, more along the karate lines.... 'nother story) to a weird sort of void that I have right now. I don't really feel anything towards him, good or bad; in fact, I probably wouldn't notice if I just lost contact with him.

Which, on one hand, is incredibly sad. We were inseperable for four years. He was the best friend I've ever had, even if he's not anymore. On the other hand, it's nice to be able to hear that he's seeing someone and not have a huge load of drama. It's weird, it's a bit shitty, but on the whole, it's OK.

What bothered me more was when he asked me for his spare keys back. He'd given me my old key back when we 'relapsed'. And, in retreospect, that was fucked up - it was like I walked into my old life, and just picked up where I left off, barely noticing the year-ish lapse.

I hadn't thought about the keys in a long time - I think I forgot I had them. But I dutifully, and a bit awkwardly, pulled them off my keychain and gave them to him last night. And don't think my head wasn't spinning metaphors about one direction being closed off the me, completely, now. Before I had the mindset of a standing offer from him; should this all get too scary, I still have the keys and I can still walk back into my crushingly empty, mercifully easy life.

Not anymore. That offer is gone, and it's very likely that someone else is using my keys, to get into my home, to sleep in my bed, tonight.

Bitch better not pet my cat.

(I kid, I kid.)

This all got me thinking about my home. As I`ve said, it`s not really a home to me right now. It`s more a place to keep my clothes, and I wander in and back out of it for about an hour a day. Still, I`m not ready to accept another standing offer, this one from Coffeeboy, to officially pack up my clothes and move them to his house. He has more than ample closetspace, but I still come with a lot of baggage, and I came to the decision that I need to drastically reduce it before trying to cram it in said closet. So we`ll continue as we are for now, even if it does feel filthily like camping.

He was a bit hurt, but reassured when I said it will more than likely happen in time. He has a similar skeleton in the closet, a three-year deal that wasn`t live-in but close. He understood. Still determined to take a step forward, however, Coffeeboy came up with a plan.

He showed up at the Cafe today. It was a very busy day - the sort where I wind up working 8-5 with no break. When he showed up at around 3, I was running around chasing after drinks, standing listlessly by while customers took a table vote on whether to get baguette or miche while the cook shouted frantically that my food for 5 was getting cold, and explaining the goddamn specials every five minutes. I finally had a second to say hi, as I was rolling the cutlery we inevitably ran out of. He said, `here, this will cheer you up - hold out your hand.` And he handed me - yup, you guessed it - one brand new silver key.