Tragic relationships...

Because of my situation with A, I have been thinking about this guy Arlan from my past. Plus I had been reminded of him since I had told the story to my new friend Steve. See, Steve was telling me about himself, that he never spoke until the age of 17. I mentioned Arlan was this really silent guy I knew too and somehow I just fell into our story. Arlan and I spent a lot of time together doing things like crossword puzzles. We probably started hanging out when I was like 20. He was a brilliant artist and I encouraged him to start playing in a band, so he took up drums in Jason's band, "Three Years Down". I'm the one who taught him to put oil in his car, too. On his twenty-first birthday, he called me up and asked me to go to Reno with him to celebrate, so I piled into a car with him and about four other dudes and we went, me the only girl. I think I had inspired him because I had been a bit older and took off by myself for my own twenty-first b-day to Tahoe, having an early breakfast in a room full with lumberjacks and then playing some slots. I had also written him a story for his twenty-first birthday, too. About this little boy who never spoke. The things he heard people say would make his ears bleed, and then one day there was this snail who observed him in his pains that no one else seemed to notice and she gave him a magic drum set and he found he could make as much noise as he wanted, entertaining all the woodland creatures who would gather to hear him play. The boy, in the end of the story, turns to the snail and smiles at her with this brilliant smile, ear-to-ear, his blue eyes twinkling. I really loved Arlan. I could see how uncomfortable he was trying so hard in social situations to speak. But I also knew that as someone who didn't say much as a young kid, you listen an awful lot and a lot of times, people say stupid things, even hurtful things, and then they put you into a box and that picture of you is what they expect from you. Arlan was, might still be, a raging alcoholic, probably became one in large part due to social awkwardness. Anyways, I was having my first manic episode (age 22) and I had been sitting next to Arlan on the couch at my Oakland place on Shafter and 45th where I had lived with four other people, and put my head on his shoulder and said quietly, "I love you, Arlan..." He turned to me and said, "I love you, too...but I'm an alcoholic, Milissa...And I can't give it up..." It felt like he'd wanted to tell me this for a long time. All I could do was get up and start talking to my Mom in the closet, except she really wasn't in the closet, if you know what I mean. Later that night I had visions of Arlan as this demon who was tearing me up with his claws and all I could do was shut my eyes thinking that I couldn't be harmed if I kept them closed and then in the morning, Joelle brought me to the hospital for the first time. We never talked about it again, but I knew he was right. He didn't want me to get hurt by his inability to give up drinking. I was also dealing with my mental. I saw him about 8 years ago once. I was sitting at this cafe waiting for Joelle and he comes up and sits down with me and we start to do a crossword puzzle together for old time's sake, I suppose. Whilst doing the puzzle, he says, "I've been thinking about going to AA lately..." And I looked at him, his now aged rosacea-from-drinking face and his body smelling of an alcoholic who's long been drinking, and I said, "That's good, Arlan. I think that's a good idea." Joelle came then and saw me with him and quickly took me away from him without a word to him. She later told me that since I'd been gone, he'd been doing the same thing every night, getting sh*t-faced at "Ye Olde Hut", the local townie dive and he was even barbacking for his drinks now...Steve listened to the story and said, "That's so sad..." I guess I had forgotten to think it was sad, just thinking that was truly love. Which is why I am reminded of him when I think of my new relationship with Alex. He's so angry and we have this great amount of love for one another, but the world would never put us together. I am hoping it won't turn out to be as tragic as it was for me and Arlan.