Write It Down

It's no secret on this blog that I'm sometimes a bit crazy. Tuesday night, and in fact a few other days spaced sporadically throughout the past week, was a particular period of madness I hope never to repeat, involving a bit of paranoia, even when I knew the paranoia had no logic to it and that what I was imagining in my head wasn't true.

It's a long story, best left untold. The important part is how I reacted to it; I wrote a Facebook message to my confidante in all things crazy. Now, at the time this seemed like a good idea. I was being driven crazy, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, he might arrive online to save the day. He didn't. But that's okay; he read the message yesterday morning, and we got to talking about it last night properly over a few drinks. (Okay, so he was having a few drinks, I was having Sprite.)

People on Twitter will know that I was a bit stressed about the whole thing, because I really had to try get it sorted out and I didn't know how. In short, because that's the best way to tell this, so as not to reveal any of the intricate, personal details, he confirmed that the logical part of my thinking had been right, not the paranoia. He also told me not to get in touch with him like that again. It wasn't that he wanted to stop me talking to him about my problems, though. He just didn't want any of that stuff getting read by anyone else, which is entirely understandable. He told me, before he got too drunk for me to keep him to his word, that I should just ask if I can call him, and something would be sorted out from there. Aside from that, he gave the advice that many people often take - write it down. Not on the computer, but on paper. Something I can crumple up and throw away in the bin, if I really had to. In fact, he advised it. Personally, I think I'd make a copy, a soft-copy, of several of these things, for future reference only, locked away on a USB, with a password, that I'm not allowed to access myself. And burn the originals all at once in a lovely fire.

It's things like this, understanding my problems and actually talking about them, and talking about his own stuff too, that make me respect this lad. Despite all the trouble he got into when he was younger, all the trouble he still gets himself into, I can't help but look up to him. He's one of my best friends, undeniably, and he's something of a hero. And I don't mean that like other people do. It's not because he knows how to get a girl, or how to have a good time when he's out, or all the funny stories he tells, but because of the other things he does, the things that make him a genuinely nice person to know, someone who makes me feel safe when I'm feeling a bit lost, and who encourages me to be myself. You don't get many people like that. Yeah, I have other people I'd call best friends, but not in that way. I don't think I could go through all this stuff with them all the time, because I'd be afraid of what they thought. I knew, before I told him anything about myself, that he had had problems in the past, that he still has problems, unrelated ot the trouble he gets himself into, and that was why I could talk to him.

And like he said - write it down. I figure, the positive stuff can be shared, the negative stuff protected and burned. My problems are the secrets to discuss in private; my friends are the secrets the world has to know about.