I'm okay.

peace, y'all

One of the things I'm working within myself is maturity; emotional and social. My body may be mature but all of my recent dealings with my family and social situations are letting me know that I have some work to do. Last night I was in serious danger of acting stupid and young, and I didn't, so I'm proud of myself. There was a point where I thought of a lot of stuff that is now in the past and was feeling the pain.

I'm okay, though.

Yesterday evening I went to a party at my alma mater. The plan (which has worked so far) was to go to the party, and then stay in the city since my aunt's house in suburbialand is too far and too expensive to reach after the party ended. So I crashed at Emmy's place.

Those of you who are regular readers/ know me/ care to read through the archives to find out will know that I have a certain... high regard for a given sorority. That sorority and another I happen to have loathed at one point in my life, and two other fraternities, were throwing the party last night. That's how I found out about it; one of the guys (a freshman when I left college, wow) is now a senior and invited me. Those are the circles I moved in when I was younger and in college. I'm actually close with a lot of guys in one of the fraternities which is how both of the above named sororities came to my attention. This is all the background. Anyway.

Emmy was actually apprehensive about going b/c she has also had drama in the past with people who are going to be there. And she, unlike me, operates in a drama-free zone, so going with her was actually iffy. I'm glad she ended up going b/c she saw what went down and she helped me talk my reactions out later. Otherwise I would've had a cigarette last night. Yup. That's how stressed I got. And I wasn't anticipating that...*deep breath*

Eddie was there. It's hard for me to admit that I've never before or since made a fool of myself over any man the way I did over Eddie. I can chalk it up to youth... and that's what I want to do... but anyway. Eddie was a mover and shaker on campus when I arrived; part of my regular crew when I got there. He's four years older than I am, so it was a good friend/role model/confidant thing. He graduated after my freshman year but then completed his master's degree at the school in a year.

Yeah, y'all can guess what happened. I crushed hard. Eddie saw that and proceeded to back away. I think I needed to hear him say that he wasn't interested, and he never did, but anyway, mad drama ensued since we're part of the same crew... Lots of hurt feelings and 'run tell dat' goin' on. Ech. I look now and I can see the nafs nafs nafs running through the whole episode. But then all I knew was that I was being hurt twice; once by his rejection and twice by his withdrawal from me as a friend. It was hard to take and I acted really immature; I'm not proud of it. Anyway.

Last time I saw Eddie at "Noche", an event toward the end of my senior year, we left things pretty badly. I say we b/c there was active action on his part; he was in town for almost a week and I saw him several times and we managed to say three words to each other. I think he thought I hated him or would hate him if he said what was on his mind. Me? I'm sure he thought that way because I was hurt. This is someone who is my best friend yet can't manage now to speak to me. He was there with his girl and I found that out through someone else. Hard to be happy for your friend when you see that he's deliberately keeping things from you. Even if you do know that his intention is to avoid hurting your feelings. Okay. So fast forward to last night, almost three years later.

Since I felt slightly weird about this party (I mean, I'm twennyfour years old, what the shadoozy am I doing at a college party?) and so did Emmy and she graduated pretty recently, then of course I wasn't expecting a lot of people older than me to be there. I was just going to dance to the salsa and merengue that I miss SOOOO MUCH from Puerto Rico. So imagine, I scanned the crowd and... Eddie was there. But so were a lot of other people who were uneasy blasts from the past; members of both of the sororities I've mentioned, who were very close to me at some point. I will be honest on this blog and say that there was a point where I felt that both of these organizations owed me something because they came out better for their associations with me, but that's not true now. I understand a little bit better what went down. I know that my efforts allowed one of them to be established on campus in the first place, but I also know that no one owes me anything, and that that feeling of entitlement was causing drama and keeping me from growing. So while last night I did get to dance and shake my booty, I also got on a maturity tip and actually hugged people I thought at one point I'd as soon spit upon. And had several people walk up to me and say hello and be glad that I was there. As Emmy said during the obligatory rehash, "I was never made to feel unwelcome. And there was definitely drama there before. But I felt okay." I'm okay. So I really give thanks (AlHamdulIllah) for that opening of spirits on all sides. At a party no less. Hmmph. Who woulda thought.

Eddie walked up to me last night and said hello, and we did the whole cheek kiss thang and the big hug and sway thing and I said, "Como tu 'tas?" and his reply was a sincere, "Bien". And because there was an initiate of Omega Phi Beta doing her thang at that point, we didn't say much else. There was no need to; no hate, no drama on either part. I got beyond that first shock of pain and remembering allll that went down, and by the time he said hey, I was okay.

I dunno; he may just be the friend that got away, I might only see him once or twice if ever again, and we will not be the same close friends as we were my freshman year. What came out of last night for me was that that's okay. I'm not holding it against him and I'm not holding anything against myself. Relationships aren't always going to be about me or what I did or what I'm owed. And from my shocky reaction, I know that I still have some work to do on myself and my emotional attachments et cetera.

But I'm okay. I'm okay... I really truly am going to be okay.