so know that i'm saying this from the role of an unbiased reporter, rather than merely trying to be insulting.
it has come to my attention that most people didn't like the bolshevik. of course there are the "he doesn't deserve you" and the "you can do better" type comments you get after every relationship ends. but i've been getting a lot of comments of people saying they never liked him, never understood what i saw in him, always thought he was odd and standoffish, didn't like hanging out with him, never would've wanted to spend time with him if i wasn't there, never considered him a friend, thought he was an aloof asshole, etc etc.
i have always known that the bolshevik was not everyone's cup of tea. but there are people who i thought had seen in him what i see in him, and had learned to like him. or at least have a stronger feeling than merely tolerating his presence. but it turns out even the people who i thought were the ones who had appreciated him, really never thought too highly of him. all these people who surrounded us ... i thought they were ours, but really they were only mine.
and there is a certain satisfaction in that i guess. when facing the most devastating rejection in your life, i guess it's nice to know that you're the one everyone else liked all along. but none of that matters because they're not him. and he's the one i want to like me again. because he turned that switch and now he seems to hate me. or maybe it's just complete indifference to me. i don't know which is worse.
i had always seen a version of the bolshevik that no one else saw. with me, he was funny and goofy and clever and irreverent and adventurous and caring and kind and appreciative of all that i was. and we would have the greatest conversations where we would go off on ridiculous tangents or deeply examine the most meaningless aspects of pop culture or make up silly theories about children's gloves that change color in cold temperatures. or sometimes we'd record podcasts comparing book to movie adaptations, where we would pair each movie with a signature cocktail and then end the podcast with a review done in haiku form. only to leave each episode unpublished because podcasting is way more work than you'd think it is.
we were in a secret little club for two. and i adored every minute of it. every. fucking. second. of. it.
there is nothing i loved more than being with the bolshevik.
in Cat's Cradle, one of my favorite novels, Kurt Vonnegut makes up this religion called Bokononism. and in these fictitious Books of Bokonon, we are told "if you find your life tangled up with somebody else's life for no very logical reasons, that person may be a member of your karass." and your karass is the group of people you travel through life with at one time or another, and you don't necessarily know you're in this group, but you've been brought together to serve some greater purpose. you may also never know what this purpose is, but it is all planned and it all happens "as it is supposed to happen."
and sometimes there is something called a duprass, which is a karass consisting solely of two people. "'A true duprass,' Bokonon tells us, 'cant be invaded, not even by children born of such a union." so there we were, dear blog readers, me and my bolshevik in a karass built for two. unable to be invaded by anyone or anything.
but now the boshevik has torn our duprass apart. and i am on the outside just like everyone else. now i see the calousness and the inconsideration and the affectations and the indifference and the inability to communicate. i am like one of you now.
"bokonon tells us incidentally that members of a duprass always die within a week of each other." and maybe that explains why i feel the way i feel. because surely this is not "as it is supposed to be" and i should be back in my karass built for two. but instead i'm on the outside, where i do not belong, and it feels like death.
