I have lost many friends in my life. Be it from moving away, drifting apart, death… or – the focus for THIS entry – being completely ghosted out of the blue.

And you know… 🤔 as I write this and ponder the many different friends I’ve lost, I realize that I could write a whole entry for each one, so… yep. Hooray for inspiration and future content?! 😅

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away… nope, just kidding. I suppose starting it off with that would evoke a [false] sense of enchantment, magic, and wonder, aaaaand… sorry to break it to ya, but this ain’t that kinda story. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Anyhoo… I was around 29 when I worked at a little smoke shop back in Arkansas. I had this job when I was married, then separated, and my memory is a bit fuzzy on whether I worked there when I was finally divorced 🙃. Shit happens, and memories run away, yeah? All the same, this is where Darryl and I first met. He came in quite regularly for chewing tobacco. We hit it off, and I joked about having him take me to dinner if <some event I can’t recall> happened (more than likely, it had to do with my divorce?!).

Well… said event happened, and he said he would actually take me up on the dinner date. 😱 We exchanged numbers and texted quite a bit that day and beyond. Come to find out, he was 20 years older than me. I think this freaked him out, but I wasn’t really bothered. He seemed younger, and apparently, I seemed older in a maturity kind of way?! Idfk. Either way, this started 2 years of off and on “dating.” I quote that because we WERE technically dating, but it was mostly in secret, because – according to him (a single father to an 11 yr old) – his ex-wife was psychotic and he had a bad experience with a different ex that imposed herself on his daughter’s life. Did not blame him at all for either of those, let alone the boundary.

I fell in love with him. He was very attentive, something I’d never experienced before. To have a man actually remember my favorite things and then give me gifts related to them was astounding (yeah, I know… not a high bar).

Sad Panda, though? He broke things off completely and broke my heart. Pink Floyd’s “Time” (my favorite song) was playing on my car radio when he called to do this deed.

But meh… I got over it eventually, and we actually stayed really great friends. He is the one who taught me how to ride motorcycles. We rode together a LOT, too. He was always there for me any time I needed literally anything. And, when the shit hit the fan with The Plague, my brother, and my mom? He graciously allowed me, my son, and our 3 cats to move in with him – temporarily. The agreement was that my son and I just needed a place to stay until he graduated, and we could figure out some other means of housing.

The thing is… sometimes, it takes living with someone to open your eyes to who they truly are… and given how long we’d known each other (13 years), I thought I knew him pretty damn well.

I was wrong.

Well… maybe not?! There’s a decent chance that he changed because he didn’t like who I’D become… because I know for sure that I’d changed. I lost my independence, health, and a lot of who I used to be. He was also very much annoyed with my son and his “weird” behavior (bc autism?!).

So… there came a time when he was freaked out that his landlady was sending a realtor to assess the value of the house and property. The threat of homelessness for me and my son was very real at that point. And I guess with that whole fuckery happening, he decided that he was going to find a new place to live and GTFO.

Now, don’t get me wrong… I don’t really blame him. Buuuuuuut… throwing away $375/mo rent in 20 acres with a 2 story house (+ basement) and 2 car garage for an entire mortgage at HIS age?! He wasn’t the most understanding OR patient individual. And this was no exception.

The problem with that is… the only income I had at the time was my son’s disability, which didn’t provide for much. Him turning 18 also meant that – at some point – I would be transferring that to him. I started the process for disability for myself while living there, too.

And again, I must digress…

I could not find adequate housing in the short time between him closing on a new place and moving out. In Arkansas, someone with a disability got assistance until they turned 18. And you’d think that this would transfer over to an adult-type program at that point, but… you’d be wrong. Adult services for a disabled individual didn’t begin until they turned 21. Yeah. 3 years of NOTHING.

So… Darryl “allowed” us to continue living in that house while he started the process of moving all of his things to his new place. This took a couple of months (May/June/July) between closing and getting everything moved. During that time, he vented frequently to me about his landlady’s daughter and how he wished he could stick it to her for causing all this upheaval.

This is ALSO around when The Boyfriend and I got serious – despite the long distance. If it weren’t for him… I would not be here today.

Plans formulated in that span of time, and I took over the electric and internet bills. My son eventually moved in with his father (he did not want to go to Colorado with me). The Boyfriend paid for hauling some of my stuff pre-move (facilitated by my brother and his wife graciously helping load said things), plus the plane ticket and van rental for him to come pack up whatever I had left and the cats.

Remember how I said I started the process to get disability? This is because I am legitimately disabled. I won’t go into why/how here (other entries explain most of it), but suffice it to say that packing and loading isn’t a thing I’m able to do on my own. Darryl refused to help (and yeah, I can understand that, given he had his own shit to deal with). Grannie Sídhe came and helped one day, taking some of the things she wanted that I wouldn’t be able to. And that’s it. Despite begging my friends on Facebook for help… nobody else showed up.

So, the day The Boyfriend got there, I hadn’t done much. I struggled and pushed myself as hard as I could, but… it wasn’t enough. He had to rush helping me get whatever I deemed important enough not to leave behind – on top of what we could fit in the van with the assembled Kitty City so the cats couldn’t escape.

And so… we finally left the afternoon of Friday, August 16th. And let me tell you… we left quite a bit of my stuff. I was ashamed at the state of the upper level, but… what else could I do? No income to pay someone, no friends to help outside of Grannie Sídhe (who also couldn’t help much), and Darryl giving no single fucks to any of it? I was helpless, alone, and completely unable to do anything more than what I did.

After moving, The Boyfriend had one final amount to send to Darryl to pay off the last of the electric bill. As soon as that happened… he blocked me everywhere. And I didn’t even KNOW he’d done it for quite some time later, when I’d gone to send him a message and check up on how he was doing and… nope. What the fuck?! Even his daughter blocked me. His mother and I are still friends on Facebook, oddly enough. (And yes, that’s how involved we were as friends)

I was mystified. I had NO idea what went wrong or how he could throw away our friendship like that…

Until later on, when my brother informed me of why. I guess at some point, Darryl had gone to The Plague’s house for whatever reason and encountered my brother… and bitched about the state the house was in after I left. Never mind being disabled and having almost zero help. And I guess this was the “final nail in the coffin” so-to-speak?! Idfk.

But… it is what it is… and I’m not really sad that he ended our friendship. He changed in how he interacted with me during the time we lived together. He slowly, but inexorably, drifted further and further apart from being the man I’d trusted with my life to a distant stranger who complained constantly about my son’s existence and treated me with veiled disdain.

He had abandoned me long before he ghosted me, and good riddance.