In 2004, I went through an incredibly difficult breakup. I had to move out of the house I had helped my boyfriend buy, and left all the furniture behind as well. (He walked in the day after he dumped me, tossed 800 dollars in my lap and said “I’m keeping all the furniture.” ) Also, He and I were working at the same Dive bar at the time. I had been laid off of my software job a few months previous, and I had gone back to slinging drinks at our local watering hole to pay the bills. I had to quit. I couldn’t work there – I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t NOT bring my personal BS into work because it stared me in the face every shift.
So – no furniture. No house (it was in his name) and no job.
I was 29, and it was like God had shook out my rug, scattered everything to the heavens and had left me, alone, in a cloud of dust.
I had already known Dave for a couple of years, The ex and I had met him at an open mic night that the ex hosted. He was an odd bird, and was ok with being a loner. He would sit in the back, in a booth by himself, and drink beer or Diet Coke and lime and watch until it came his time to play. He was a consummate musician, and loved Neil Young and James Taylor. His originals were folky and funny, and drew me to invading his booth many a night to talk to him. He might have been odd, but he was interesting as hell and had lived a hundred lifetimes in his almost 50 years.
When he heard of our breakup, he called me, offered an ear or a shoulder – I took both. Dave was the friend who always listened. He never told me to change the subject, he never judged my desperation, my anger, or my tears. He stayed up late nights with me, kept me away from my darker thoughts and drank, played music, sang with me, and listened.
He told me I’d be good at “livin’ mercenary” and taking jobs as they came, that I had to put myself out there. I called a few people. I got a few private bartending shifts and became on-call for a private caterer in town. I picked up a couple of shifts at a Buckhead club for lunches. I paid my bills,
Dave was a private investigator, and taught the certification course for P.I. certification. He suggested that if I got licensed as a P.I. myself that could compile that with my I.T. degree to pursue a new enhanced IT career in computer forensics. He was my teacher and mentor there as well – and I got to see a completely different side of him as he taught, and dove into the darkness of the things he had seen and done as well.
I asked him, after a class once, if he had nightmares. If he had regrets. His answer? “What for? It was what it was. I learned from it, I move on. You gotta let that shit go or it’ll eat you up.”
Two months after the breakup, when some “friend” gleefully called me to let me know my Ex was already engaged, Dave was the one who threw me a “pity party”, and took me out to get soundly and publicly drunk. And the next day, as he drove me back to my car, he told me, “Dear, we celebrated a turning point last night, for him and for you. He’s moved on. You need to start doing that too. You gotta let that shit go, or it’ll eat you up.”
Keep in mind he also told me that same morning that morning that, although I was a beautiful woman, that I looked like ever-loving shit. HA! Thank for those tequila shots, Dave! 😀
Still, as months progressed, as I progressed, he always listened, never judged. When he gave advice, it was sound and thoughtful because he listened so intently. Granted, at the time, there were no smart phones, but as time went on and they because common, he still wouldn’t buy one. When he was with you, he was with you.
Some of the best advice he told me was to keep some of me for myself.
“Darlin’, you give 150% of yourself to whoever you are in a relationship with. No one on earth deserves that. You should give 100% of 80% of you. You always reserve your energy for you. That way, you always have the strength and the wherewithal to carry on, and make good decisions when things go south.”
I guess he was telling me to be selfish with myself. 😀
I lost my friend Dave on January 20th of 2017 to bone cancer. Losing hime felt incredibly cruel to me, who had just lost a father, and incredibly cruel to his wife, who had already been widowed once to the big C. I miss him everyday. I can still hear his voice.
I try not to be sad – because, hell, darlins… You gotta let that shit go, or it will eat you up.
The coffee, the diesel, the methamphetamine 