My best friend is currently married to another woman.
(Story time:)
2012: I was THE shit.
Fresh out of school with my doctorate degree, my doctorate money, my new car with my new rims, and my nice spot.
I was doing THE damn thing.
This state of mind trickled into my dating life. I mean.... I was the shit, bih. I was a "catch." Or at least I thought I was.
2013: I felt LIKE shit.
My doctorate degree came with doctorate student-loan debt and so did my car. Asteroid-size potholes attacked my rims; and my nice spot was (still is) in the middle of nowhere.
One of the more important events that took place within this year was my humbling experience...
At some point during the previous year, my male best friend and I were exploring the world of what we could be and do other than what we had been and done in years prior. It worked for a while, despite the substantial distance between us. Until he stopped calling. Cut me clean off - just like Brad Pitt's character did ol' girl's arm in World War Z. Just................gone. No forewarning, no notice, no nothing. It was exactly the same: The shock. The pain. The agony. The nothingness. The knowing that leaving whatever was there would eventually lead to necrosis or some tragic outcome, but being ill-prepared to live without.
After months on end of unrequited deeper interests (and phone calls and texts), I saw a pic one day on Facebook....or Instagram....whatever. Who knows, but I found out sometime around New Year's of
2014: He was back with his ex.
He left ME for a bih that worked at the local furniture store.
Not Ashley's.
Not Haverty's.
Not The Great gotdamn American Home Store.
A fucking LOCAL FURNITURE STORE.
There I was in all of my (self-proclaimed) glory being ditched for......her?
My ego withered into damn near non-existence. A subatomic particle, at best. I did not realize it then, but seeing that photo was probably the best thing that could have happened to me at that point in time.
2015: I realized I wasn't shit.
I wasn't shit for thinking I was ever better than anyone just because I conquered my personal goals.
I wasn't shit for being materialistic.
I wasn't shit for assuming that this man should have been with me over any other woman, period, just because I was the shit in my own little reality.
I wasn't shit.
Sometimes, it takes realizing you aren't shit to motivate you to become a better person.
I would like to believe I changed for the better that year
In addition to my personal epiphany, my best friend and I managed to reconnect and mend our friendship. He claimed that pursing a relationship with his ex was a bad decision, but fate* saw fit to assist him with the bounce back from his failed relationship to finding the woman that is currently his wife.
The day he proposed to her was the equivalent of an emotional paper cut. Any drop of hyperinflated ego I had left bled out. So much for thinking I was deeper, tighter, sweeter, higher, flyer.
2016: Nirvana.
Hubris free. Blown away, like the flame of a candle, with only my dimly lit confidence remaining after the gale.
Deliverance came in the form of an answer to a Twitter inquiry: "Do you believe in soulmates?"
I've always heard the 3 common answers: (1) No, (2) Yes - there is one person on Earth that is your soulmate, or (3) Yes - there is a group of people in the world that you could "make it work with," all being considered "soul mates" of sorts. The answer that stood out to me, however, was from @Quintiya, a fellow Alcornite:
"I don't think your soulmate necessarily has to be anyone you're in a relationship with. It could be a best friend."
Never thought of it like that.
I mean... Maybe everything is exactly how it should be. Honestly, my best friend is more of a Kal-El than a T'Challa, anyway. (No need for a cape, Future Bae; I don't need saving.) We've established a perfect symbiotic relationship over the past 10+ years; one where we are able to constructively criticize each other and still build for the better from it. He's undoubtedly made me a better person, and I thank him for it.Never thought of it like that.
2022 update: Fuck him, too, though.
*Fate be trippin